Franzen, based in Hanover Park, prides himself on being a versatile artist — he is an illustrator who also paints and works in metal, wood, and glass.

Three years ago, he discovered another medium for his art: pumpkins.

That’s when I saw him: a grey-and-rust colored coyote, walking slowly through my backyard! He stopped for long pauses to sniff the air and look around. He didn’t seem to notice me. He was in no hurry. He looked to be out on a Lazy Sunday stroll.

As each high schooler arrived, the voices went up a few decibels. The energy and excitement before the dance seemed to become more palpable by the minute.

“Fun size? Why do they call those fun size, mom? Those candy bars are just way smaller! What’s fun about smaller?”

Chipkin had just learned about gestation crates: small, confined spaces where pigs being raised for pork are kept during their four-month pregnancies.

“These crates are so small that [the sow] can’t even stretch her limbs, let alone turn around or walk. If we did that to dogs, it would be animal cruelty and someone would be going to prison for it.”

But in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sun City Theatre returns to the stage with a more austere production that features heart, warmth, and captivating storytelling.

On the other end of the line, Jenny’s mother, Maria, spoke in breathless excitement. “Guess what?” she told her kids. “Your Dad is coming home!”

“I wrote, ‘I think you are my brother. You look exactly like my Dad,’” remembers Rinaldi-Esta.

Olivia Morales, 22, looks back on March 2020 with bemusement. “When everything was in lockdown and none of us were sick, we thought we were bored,” she said. “But that was nothing compared to this. We would rather be bored than have anyone experience anything like this.”

Christin, 23, a Peace Corps volunteer, was living in Capitán Miranda, Paraguay. But on that Monday in March, as COVID-19 Coronavirus made its way across the globe, Brad knew from the countless texts and emails that his 27-month service in the Peace Corps was going to be cut short after only 18 months. He was leaving South America and going home.

For the past six months, however, there have been no shared breakfasts at McDonald’s.

The Strutters’ 16th anniversary performance, “Life is a Cabaret,” comes to Drendel Ballroom on Wednesday, June 12, then to the Huntley High School Performing Arts Center on Saturday, June 15.

It’s the exact reason why the writer’s group, Write On, was founded in Sun City back in 2003.

“She never had one as a kid,” said Mosteig. “But when she tried it, she burned herself. She put it away on a shelf and never used it again.”

“I would send in a drawing and get graded on it,” she remembers. “I was almost done with it, but then I started working part-time and dropped out. I felt really bad for my parents that they sent me through that course and I didn’t get the certificate.”

But even as Schipma’s life got busier with work, then marriage, then a family (she and her husband, Herman, raised a son and a daughter), art was never far from Schipma’s mind.

Among the eager cyclists will be Sun City resident Bob Higgins, age 66, ready for his fourth consecutive year of participating in the Tri-State Trek, which begins at Boston College and concludes in Greenwich, Conn.