Continued, from yesterday and the day before. —ed.
To the Gentleman from Cabela’s: If I had a few days with you here in Chicago, how could I make you feel differently about this place?
First off, I wouldn’t have you come on a weekend, I’d have you come during the week. And I wouldn’t waste my time dazzling you with the skyline or taking you to cultural things, because that’s not why I love this place either. Though we might just take that Chicago Architecture Foundation cruise down the Chicago River, because this is a tour of American greatness itself. And, there’s a bar on the boat.
Speaking of bars, we’ll visit a lot of them while you’re here. We’ll visit my corner tavern, the J&M, where your fourth beer is usually free, just like at home. There’s nothing more country than a Chicago corner tavern. (If you decide to stay the weekend, we’ll look in on another corner bar, in Pilsen, where Mexican laborers drink Modelos and shoot pool on Saturday afternoon, in the sunniest, most guilt-free room you’ve ever stood in. And what the hell, let’s go up to the Green Mill, where Capone used to drink, and catch some music. I’ll tell you the the story of the history of that neighborhood, Uptown, which only 50 years ago included such a large population of Appalachians, it was called “Hillbilly Heaven.”)
At some point, we should also look in on my teacher wife’s elementary school art room, in West Humboldt Park, one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods. Not to convince you that things aren’t fucked up here. Rather, to remind you that—whatever you think of gun laws, whatever you believe about the causes of crime and their solutions (and I didn’t bring you here to change your mind about any of that, or even to discuss it)—people in poor neighborhoods are more than statistics with tear ducts. Children, especially—but teachers and parents, too. There are some ferociously talented and committed people pouring their hearts’ blood into some very tough problems—and some beautiful kids, benefitting from it.
But more important than your liking and admiring all the things I like in Chicago, you’re going to like me. Living my whole adult life in Chicago has helped me become—or at least allowed me to remain—enthusiastic, curious and good-humored. And you’re going to like my friends: The people I’ve worked with, my motorcycle buddies, the guys I play baseball with, my neighbors and all the other dozens and dozens of fine and funny and smart and wise Chicagoans I’ve come to know and love over the last 30 years of living here.
What’s more, they’ll probably like you, too, because one quality most Chicagoans share is an uncommon general eagerness to want to get to know any person who happens to be standing in front of them—especially if that person has been introduced by a friend.
More than any other American city I’ve ever visited, that’s Chicago.
And of course that’s America, too—or at least the America that you and I were raised to be proud of, in the first place.
Isn’t it?
***
These days, I’m more regularly in touch with the America outside Chicago than I’ve been in many years. My daughter just finished her freshman year in college, at Ohio University, in the Appalachian foothill town of Athens.
She’s plays on the soccer team there, and her teammates are mostly suburban Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo kids. When they asked her where she was from, she said, “Chicago.” And they said, “Yeah, but what suburb?” No, she said. “Chicago.” Like, Chicago Chicago? Yes, she said. Chicago! Perhaps they didn’t know it was an Onion headline that read, “Chicago Air Now 80 Percent Bullets.”
I want to bring their wide eyes here—not for a weekend, but for a year! I know they’d leave feeling just as at home in this place as they do with my daughter.
I don’t need everyone to love Chicago. I don’t work for the tourist board here. The winters and the traffic are hell and city life is not for everyone.
But I do want Americans to not to hate Chicago. Because whether they know it or not, Americans who hate Chicago hate America itself—in the name of loving it.
And that’s no way to feel—especially on the Fourth of July.
This woman who originates from Cincinnati and spent the majority of my adult years in DC loves Chicago. I’ve done the architectural boat tour, with drink in hand, and it was fabulous. But maybe it’s also because you introduced me to a few local favorites when I was there for class. And I thank you!!!