Tales from the Trails 2023

When: July 9, 2023 – noon to 2:00pm

Where: Sketchbook Taproom & Brewery in Skokie. 4901 Main St., Skokie.

What: Original stories from your friends and neighbors about the lives we live while riding our bikes. (Tales from the Trails – 2023 – YouTube)

Who: The 2023 storytellers and their stories:

Ellen Blum Barish – “Tandem Thoughts”

Ellen Blum Barish is a longtime Skokie resident who is the author of a memoir, essay collection and contributor to several anthologies. She has told stories on numerous Chicago-area stages and was honored to headline the Skokie Arts Commission storytelling event at Take Flight Spirits in February.

Jon Babbin –  “Bucket list Ride”

Jon is year-round bike commuter from wherever he lives, commuting to the loop starting back in the BBL (Before Bike Lanes) era. Other story worthy adventures include managing punk rock bands, camping and backpacking.

Sue Carrel – “Biking to Seattle”

A retired teacher, Sue Carrel is now a pickleball fanatic and watercolor painter. She still bike commutes these days to play pickleball, tutor, go to the store or visit friends.

Bill Dolnick – “Bike Story – aka Pipe Dreams”

Bill Dolnick is a retired social worker. When he’s not out cycling he’s busy international folk dancing, amateur tour guiding, and collecting way too many things.

Karen Gray-Keeler – “Fear of Falling”

Karen Gray-Keeler loves exploring the world. She enjoys biking locally in addition to her biking adventures throughout North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and New Zealand.

Jill Howe – “A Girl Who Rides a Bike”

Jill Howe is the producer and founder of Story Sessions, a live storytelling series with real-time illustrations, since 2013. She has performed widely across Chicagoland, served as a resident storyteller at the Field Museum, and presented a Tedx Talk on vulnerability. As a published author, Jill has written the foreword to Chicago Storytellers: From Page to Stage (2020) and contributed to Storytellers True Stories About Love (Vol I, 2022). She has spent the last three years as the instructor of a continually sold-out five-week storytelling workshop at Newberry Library.

Charlie Saxe – “The 6000th Mile”

Charlie is an avid cyclist, a year-round commuter from Skokie to the Loop, enjoys touring and is a founding organizer of the Skokie Bike Network.  With a lifetime of cycling experience, Charlie has many stories that have yet to be committed to writing and looks forward to sharing a few meaningful and memorable moments while riding his bike.

Earl Strassberger – “You Don’t Look So Good”

Half of my work life was teaching school for three years in Africa and 20 years in Chicago, the other half was as in Information Technology. Besides riding, I was a soccer coach, I still referee soccer in AYSO and middle schools, do woodworking, lead a core exercise class, and grow vegetables and pollinator plants.

Be well, live well, ride on!