Ken Trainor

Staff writer

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Phone: 708-524-8300

Email: ktrainor@wjinc.com

Ken Trainor has been working for this newspaper since the last millennium, since copy was pasted on boards using hot wax ... in other words since 1990. Like the newspaper industry, he has changed with the times. The analog auteur is now digitally multidimensional and annoying a much wider audience as a result.

A free-thinking weekly columnist for Wednesday Journal for the past 19 years, he turns into a paragon of objectivity as he edits the Viewpoints section, the LifeLines section, the Obituary section, the Inside Report section and each week attempts to repair, rectify and remediate an avalanche of newspaper copy written too close to deadline.

In his spare time, he is working on a book about his Catholic roots. He also loves riding his 1974 Schwinn LeTour bicycle on the Salt Creek Trail, and attends local theater productions and concerts and as many films at the Lake Theatre as he can squeeze in.

A native of Oak Park, he can frequently be found wandering the streets looking anything but lost as he steeps in the two most aesthetically pleasing and historically rich villages to be found this side (or that side) of the continental divide.

The perils of typochondria

May 14th, 2013 10:00 PM

I'm a typochondriac. I wake up in the middle of the night wondering if I fixed that transposition of letters and whether I checked the spelling of "peripatetic." You might think such details are inconsequential, but I assure you they are not. A lot is riding on it.

Slow dancing with a Midwest spring

May 7th, 2013 10:00 PM

Now that spring finally seems to have arrived (I'm keeping my fingers crossed), the following column, which first ran on April 15, 2009, deserves a reprise.

Open Door Repertory: The little theater that could, is still doing it

May 7th, 2013 10:00 PM

Sometimes everything falls together, then it falls apart, then it comes together. That's been the story of Open Door Repertory Company, whose doors are open, though it took some doing.

A night in our village

April 30th, 2013 10:00 PM

I don't get out enough during the week (a tale for another time), but I did just that last Wednesday night and, in the ensuing hours, rediscovered my village.

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The New Yorker Oak Parker

May 14th, 2013 10:00 PM

Chris Ware's New Yorker magazine covers are threatening to turn him into this generation's Norman Rockwell. His latest focused on Mother's Day, depicting a couple of moms sharing a Happy Mother's Day card in the kitchen, while their three kids peek from the stairway.

All's well that ends well with missing 1970 class ring

May 14th, 2013 10:00 PM

Steve Skidmore has been reunited with his class ring. If you recall our May 1 story [Lost and found, News, May 1], the former Oak Park resident, and Baylor University grad, thought his 1970 class ring was long gone, but it washed up in the backyard of Kevin and Deb Quantock McCarey, following the April floods.

Youngest in the room

May 14th, 2013 10:00 PM

After turning 60 last June, Wednesday Journal's Ken Trainor never expected to be the youngest person in the room, but that was the case last Thursday night when the third class of "60 over 60" was inducted, the kickoff for Celebrating Seniors Week, May 16-23, a series of events coordinated by the Celebrating Seniors Coalition, led by Chairman Jim Flanagan.

Wright Plus includes Mr. Rogers' neighborhood

May 7th, 2013 10:00 PM

The Wright Plus housewalk is a week from Saturday (May 18), which draws architecture buffs from all over the world. But this year's walk may also prove a draw for psychology buffs.

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