My four-day sojourn in Chicago brought about the usual love-hate reaction. The bad: the crush of traffic, the brusque - almost hostile - manner of passersby and check-out clerks, and the phallic prominence of Donald Trump's new monument to himself on the site of the old Sun-Times building. As I understand it, the condominiums of his Trump International Hotel and Tower are largely empty and he's being sued by his creditors. Come to think of it, maybe this isn't such a bad thing - it's always a pleasure to see a confidence man get his comeuppance. Still, that soulless 1300-foot sex toy on the Chicago River has marred a mostly magnificent skyline.
As for the good, well, there are my pals Sophia and Danny and their two kids, Arianna and Matty, with whom The Loved One and I stayed, Benny Jay and Milo, of course, Chinatown and Ricobene's pizza joint on 26th Street, and Wrigley Field - which I always drive circles around when I visit. The ballpark looks gorgeous, even with the commercialization of the bleacher entrance (good god, the Cubs have essentially sold naming rights to a doorway - what's next, the Michelob Pale Ale Urinals? The Vagisil Medicated Anti-Itch Ladies Room?)
I love Chicago and I hate it. I suppose that puts me in the good company of some 2,896,016 people (according to the latest official census.) A dozen or so of those citizens were gathered at the access road away from McCormick Place Monday afternoon as The Loved One and I drove past, giving us a remarkable send-off. I mean, I assume they were Chicagoans but, then again, given the reason for their jarring presence, they might well have been from distant points on the American map (as well as the American psyche.)
The Loved One had just attended a convention of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists at the Lakeside Center. Now that she's drawing pretty pictures for reproductive technology products for her new employer, she has to rub shoulders with medicos who specialize in women's plumbing.
Our plan was to begin the long drive back to Kentucky as soon as her Monday convention session was finished. The Prius was packed with all our luggage, as well as a sizable Ricobene's pizza - much of which we demolished by the time we got to Indianapolis. The sun shone, the temperature hovered around 70, the Cubs were in the midst of a four-game winning streak - what could tarnish the mood?
How about a seemingly endless string of enormous, full-color placards of human fetuses in various states of destruction? There were images of half skulls, bloody limbs, gooey guts, and all the rest of the emotional pornography that anti-abortionists wallow in. The dubiously self-described "right-to-lifers" had chosen this spot to attempt to shock us into agreeing with their selective love-of-humanity philosophy, figuring, I'm sure, that at least some of the conventioneering doctors have performed an abortion or two.
Fair enough. I love being an American and support the right of anyone to carry a placard, even if it compares Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler or posits that George W. Bush and his boys engineered the 9/11 attacks. Lunatics have as much right to shout from the rooftops as I do. Only I don't shout from rooftops nor do I much care to tote a picture of a fetus's severed arm.
So rather than drink in that last glorious glimpse of the Loop, Navy Pier and the Ferris wheel, the blue lake, and the lovably pretentious neo-Grecian architecture of the Field Museum, we were forced to peer at some religious fundamentalists' macabre messaging.
The jerks.
