Don't miss Rev. Dean Lueking's take on Park National's Mike Kelly. The old Lutheran actually gets around to calling Kelly a saint, though he defines the term broadly and allows as to how most of us could stake a claim to the title if we just worked at it a bit. Even so, Kelly, the reserved Catholic, will likely hyperventilate over the honorific, if he hasn't canceled his subscription outright by now.

But how about that other neighborhood bank that failed back in September, the other bank with the deep local roots? Why didn't we write more about the FDIC's takedown of Corus Bank? Why weren't there scads of letters to the editor about Robert Glickman, the second-generation leader of what the old-timers remember as River Forest State Bank?

Possibly because the sordid excess of Corus Bank is the very antithesis of the community banking that Kelly and Park National preached and practiced. It was greed run amok at Corus Bank. It was running pall-mall from any connection to community, as indicated by the early ditching of the River Forest State Bank moniker in favor of the soul-less Corus Bank. It was the single-minded focus on a very narrow, and for many years very profitable, niche of loan-making to build luxury condo towers in Sunbelt destinations.

That's what Bob Glickman's Corus Bank did. That, by choice, was all it did. Corus collected deposits in Chicago and loaned the money out in $100 million dollops to build 50-story condos in Vegas. Or Miami. Or L.A.

It was great while it lasted. But when it stopped lasting, Corus Bank became a runaway rocket of spectacularly failed loans.

I was searching the Web for a Trib piece I remember on Glickman from a couple of years back, just as the wheels were starting to come off the condomobile. It was a Sunday feature on Bob Glickman at home in Winnetka - the warm and fuzzy Glickman. I was trying to recall which choice Glickman was trying to make about his family's plans. Either they were canceling the lengthy Italian vacation or they were delaying the muralist coming to paint the ceiling in the living room. Either way, it was clear that it was tough times in the Glickman household.

Couldn't find that article, but with the punishing retention capability of the Web, I did find a gusher of a puff piece from the National Real Estate Investor site dated March 1, 2006. Mr. Glickman, you see, was one of 10 people to watch. They weren't kidding. Though, of course, at that glorious moment, they had no clue what they should have been watching for.

The article is full of "visionary leadership" blather and the remarkable fact that Corus didn't have a single loan go south in a decade. That's 'cause "condominium developers have proven to be the most financially diligent clients any banker could hope for."

That was then. This is now.

So there are no tears here for the Glickmans.

River Forest State Bank is long gone. The Corus signs are now covered over with the logo of the new owner, MB Financial. Community banking it ain't.