In Chicago, the only way to avoid election campaigning is to lock yourself into your home with the blinds down and all electronic devices off, including phones. Even the snow piles created by snow plows after the recent blizzard have been transformed into a campaigning platform (see photo).
The office of alderman has always seemed thankless to me, but that’s because I’m not a native Chicagoan who has witnessed how lucrative it can be. Whether the job is thankless or rewarding, the candidates take the campaign seriously. In my ward, the incumbent sent a newsletter at about the same time a challenger dropped off fliers that tout her as a “wife, attorney, and community activist.” Am I supposed to be impressed? Most adults are or have been a wife, husband, or partner. So she is just like everyone else, which is probably meant to be reassuring. Attorney? I’m one of those who thinks politics is already too dominated by too many lawyers, whose mindset tends toward sometimes narrow interpretation rather than action, inspiration, or leadership. Community activist? Now she’s just trying to ride on President Obama’s coattails. If peered deeply enough at the correct angle into my own background, I too might claim a moment of community activism, maybe, especially if it would promote my career in politics.
She goes on to outline the ward’s woes and what she would do to fix them. There’s nothing insightful in her list — for one, anyone and everyone can see that Stony Island Boulevard should be bustling with traffic and commerce but isn’t. Many of the businesses found along what should be a thriving boulevard are small, with barred windows and gated doors presenting an uninviting front to anyone passing through. What’s she going to do to change that?
Indeed, if listing the litany of issues that plague the ward were enough, this challenger, and others like her, is off to a good start. But even I (not a wife, attorney, or community activist) can chart the issues. What I can’t do, because it’s not something I’ve looked into, is explain how I would address and try to solve them. She doesn’t, either. How can she attract new businesses? What can she do to eliminate the impression of poverty, crime, and blight the barred windows and gated doors create? What would she do that the incumbent hasn’t and how? Through the flyer, she had an opportunity to outline not only a vision for the ward, but a plan. She failed to do either, and also failed to give me a reason to vote for her above all others. At the least, the incumbent can point to accomplishments, but a challenger has to do more. He or she has to show not only what needs to be done, but how they would do it and why. Words aren’t enough.
The office of alderman is not lofty, but it is visible. We expect mainly that our streets will be protected, our children will receive a good (or at least adequate) education, our businesses will be encouraged, and our potholes will be fixed, and that we’ll enjoy basic services. If Candidate B wants to unseat Incumbent A, it’s not too much to ask how she is different and better. Is it too much to answer?
On Wednesday, January 26, I met JT at Lincoln Park Zoo, which is small enough to be a great place to spend time in the winter. Dressing appropriately is the toughest part. If you dress too warmly, you’ll overheat in the efficiently heated buildings. If you dress too lightly, you’ll find that the walk between buildings is longer than you remember.
With few people about, the zoo is yours to savor at your own speed on a January weekday. For the animals, the quiet and the dearth of peering primate faces must seem like a vacation away from the madding crowd, a time to rest and relax before more spring fever and weather draws out the mobs.
On this day, many of the herps were front and center in their exhibits, as were the birds. Even the sometimes elusive sand cat was out of hiding, so comfortable in the relative quiet of the house that it was giving itself a top-to-tail cleaning in cat fashion. In the Ecosystem, the spectacled caiman basked under his heat lamp.
The primary objective of the visit was out of sight when we arrived at the Brach Primate House, and we were sure we wouldn’t see it. But, just as we’d given up, Burma the white-cheeked gibbon made a brief appearance, her infant clinging to her. She looked out for a moment, then sank into a depression in the back of the exhibit, from where only her shoulders and face were visible, the little one hidden below. Caruso, neglected as new fathers often are, played to his audience of three, first to me, then to a younger, thinner woman. Typical male! We did get a glimpse of the wee gibbon, with its pink face and large, fuzzy (not furry) head, but Burma didn’t hang around long enough for a photo.
After watching a cinereous vulture drive off a flock of starlings and overstaying our welcome in the McCormick Bird House (zoo buildings close early in winter), we headed across the street to R.J. Grunts, just in time to beat the crowd and to get a brown cow and a trio of tuna melts. Mmmm, mmmm, good — comfort food to warm up with.
Lured by stories of a Grèvy’s zebra birth and other happenings, fellow former docent and Ark editor JT and I met at Union Station for a trip to Lincoln Park Zoo. My borrowed camera and rusty skills don’t do the animals justice, so I recommend that you pay them a visit if you can — soon, before they’re all grown up. After all, the Grèvy’s zebra foal is the first edition since 2001.
We strolled the Children’s Zoo gardens, where not much was in evidence. At last, a resplendent male wood duck sailed past the beaver viewing window, his colors glowing like jewels in the midday sun. You’ll have to take my word for this; unbeknownst to me, the camera had flipped itself to TV mode, so all the photos I thought I was taking were black.
The highlight inside, however, at least to me, was this pair of walking sticks engaged in arthropod love. As a child, I was always thrilled when my brother or I (usually him) would find walking sticks in our yard, often on my dad’s tool shed, where they were easier to spot. They fascinated me, even if they did no more than take a few steps and look like a stick clinging to a shed.
At the Lion House, elderly Afghanistan leopard Christian was taking a catnap. If you want to see animals in action, early morning/late afternoon/evening during summer hours are the best times.
At the Primate House, the black howler monkeys demonstrated their prehensile tails, wrapping them around nearby branches as a stabilizing anchor. One hung by its tail over a food dish, leaving his hands free to rummage through the goodies. Don’t make the mistake one visitor did — those small monkeys who share the exhibit are not baby howlers; they’re Goeldi’s monkeys.
As usual, the black-and-white colobus monkeys were lined up on a branch, quietly digesting in dignity, even as the Allen’s swamp monkey juveniles wrestled and raced their way around the exhibit.
At Antelope/Zebra, the star is Enzi, the Grèvy’s zebra colt, who was lying down when we arrived but then untangled his gangly legs to nurse. When his mother, Adia, went over to the exhibit door to investigate keeper noise, he followed her, but turned around and walked a little distance away from the safety of his mother’s side. JT pointed out to him that, if they were in Africa, his mother would not allow him to be so bold.
The white-lipped deer were taking a rest. For one thing, I imagine it takes energy and resources to grow a rack like that, still in velvet.
The Bactrian camels were shedding. The Bactrian camels are always shedding.
One of my favorite animals, the Sichuan takin, couldn’t decided whether to take a bath, check out the visitors (or the foliage), or scratch his face, so he did all three in a cycle, playing with something in the water (perhaps an aerator) that probably wasn’t intended for takin enrichment. He butted his impressive head against the green wire around the edge, giving us a good look at his face. I gather that the combination of strength and agility makes takins potential escape artists. This guy is among the more charismatic hoofed animals of the collection.
New on exhibit at the Small Mammal-Reptile House is the caiman lizard. I didn’t get a photo, but he’s beautiful, a bit like a combination iguana and small dinosaur with a huge head. I’m told he’s a snail eater.
The bats were more active than usual; perhaps their feeders had just been refilled. Nearby, this sand cat was relaxed. I apologized to him profusely for accidentally letting the flash go off. Within five minutes he was up and about, looking almost like a tiny house cat with an oversized head.
This is a young African dwarf crocodile, one of five produced by the recently deceased R1 late in his long life and his younger mate and occasional sparring partner Maggie. Sure, it looks sweet now, but you wouldn’t want to meet it in a few years.
At the Bird House, the tawny frogmouths demonstrate camouflage. I almost missed the one lying down. Like many owls, they blend in with tree bark, but they aren’t owls — they’re in the nightjar/oilbird order. Think of the superbly camouflaged whippoorwill, which you may hear but rarely see.
This snowy egret gave us a good look at its slender form and elegant plumage. While I might understand the appeal of their feathers as adornment, I can’t conceive of how men slaughtered them en masse in cold blood for the sake of greed. J and I have seen them in the wild, so to speak, at Volo Bog, where there was a small flock a few weeks ago.
When the European stork isn’t dropping off babies to expectant parents, it’s tending its own nest. These three chicks hatched in late May, along with a cinereous vulture chick.
Happy Father’s Day to the storks and all the zoo parents.
And now for something completely different . . . a more-or-less quick trip west on the Stevenson to Harlem and 49th, where you’ll find the Chicago Portage National Historic Site, one of only two in Illinois (Lincoln’s home is the other). Here La Salle and Père Marquette walked, they say, as of course did generations of Native Americans before them. Just as Europe had its trade routes, so did native North America. A sign along one of the trails notes that designated burr oaks are believed to be more than 200 years old.
We arrived at around 9:30 a.m., a half hour late, looking for work. One lone walker seemed to be there to admire the scenery, so I made an executive decision and took off down the paved trail, where I hoped that we’d run into the crew of Forest Preserve District of Cook County employees and volunteers there for a work day, during which necessary work is done to maintain the preserves. In many cases, this seems to involve removal of invasive exotics — I pictured pulling garlic mustard, which I’d assumed they’d show me how to recognize.
Just as J wondered if we’d gone the correct way, we came upon the group, a couple of the men armed with chain saws. They weren’t here to pull garlic mustard. No, they were cutting down a stand of buckthorn that ran from the trail to the stream and that was keeping the forest floor in perpetual shade in spring, summer, and fall. Others were lopping off branches or using hand saws to cut the larger limbs down to size. Yet more were dragging off the trunks and leafy limbs to brush piles, where they will be burned in the future.
Buckthorn, introduced from Europe, is an invasive species that offers no benefits to our native wildlife and chokes out the native plants that otherwise would add to the diversity our animals and birds need. It’s too dark under a buckthorn stand for wildflowers to grow or, I suppose, for native seedlings to take root. Buckthorn also hosts the soybean aphid; from its name you can guess how much farmers love this little pest. Its sale/purchase/cultivation has been banned in many areas, including Illinois and Minnesota, but it’s too late. It has a pervasive presence in the forest preserves and some parks and is especially widespread in the northern two-thirds of the state.
We introduced ourselves all around, and an FPDCC employee recognized us from an art fair at Swallow Cliff Woods. J remembered that we’d talked about Volo Bog, so he mentioned our visit there and how far away it is. They asked us if we were passing through; we said, “No, we’ve come to work.” They seemed surprised but pleased, and asked us how we’d found out about the work day. When I said I’d seen it on facebook, they seemed even more surprised and delighted. It sounds as though not everyone thinks the facebook presence is effective. Maybe it’s just me, but we’ve gone to a few events, including this one and the art fair, because I’d seen them on facebook. It’s an easy way for me to get timely, information in one place about my different interests. I don’t have to work as hard or think to look for information.
For the next hour and a half I dragged, lopped, and stacked what seemed like a never-ending supply of buckthorn branches and trunks. A busload of high school students arrived to help for credit; at one point someone told them that if they didn’t behave and get to work, they wouldn’t get any. The arrival of so many hands, including young men who wanted to show off by dragging heavy trunks singlehandedly, seemed to spur the men with chain saws. When I looked toward the stream, I could see the sky, and light was dappling the ground below. We had two large piles, possibly three, and fallen trunks and branches littered the ground. And still the men kept cutting. All this was in one small area. I wondered how much buckthorn was left and where.
We learned quickly that buckthorn has that name for a reason. When we weren’t in danger of hitting ourselves or others with limbs or trunks or being rammed by the enthusiastic high schoolers who, like most kids their age, were oblivious to those around them, we were stabbing ourselves on the thorns that grow along the shrub’s trunk. Gloves would have helped with handling the limbs and the loppers, but weren’t necessary. Unlike us, however, the kids had come prepared.
I’d been in pain most of Friday — the result of standing most of Wednesday at National Senior Health and Fitness Day — and hadn’t slept well Thursday. My lower back hurt more than usual. Before we’d gone to the work day, I’d known my endurance would be limited. The heat and humidity of the day, even among the trees, didn’t help, nor did the horde of mosquitoes that decided to go after, of all places, my hinder. I did as much as I could and left at 11 for the car, while J was determined to soldier on until the noon conclusion.
While returning along the trail, I’d noticed that my brother had called and left a voicemail, which he never does. It proved to be four seconds long and soundless. I called him to confirm that was nothing was wrong; when he didn’t answer, I raised an eyebrow. His daughter at home said he was out shopping. I raised the other eyebrow. It turned out to be one of those phantom calls that happen when some part of your anatomy manages to knock against the right button to make a call. While I was talking to him, still on the trail, I exclaimed, “Oh! I have to go!” I’d spotted the iridescent blue black of a bird in one of the bushes off the trail — but I didn’t disconnect quickly enough to switch the iPhone to camera mode and get a photo before it flew off. Not that it would have been a good photo . . .
I was hoping I could claim that I’d seen an indigo bunting.
J’s car, parked in the sun, felt like a damp oven. How anyone can leave a dog in that kind of heat, which builds in only a few moments under the sun, astounds me.
I ran the air conditioner for five or ten minutes, turning it off when he called and told me it would run the battery down. He promised to leave a little earlier, so I tried to find a place nearby where I could use the bathroom and sit comfortably.
Alas, Harlem Avenue is not foot traffic friendly, and I was at the end of my reserves in the heat. I walked only a about a block, to a Shell station, where the attendant said there was no toilet paper. I mentioned facial tissues as a substitute, but she said, a little too quickly and happily, that they don’t sell any. They carry beer for the road, but not a traveling convenience like tissue. Hmmm. I bought each of us flavored water and returned to the car, sitting in the shade of the driver’s side and enjoying the occasional slight breeze that wafted through.
At 12:15 or so, J appeared, saying he’d seen a brilliant blue bird in the treetops after he’d crossed the bridge over the stream — possibly near where I’d seen it. He swears he saw white and is unconvinced of my indigo bunting identification. I’ll never know.
Next, having bought croissants at Bonjour but not eaten them, we headed to Riverside Restaurant for a taste of Bohemia, then to Riverside the town for a walk along Salt Creek, where we encountered mostly robins, butterflies, and a pair of mallards. Outside the forest preserve, Riverside itself seems to be a charming town, with lots of park space and picnic and seating areas near the water.
There are a few more work days scheduled at Chicago Portage this summer. It’s a good way for a soft office slave to break into a healthy sweat, meet people, enjoy the forest, and even see a colorful bird or two. J would like to do it again. Try it. You might like it.
I’d tell you to make an effort to see Le Nozze di Figaro at Lyric Opera, but it’s too late. You’ve missed it.
After a fine dinner at Lyric’s relatively new restaurant, JT and I attended the March 24 performance. Singing, acting, music — all good. Opera, like everything else, is fighting for limited attention spans and budgets, but at least it has multi-generational appeal, from the well-heeled, gray-haired sophisticates and us middle-aged folk to the college students waiting patiently in queue for their $20 tickets (qualified undergraduates can attend a full-length Mozart opera for 1/10 of what you would pay, or just a few bucks more than the price of movie tickets at Showplace Icon). I admit to nodding off for a few moments here and there during the last acts of the 3.75-hour performance, which I blame on a combination of PMS and rising at 5 a.m. I was smart, however; I took Thursday off as a personal day, which made getting home at 12:45 a.m. less painful. That’s after waiting for one bus, then walking to a different stop to wait for another, then finally catching the familiar #6 Jackson Park Express on State Street. While waiting for the #151, I noticed that more than security guards seemed to be at work at Hyatt Center. And then a white-haired woman, briefcase in hand, joined me at the stop — where and on what had she been working until nearly midnight? I don’t miss the long or late hours of consulting, and, while some of my work had some immediate impact on a subset of workers and retirees, it’s all been forgotten, I’m certain. I’m reminded of how much of what many of us do every day is transient at best, futile at worst.
Feeling somewhat more energetic Thursday, I performed some of the Saturday chores. I almost could have gone as far as spring cleaning, especially as it seemed to be a chilly and, for some reason that I can never explain to myself, I didn’t feel like venturing out. I did make some progress in The Road to Monticello. By evening I was dreading even the one-day return to work.
As I lay reading, think to get to sleep early, I slowly noticed that I was feeling chilled, although the room wasn’t cold. Even under comforter and blanket, my extremities stayed icy. And the congestion that I’d been denying for a few hours had filled my sinuses to bursting.
Great. A fever. Plus the third respiratory illness since mid-January. Supplicating the echinacea deities doesn’t help.
By Friday, the fever had passed, leaving a full-blown cold in its wake. But wait — there’s more! My period made its slightly delayed appearance. Between the cold and the cramps, and with too much time for reflection, I sank into a little depression. Tears came, tears went. On Saturday J. took me grocery shopping and to the Big Easy; I spent most of the rest of the weekend sleeping, writing letters, reading The Road to Monticello, and playing Bejeweled for iPhone. It’s (check one): ___ relaxing ___ addictive.
On Monday, work, which I should permit to be no more than an irritant, added to the weight of illness and out-of-whack hormones.
To console myself, I headed to Borders to pick up the D’Aulaires’ illustrated versions of the Greek and Norse myths — then and only then thinking to look on amazon.com, where I found them for a significantly better price. I never seem to learn.
I’m not the only one who’s not feeling so hot. Wednesday morning, the 31st, I noticed Hodge was behaving strangely, and that evening evening I watched as he made dozens of trips to the litter box when he wasn’t wandering around restlessly, meowing and occasionally dribbling urine on the carpet. (I recommend Anti-Icky-Poo.)
At the veterinary clinic the next morning, Dr. W. asked if I can pill him. “Yes, but I’d rather not.” Neither of us needs that stress. While Doc and a teen-aged observer looked on, Dr. W. gave the unhappy beast his annual physical and groped his empty bladder — he was piddled out. Earlier, Dr. W. had told the young observer, “He WILL bite. Not MAY bite, but WILL.” While he flipped him about and pinned him down, Doc gave him various shots in various parts of his anatomy, then we bustled the 15-pound bundle of futile fury into the carrier. Dr. W. said to the girl, “There, do you see any blood on me? Do you see any blood on him? THAT is what I call a successful appointment.” Hodge, safely encased, didn’t seem convinced.
So for the better part of a week, between coughing spells I kept an eye out for yellow drips on the carpet. This isn’t quite how I envisioned spending what I feel more and more to be my dwindling time here.
Friday, April 9, I got together with relatives from New york, which made me very happy. For a time, I felt I belonged somewhere again and that my entire childhood wasn’t just a myth lost in time.
J. has had to work the past two Saturdays, so he has stopped by on his way downtown for dinner at Bonjour. I feel relaxed outdoors there when the weather permits, and I am sure I was better company this Saturday than I have been in years. I can’t promise that I won’t relapse into the sour person I seem to have become and don’t like.
On Sunday morning outdoors at Bonjour two men across from me called me, “Miss” and asked if there was more to Bonjour than the obvious. At first I couldn’t think what they meant and said, “No,” but immediately I realized that they were referring to the French restaurant across the way, La Petite Folie. The older man went to look at the menu while the younger told me that his companion drives everywhere instead of walking like he does and therefore misses a lot. I thought this would be especially true of La Petite Folie, which is in the middle of the courtyard and can’t be seen from the street. The older man came back and described a menu item, asking the younger to guess how much it cost. “$20?” he answered quizzically. “$8.50,” the elder replied triumphantly. “It pays to get out of Lincoln Park.” They asked one of the Bonjour girls if the quiche is made fresh; she assured them that it is. Their quiche order arrived soon after, and their comments indicated their approval. Before I left, I noticed each had ordered a different kind of cake for dessert.
Madame and crew did the neighborhood proud.
After scrambling on Friday to pay my 40-cent library fine (inflation!) and renew The Road to Monticello, I have now accompanied Thomas Jefferson and his little entourage to Paris. I am also reading the aforementioned Greek myths as told and illustrated by Ingri and Edgar Parin D’Aulaires, which somehow I missed out on as a child. I need to make up for lost time.
In the meantime, they call me Mr. Phlegm! Or should. This cough has worn out its welcome, and then some.
As I’d written before, The Pepperland at 57th Street and Lake Park Avenue evoked my thoughts of portals to another dimension. This, and the story behind the building, reveals how disconnected I feel and am from where I live. Perhaps I came here through a portal.
On a February visit to Istria Cafe, I’d noticed that the stark tower that had first snagged my attention had been painted a garish combination of purple and yellow that clashes with the deep red brick work and that the steel security door and window covers had been removed. The building was back in business. The next week a sign over the front entry proclaimed it to be “the Pepperland.” How Beatles-esque, I thought, but, perhaps still distracted by the lonely sound of train whistles in the night, my mind was still on portals and alternative universes.
I looked up the Pepperland online to see if there were any information or news about its reopening. Indeed there was, along with its most recent history as a party house near a campus renowned for its supposed lack of social life (a popular campus t-shirt: “Where fun comes to die”). Who knew the University of Chicago has a Frisbee team? Certainly not an old, reclusive nerd like me.
So, it turns out that, despite the grim look the building presents to the street (not unlike the grim fortress facade that Glessner House presents to the Prairie District), the Pepperland’s design is conducive to neighborly conviviality, a concept purportedly out of step with the University of Chicago’s popular (or un-) reputation where the life of the mind kills the life of the body.
Perhaps the Pepperland is still a portal to another dimension, just not the one I had imagined — less Alice Through the Looking Glass and more University of Michigan.
I don’t know the history of the murals under the 55th/Lake Park overpass, but I’m under the impression that they predate my 1979 arrival in Hyde Park by a couple of years. They may have been relatively new and fresh, but even then they struck me as depressing and disturbing. I’ve never read the narrative in its entirety, but “butcher’s hooks” still sticks with me. The people pictured, many contorted with their heads thrown back, look tortured to me, as though their creator were a contemporary if less fantastic Hieronymus Bosch.
I understand that for some time there had been a search for the artist. With so much information online, you’d think she’d be easy to find, but not so. At long last, however, it seems that she turned up. I saw her, or someone, refreshing the mural at the northeast end of the overpass. Later, as winter approached, a handwritten paper sign appeared with thanks to the neighborhood and a promise to return. Sadly, by season’s end the sign had weathered the winter better than the mural, its bright, touched-up sections already streaked from the melting snow, rain, and dampness. As others have noted, while the idea of viaduct murals seems like an attractive addition to urban life, their practicality is another matter.
Even later, toward the southwest portion, large sheets of steel imprinted with black-and-white and colorful artwork were bolted up around the entrance steps to Metra. I also spotted a young man working on the uncovered southwest end of the mural, which for now looks like new.
So the viaduct’s walls are currently a mishmash of restored, faded, and, in places, obliterated mural and spanking new sponsored sheet metal print art, all without any explanation.
It keeps us coming back to find out what’s next.
Update: Here’s part of the story of the murals from the Hyde Park-Kenwood Community Conference site. The murals on the north and south sides are different. The south side mural, the more fascinating to me, is pictured.
Caryl Yasko is redoing one panel of Under City Stone on 55th this year — more will follow next, more money is being raised. Note that there was improper grouting allowing continued water seepage. This is the mural that uses James Agee’s poem (by permission). Most will be redone in oil as per the original. Pulling together contributions and in-kinds is Mary Guggenheim. Heritage Foundation’s Rescue Public Murals initiative is involved. Hundreds are helping. Can send contributions c/o CPAG, 1259 S. Wabash, 60605, 708 655-8919 or undercitystone@gmail.com. Yasko writes:
Yasko first painted “Under City Stone” in 1972. The name of the mural comes from the James Agee poem “Rapid Transit” which runs the length of the north side of the 55th Street underpass. It was one of the Chicago Mural Group’s first projects. Funding came from the National Endowment for the Arts, Hyde Park Merchants Association, and citizen donors. With funding from the South East Chicago Commission and Chicago Public Arts Group, we are restoring one of the murals’ 13 sections. Contingent on funding and support from you, we will restore the remaining sections in summer and early fall 2009.
Mural on the south side of of 55th has undergone some restoration by Damon Lamar Reed, and work continues along with column restoration on 56th south side.
I must be in a time warp because it cannot be two weeks ago that I was packing to go to Pennsylvania, and it cannot be tomorrow that I will return to work. These have been the shortest two weeks of my life, and I’ve no doubt that tomorrow will be among the longest days.
We spent Christmas Eve in Howard. To get there, we headed north on Rte. 220. The new highway has spoiled some of what I loved about the area in the 1960s and 70s — and now there’s talk of a Walmart in or near Pinecroft — but the drive north has granted me a greater appreciation for the little green hills I miss so much when I leave them.
Rte. 220 is built against the base of a mountain ridge (Brush); on the other side lies Sinking Valley, which my dad called some of the richest farmland in the state. To the left is Logan Valley, with Altoona to the south and Tyrone to the north. For me as a child, Tyrone and its pungent paper mill smell was an important milestone of the journey because it meant we were almost there — Bellwood was not too far off. And when I stood at the screen door of my aunt’s house on 1st Street, especially in the morning, the air was heavy with Tyrone’s industrial scent. When that powerful odor violated my nostrils and lungs, I knew that I was “home.”
Beyond Logan Valley is another ridge of the Central Alleghenies, another ancient wrinkle in the earth’s skin. After the trip up Rte. 220, and after passing through successive tunnels on the way to Lancaster, I, the three dimensionally impaired, have finally made the mental connection between the flat lines and shaded areas on the map and the relationships of the ridges and valleys across which the shadows of the clouds pass.
I long to walk up the ridge on a rare clear summer’s day, now that I’m old enough to appreciate the effort, the accomplishment, and the vision of forested hills cradling the vulnerable valleys and their quaint frame houses.
When I returned to Chicago, I settled for a very different sort of activity — attending the premier New Year’s Eve party at Kendall College. We arrived just in time for the salad course, which, like all of them, was very good. The service wasn’t polished to perfection, but that’s what I expected, and everyone was in such a good mood.
The DJ played music that I recognized (vintage), although J. could not get me to dance. I suppose I didn’t feel like shaking my booty in front of 98 well-dressed strangers. I was just relieved to get a table for two.
It was a lovely evening, with the blue moon shining on the frigid, yet restless city and the north branch of the Chicago River.
We saw only one questionable driver, and that was at around 11 a.m. the next morning in Hyde Park. He made a left turn at full speed and immediately swerved into the next lane at full speed when he noticed the cement median in his way.
So, happy new year — and be careful out there. Day or night.
