Big Mike: Loving The Lakeshore

Perhaps the thing I miss most about Chicago is the lakefront. A river town like Louisville has a different take on things than does a seaport like Chicago. Here in the River City, people look upon the mighty Ohio as just another street to cross, albeit a deep, brown, mile-wide thoroughfare filled with driftwood, coal barges and a few odd animal carcasses.

If Kentuckians envision the Ohio River as an avenue out of town, it offers them only two directions - southeast toward Fort Knox or northeast toward Cincinnati. Somehow, I doubt many kids lull themselves to sleep with dreams of those two destinations.

Lake Michigan, though, presents a seeming infinity of options. When I was young, I'd look out over the lake and see nothing but horizon. Any time I pondered that distant line, I couldn't help but feel anything was possible.

I recall being seven or eight and sitting in the back seat of my father's sun-tanned copper 1960 Chevrolet Impala, the kind with the horizontal wings in the back and a white whoosh denoting a jet trail on either side. We'd be heading east toward the lake on a late Sunday afternoon, mainly because Ma wanted to get the hell out of the house.

To me, the lakeshore was a wild, exciting pace, picket-fenced by Gold Coast apartment towers and filled with odd things like countless silvery, staring bodies of washed-up perch and boat tie-down plugs that looked like so many Easter Island statues. Just south of Navy Pier, police marine cruisers and pleasure craft would pull up to the concrete landing as the sun began to set. Boaters would make the three-foot leap from their decks, the cops' keys and handcuffs jangling, and land with a strange mixture of awkwardness and grace. They'd go in to Rocky's, a fried fish shack, and buy a pound of fish and chips or clam strips. I looked at those men the way, I'm sure that some Portuguese kid looked upon explorers returning from the New World.

I had my own death-defying adventure some years later, in 1999, when I was a Coast Guard-licensed sea captain. I piloted a DUKW, more commonly known as a Duck, ferrying tourists along the lakeshore, regaling them with information about the lake and the city as well as the occasional funny story. I won't recount the stories here because they were only funny to visitors from Iowa or Kansas who, being on vacation, their pockets filled with pre-crash cash, already were in a giddy mood.

It was a warm and bright May Sunday afternoon. The Duck was filled with adults and kids. The city couldn't have been prettier. It was only a week and a half after a Duck had sunk in Lake Hamilton near Hot Springs, Arkansas, killing some 13 people, but no distant tragedy could dampen our good feelings. We splashed into the water at the Burnham Harbor ramp between Soldier Field and McCormick Place. The kids screamed in excitement and the adults grinned as broadly as people with pockets full of cash can.

I hadn't even begun my usual patter when suddenly what sounded like a thousand sirens began shrieking in my ears. Just as suddenly, a half-dozen roaring jets of water began gushing high out of the boat's emergency bilge pump outlets along the gunwhale. For the briefest of moments - a time that seemed to my adrenaline-amped senses to be endless minutes - I couldn't figure out what the hell was happening.

I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw some two dozens faces staring at me in terror. They wanted me, the captain, to make everything right. Gulp.

The craft seemed heavy. I tried to steer but the Duck hardly budged off the straight line. I eased off the gas but the engine still roared, automatically throttling up to run the emergency pumps. I wasn't confused any longer - we were sinking.

I floored the gas pedal and the Duck inched forward. The jets of water spewed even higher, 25 feet in the air. As long as I kept the pedal to the metal, the emergency pumps would work at full capacity. First one, then several women screamed. They were wearing flip-flops so they knew before anybody else that the floorboards were now flooded. My mind flashed to the horror in Hot Springs.

If the passengers were hoping I'd say something soothing, allay their fears or even make a joke, they would be sorely disappointed. All I could think of was how to get this half-century-old pile of shit back on land.

With the engine thundering, I swung the wheel to the left, virtually willing the tiny rudders to pitch us into a u-turn. A man reached up into the overhead compartment and pulled down a life jacket. I shouted out an order for the rest of the passengers to follow his lead. The Duck moved glacially, describing an excruciatingly broad circle in the harbor. Water began splashing over the gunwhales.

I glanced again in my rear-view and saw the entire assemblage looking at me, pleadingly. I'd never held an audience so rapt. By now, even strollers and fishermen on the shore gaped at us, knowing full well they might be witnessing something that would haunt them.

After what seemed hours, we circled around and hit the ramp hard. The Duck was so heavy with water that we got hung up on the lip of the ramp. No matter, we wouldn't go down now. I finally spoke into my microphone. "We did it," I announced, breathlessly. "We'll be okay now."

We waited for about 10 minutes so the emergency pumps could empty enough water from the hull to allow us to move again. Then we slowly climbed the ramp and pulled over next to the harbor master's house. My rapt audience cheered as if I'd just scored the winning touchdown for the Bears in nearby Soldier Field.

I jumped down from the pilot's seat, got on my hands and knees and looked under the Duck. I saw a gaping six-inch hole out of which spewed water. It took a good 45 minutes for the hull to empty out. Some of the male passengers hunkered down next to me to conduct their own examinations. They pounded me on the back and shook my hand again and again. Safely off the Duck, the moms rocked their mewling kids in the lawn.

I never loved the lakeshore so much as on that Sunday afternoon.

Big Mike: The Good, The Bad, And The Repulsive

Ah, back in good old Louisville, where the magnolias are deep green, the grass awns wave blue in the breeze, and my nasal passages are packed with concrete, thanks to all the Ohio Valley allergens fighting to get a crack at me.

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.

Big Mike: We Can Rest Easy Now

The first week The Loved One and I lived in our current home, we witnessed a manhunt out our front window. That was two years ago. The manhunt, believe it or not, finally came to a conclusion last week.

We'd bought our house in June, 2007, in a little town called Murray Hill, population 630. It's a bedroom community built on the rolling hills of an old potato farm in the early 70s. Fences are banned, contributing to a more collegial atmosphere. Rather than chat with my neighbors over the fence, we mosey out in the middle of the undulating greensward between our homes. No one really knows where one property ends and another begins.

Murray Hill for a brief period of time had it's own little private police force even though the worst crime in these parts was when someone's dog left a pile of Lincoln Logs on someone else's lawn. The private police force was quickly voted out when it became clear the only thing the officers were doing was ticketing residents for rolling through the stop sign.

The place was considered so safe that many people kept their garage doors open and even left their back doors unlocked. That is, until recently.

That's why it was so shocking when, on a July Sunday evening two years ago, The Loved One and I were aroused by the sound of a police helicopter overhead. Murray Hill Pike was teeming with citizens carrying flashlights and holding back dogs straining at their leashes. One neighbor who's a Jefferson County Sheriff's deputy rode his bicycle up and down the pike wearing flip-flops, a T-shirt, cutoffs, and his holstered service revolver.

I asked my new neighbor Captain Billy what was wrong. "Ah, some little son of a bitch broke into somebody's house," he said. "The woman left her purse near the window and the kid musta saw it, broke through the screen, reached in and took it."

The Loved One and I chuckled. It was as though we were now living in Mayberry.

Ever since then. I'd been hearing about the Burglar Who Was Terrorizing The Area. Word circulating through the crowd at Dick's Pizza was that people were beginning to shut their garage doors and lock their back doors. It wasn't quite the reaction Chicago had when Richard Speck was on the loose for four days in July, 1966, but it would do for a small town.

Then one night last week as I sat at the bar at Dick's enjoying a diet cola, someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Mayor Judy. She's actually the garbage commissioner of the adjoining town of Goose Creek but she gets a kick of me calling her mayor.

"Didja hear?" Judy exclaimed. "They caught the burglar!"

Suddenly it was as if a cloud had been lifted from over Dick's. I could have sworn there was merriment in the air. Everybody started talking at once.

Here's the story as Mayor Judy told it: "Yeah, they caught him. Just a kid from down near Westport Road, you know, where it's not so nice. They got him on 61 counts. He's been doing it for years. He says he was doing it to support his family's drug habit. He doesn't do drugs himself. He wasn't hurting anybody, just reaching inside most houses to grab money or a purse."

Later, I caught the story on the local news. It seems the lad, 22, was less than superlative as a desperado. Toward the end of his reign of terror, he would swipe keys from some houses and then drive the victims' cars home. When the cops started finding the stolen cars in the same neighborhood, they figured they knew where he lived.

One night last February, he broke into a home in St. Matthews, sat in the living room, turned on the TV, and ordered some cable porn. He sat there for more than an hour hoping the residents, who were upstairs sleeping, would come down and shoot him. He was tired, he later told the police, of his life of crime.

The kid got tired of waiting for the residents to come down and put him out of his misery so he walked outside and hailed a cab to take him home. He paid the fare using money he'd grabbed from the house.

He's in custody now. Murray Hill, Goose Creek, Barbour Meade, and the other villages of the East End are now safe. Still, I don't think people are going to be leaving their back doors unlocked again.

Big Mike: A Guide For The Married Man

With The Loved One spending her weekdays in Bloomington, Indiana now, leaving me and the cats, Boutros and Terra, to our own devices, I've been thinking about the nature of marriage, love, relationships, and other forms of comedy.

TLO seems to be suffering more than we are. After all, she's sleeping in a sublet room, sharing an apartment with a cerebrum-on-legs grad student, while the cats and I have the run of the Louisville manor. We phone numerous times a day just to hear each others' voices. The conversations regularly seem to end up with one or both of us dewy-eyed.

I might think that would be the tale any married couple would tell in a similar situation but, of course, that isn't true at all. Take a couple of examples. My neighbor, Captain Billy, grants me the benefits of his wisdom as often as he can - that is, whenever her sees me before I can see him. The Captain has many fascinating ideas about husbandly duties and wifely obeisance.

He had much to say to me when he learned that I would drive TLO to work downtown every day before she jumped for saner pastures. We're a one-car family and I didn't want to be stuck without one. The Captain told me there was a perfectly good bus stop about a mile away and that my wife should have the decency to take that bus, thereby not putting me out and, besides, gas cost nearly four dollars a gallon at the time. "What the hell's wrong with her?" he demanded.

The Captain's family, being a normal Kentucky brood, has enough vehicles to open a used car lot. Everone in the family has a set of wheels. Hell, if Boutros and Terra lived with them, they'd have cars too. Normally, the Captain's wife drives her own car to work but at the time her car, a massive heap with a robust engine that serves as my alarm clock every morning, was on the fritz. Since the car has been in use since the Taft administration, it took weeks to find parts for it. Through those weeks, the Captain deigned only to drop his bride off at the bus stop, rather than haul her all the way to work (or, god forbid, let her use his car.)

For kicks, I decided to check the bus schedule to see how long her trip might be. It turned out she had to ride and hour and fifteen minutes each way. That bus, by the way, comes by every hour so woe unto her should she miss it.

I told the Captain that TLO might not reward me with a hug and a kiss if I suggested such a scheme to her. The Captain recoiled as if I'd taken a swing at him. "You tell her to take the bus," he advised. "You don't ask her."

Naturally, if I'd ever approach the delicate flower in that manner, I'd be the one recoiling from a flurry of swings.

I merely laughed off the Captain's advice and he walked away probably convinced my testicles are the size of protons.

Now, example number two. Skip the Trombonist's wife slipped while walking down the stairs late last fall and broke her ankle so badly she had to have metal bolts surgically inserted. Since she'd be confined to a wheelchair for a couple of months, she decided to stay in Harrodsburg in her sister's one-story home.

One Tuesday, during our Trivia game (Skip and I are part of Team Gorlock) I asked him if he missed the love of his life. "Damned right I do," he replied. "The dishwasher's full, the litter box is overflowing, there's nothing in the refrigerator. Shit, the place is a mess."

"Have you cooed these words into her ear yet, you old Romeo?" I asked.

"Nah. Why should I? Nothin' she can do about it now," he said.

After growing up in a family and neighborhood where husbands and wives regarded each other as if they were operating under United Nations-imposed cease-fires, I can be forgiven for thinking The Loved One and I have a rather unique relationship. Then again, I think of friends like Danny and Sophia, Ben and Pam, Milo and Sharon, all of whom have been hitched for more than 20 years. And if their words are to be believed, none has ever even entertained the notion of having an innocent fling. They all seem to cherish and care for their cellmates.

Who are the oddballs? We who sorta like our cellmates or Captain Billy, Skip, and their respective helpmeets?

Note from Big Mike: Celebrate today! It's the 200th birthday of both Abie Baby Lincoln (the original cast recording of "Hair" was the first album I ever owned - if you get the reference, you are awfully cool) and Charles Darwin. Both gents believed in god, pretty much the only thing I can take issue with either of them.

Big Mike: Hey, I Wanna Be An Evangelist Too!

Young Joe, the kid next door, rang my back bell yesterday afternoon. As usual, I'd been pounding away at the keyboard in my underwear ala Hemingway (pretty much the only thing we have in common.) Without thinking, I dashed upstairs and answered wearing nothing more than a T-shirt and a pair of wind-whipped man-bloomers - white with red hearts, natch.

The kid had been waiting in the rare bright sunshine (this has been a lousy winter even in the great Commonwealth of Kentucky), shifting nervously from foot to foot in his gargantuan sneakers in the melting snow. When he saw me, I thought his eyes might pop out of his head.

"Sorry buddy," I said. "I always write like this." The explanation only seemed to confuse him further so I let it drop. "What's up?"

He handed me two copies of a book. "These are for you and your wife," he said, smiling shyly.

I put my cheaters back on and studied the top copy's cover. It was entitled "One Heartbeat Away: Your Journey Into Eternity." It was, of course, a tome on god and how I ought to get cracking on believing in him/her/it before the old ticker shorts out.

"Um, thanks," I said. "Why are you giving these to me?"

"I'm witnessing for my church," Young Joe said.

At this point I was already debating in my mind whether I should tell him not to waste the books on The Loved One and me or if I should soften the blow and say One will do, thanks. I mean, I didn't want to appear unneighborly but, you know, save a tree and all that. Before I could speak, he said, beaming proudly, "I printed your names in them for you."

"Oh. Fine. Yes. Fine. Very nice. That's awfully nice of you," I replied, now holding the books as if they were rare artifacts. With that, Young Joe bid adieu and dashed back home.

The god and Jesus thing has been a quandary for me since I arrived in Louisville nearly two years ago. Back home in Chicago, belief in god usually manifests itself in one of two ways. The vast majority of people in the city proper profess to be far too sophisticated for traditional worship. I'm not a member of any regular religion, they might say, I believe in my own way. Those who aren't apologetic for their religiosity often can be found shouting into bullhorns on State Street.

In Kentucky, though, Christianity seems to be the club everybody wants to belong to. My first weekend here, I was cornered at Barnes and Noble by some old bird who bent my ear about how I had to accept Jesus. Cab drivers, Chick-fil-a drive-thru clerks, convenience store owners, and the like think nothing of going on and on about how fabulous and wonderful god and Jesus are. Or, I guess, is. Sometimes it seems as though every citizen of the Commonwealth has a story about how he or she was saved from some crushing reversal of fortune or even sudden death and has The Big Man to thank for it.

I try to keep my non-believer status close to the vest in these parts now. When we first moved onto Murray Hill Pike, I met Young Joe as he dashed through my yard chasing a ball. We introduced ourselves and exchanged information. Puffing out his chest, he told me he attends a school affiliated with one of the biggest mega-churches in the region. I told him that was, well, nice. "You should come to service on Sunday," he gushed. "You'll love it!"

"Well, I'll think about it," I replied. Then, to fill in an uncomfortable silence that followed, I asked, "What denomination is it?"

Young Joe looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Y'know, is it Methodist or Lutheran or something?"

"Oh," Joe said, "it's just Christian." Which is, as I understand it, a denomination all its own under The Big C umbrella - search me; as I said, I'm a non-believer

"So what are you?" Joe asked.

Uh oh. My mind shifted into fifth gear. What do I tell this 10-year-old about my atheism? I don't want it to sound as if I'm proselytizing. And I don't want his parents to think I'm polluting his mind. But he asked. "I'm, uh, nothing," I said.

Young Joe was aghast. "You don't have any religion?" he whispered, as if merely uttering the words would taint his soul.

"No," I answered, sotto voce, the way I used to speak in the confessional.

"Then you have to come to services Sunday," Joe concluded. In the ensuing weeks, his mother, Jan, repeatedly told me how terrific their church was and how we were invited to come anytime as her special guests. I thanked her repeatedly. She still doesn't know the exact nature of my beliefs although the language that came spewing out of me last summer when I hit my head on the Prius's hatchback latch gave her an indication I'm not a Baptist minister. Jan and her mother had been sitting in the swing behind her house when the torrent commenced. Even though It was a perfect evening, the two hustled inside as if my verbiage were a plague of locusts.

I'm rather touched that Young Joe hopes to save my soul. I appreciate Jan's invitations to church. And, honest, I listen politely when cabdrivers go on and on about how god's hand has guided their lives. I only wish I could figure out a way to tell them about my god-free world without thinking I'm gonna burn in hell.