An Obama birthday?
Dana Wahrenbrock is turning 60 and retiring after two decades of teaching. Her husband invited Barack and Michelle Obama to her party. (Again.)
Dana Wahrenbrock’s upcoming 60th birthday celebration will be a subdued affair — with a tiny, but not inconsequential, chance of being epic.
Her husband, Rich Letchinger, has invited the Obamas. Again.
Letchinger first tried to get the Obamas to celebrate with them in 2011, when his wife turned 50. He extended the invitation in a letter to the White House.
“I know you have a busy summer — running for reelection among other things — but I’d like to invite you to join us for Dana’s 50th birthday party,” his 2011 letter read. “It’s at 7 p.m. on Saturday, July 9, at Bistro 110 on Michigan Ave. in Chicago. I know that you and Mrs. Obama like Spiaggia, but Dana’s favorite is Bistro 110 so that’s where we are going to celebrate. No gifts please.” He cc’d Wahrenbrock.
“I got absolutely no response,” Letchinger said. “But that was the time when 12 interns were responding to the 50,000 letters a week the White House was getting, or something like that. I didn’t take it personal.”
Mike Kelleher, then-director of the Office of Presidential Correspondence, wrote in a 2012 blog post that President Barack Obama received about 65,000 paper letters every week — in addition to 100,000 emails, 1,000 faxes and 2,500 to 3,500 phone calls per day.
President Obama famously told his staff at the beginning of his presidency that he wanted to read 10 letters a day. The chosen few came to be known among staffers as “The 10 LADs,” for “10 letters a day.”
Apparently Letchinger’s wasn’t one of them. No hard feelings.
“Rich has been a die-hard Obama fan from the very beginning,” Wahrenbrock said. “From his senatorial days.”
Letchinger grew up in Hyde Park. He and Wahrenbrock moved back to the neighborhood when they were first married, after meeting and falling in love at Grinnell College. Letchinger’s mom used to run into Obama at the Regents Park Health Club.
“She’d be on a treadmill and a couple times a month a very handsome man would stride up next to her,” Letchinger said. “And it would be, at that time, Sen. Obama. He nodded at her and that was that.”
Hyde Park is the beginning, but far from the end, of Letchinger’s Obama connections.
“All three of us were born in 1961,” Letchinger said of himself, Wahrenbrock and the former president of the United States. “We all graduated high school in 1979. We all graduated college in 1983. We were newlyweds in Hyde Park; they were newlyweds in Hyde Park. OK, then our paths diverged a little.”
When his birthday invite went unanswered, Letchinger purchased a life-size cardboard cutout of Obama to bring to Bistro 110.
“We tried to place Obama prominently in the window,” Wahrenbrock said.
“At one point, Karl Rove walked by outside,” Letchinger said of former President George W. Bush’s senior adviser. “A bunch of us were screaming, ‘Mr. Rove! You’ve ruined America!’ He didn’t stop either.”
In the decade since, cardboard Obama went to live in the Letchinger/Wahrenbrock attic, and the Evanston couple went about their lives — Letchinger at his sales and marketing job for a children’s book printing company; Wahrenbrock as a special education teacher at Deerfield High School.
And now, Wahrenbrock is on the cusp of turning 60 — and retiring after 20 years of teaching.
“I said, ‘Let’s invite the president again!’ ” Letchinger said. “‘They have more free time now! And look, you’re going to be retiring; the president and the first lady have some experience in this!’ ”
“I’d happily take some retirement coaching from them,” Wahrenbrock said.
In all seriousness, Letchinger would love to give Wahrenbrock’s birthday a special je ne sais quoi this year.
“The pandemic has been brutal on teachers and families and students,” Letchinger said. “Dana’s had a really tough year.”
For the majority of the school year, she was teaching and guiding and comforting her students — mostly juniors and seniors — via Zoom, for eight straight hours a day. In February, she returned to school for a hybrid schedule. In March, she returned full time. The stressors and sorrows and setbacks have been real.
“We’re all counting down the days,” Wahrenbrock said. “Teachers, students, everyone.”
A small, outdoor gathering in July sounds just right.
A small, outdoor gathering with the Obamas sounds even better.
Wahrenbrock volunteered at the former president’s farewell address at McCormick Place in January 2017. She wasn’t able to make it to the Chicago stop on Michelle Obama’s “Becoming” tour, but she listened to, and loved, the memoir.
“It’s like she was sitting in your kitchen sharing her life with you,” Wahrenbrock said. “She seems like very much still the Chicago hometown girl, but also she’s this incredible woman of the world. She’s just amazing and fierce and kind and generous and really so smart. And she has amazing arms.”
Letchinger figures they’ll keep the menu simple for this summer’s gathering — Chicago hot dogs with all the fixings, maybe.
“We live a couple blocks from a classic Chicago hot dog stand,” he said. “We can hire D&D Dogs to cater the event.”
But they would appreciate a little advance notice if the former first couple can make it.
“Dana’s thinking the brickwork in the house needs work,” Letchinger said. “She’s worried the president could trip.”
(They both still call him “the president.”)
“We have some house projects we should probably get done,” she said.
“We have a lovely dog who’s very, um, very loving,” Letchinger said. “But sometimes he jumps on people and we don’t think that’s cool if the president and Mrs. Obama come. So we need some time to plan, is really what it comes down to.”
They’re happy to provide a guest list in advance to the Secret Service, they said.
As for entertainment? Letchinger is hoping the former president will take care of that.
“I want him to spend more time telling dad jokes,” Letchinger said. “We all need them.”
“It will be a very receptive audience,” Wahrenbrock said.
I have a feeling the evening will be delightful and love-filled and joyful, regardless of whether the Obamas can make it.
Still, Chicago hot dogs, a retiring teacher and a crowd that loves dad jokes? Seems like an offer too good to refuse.