For the last 20-plus years I've stayed with my sister Joan and brother-in-law Jim in downtown Chicago, within sight of Lake Michigan, just across the street from the city's showpiece, Millennium Park. Every year I'm blown away by this view from the 20th floor and can never resist taking the same photo. Here's the 2016 version of Chicago's most popular park, once an old railroad yard, with Michigan Avenue in the background.
Highlights of my annual trips are long talks with Joan and Jim and other family and friends, but visits are also sure to include art exhibits, a movie or play, walks along Lake Michigan or the Chicago River, strolling along Michigan Avenue, a stop-in at the gorgeously-restored Chicago Cultural Center. This year was no exception. Recently the river walk was expanded to LaSalle Street. Joan, Jim and I took a stroll there one evening after seeing The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble at the Siskel Center.
The top highlight of this year's visit was the wedding of my niece (okay, great-niece or as I prefer, great! niece), Laura Orozco and John Gelb. They got married Sept. 5 at a wedding hall near suburban Palatine. Joan, Jim and I hopped the train from downtown Chicago and arrived for a beautiful late afternoon ceremony. I think this photo captures something special about this relationship and the love Laura and John share.
Of course, weddings are a chance to see and celebrate with other family members. Here's a photo of members of the Orozco family.
From left is Olivia Laura's sister, and her son, Jarod; Carmela and Sofia, daughters of Laura's brother Paul (on the right); in the center are Mary and Raul, their parents. Mary is the youngest daughter of the late Bernice Parliman, my sister on our father's side. Other Orozco family members traveled all the way from Mexico and Canada for the wedding.
After the ceremony we all trooped downstairs for dinner and dancing. A mariachi band started the entertainment, followed by a deejay, who managed to play tunes which got just about everyone on the dance floor.
The next day, Joan, Jim and I returned to Chicago, where I continued to enjoy time in Chicago. One cause for celebration was the winning record of The Chicago Cubs. The team has a strong shot at the World Series this year--and if they make it and win, it will be the first time since 1908. When I arrived in town the "magic number", printed on the top of the Chicago Sun Times, was 18--the number of wins needed to clinch the Central Division championship of the National Baseball League. The number dropped every day of my visit, and the clinch game came a few days after I left town. Is baseball identity programmed in early childhood? I'm still a Chicagoan as far as baseball is concerned (though my first love in those early days was the White Sox). Never could quite get into the Denver Rockies. Here are the three of us, showing our pleasure and good spirits.
My visits to Chicago usually include reunions with friends and other relatives as well. This year I spent an afternoon with two college friends, Eibhlin Glennon and Diane Culhane at Diane's new home in Arlington Heights. Diane, her husband Paul, and dog Regan moved there in May and it was good to see them settled into their new digs. Here we are, the three of us, Mundelein College class of 1968. (From left, Eibhlin, me, Diane)
I missed seeing others I usually visit when I'm in town: Peggy Shinner and Ann Tyler, old friends who were in New Mexico at the time, as well as my cousin Joanne and her husband Jack, who was recovering from heart surgery. Hopefully, those reunions will happen next year, when fates willing, I'll return again.
No Chicago visit would be complete without mentioning the Chicago I didn't see--the South and West Sides where most of gang violence occurs. 2016 has been a terrible year for gang-related homicide in this city, with a murder rate surpassing New York City and Los Angeles combined. There have been clamors for more police protection, and Mayor Rahm responded. I still wonder to what extent there's progress on any of the root causes--racism, despair, a broken criminal justice system, for example. Here was the front page of the Sun Times one morning.
It's so easy when you visit Chicago--or anywhere, for that matter--to think of the proverbial blind men and the elephant; each touches a different part and declares that's what an elephant is. And so I touched a few parts of this city, but at least I think I'm well aware of the partiality of my view.
Other impressions/memories from my one-week stay: checking Facebook to follow Laura and John's honeymoon in Italy, the strains of a jazz performance during the annual Jazz Festival at Millennium Park, a 1930s painting retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago, an excellent play about the slipperiness of art authentication (Bakersfield Mist at TimeLine Theater), a morning stroll through Lincoln Park and breakfast with running friends of Joan and Jim's, a solitary stroll along the lakefront, the groundbreaking for a new skyscraper called Vista, which will be built over the next four years across the park from my sister and brother-in-law's balcony; buying tea at David's wonderful new shop around the corner.... Then, all too soon, time to pack, get on the Orange Line, and head for Midway Airport. Farewell....until next year.
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