Sweet Home, Chicago

 

 

I was born and raised in the city.  My city.  I love the way the city looks, feels and yes, even smells.

I think having been raised there has given me an extra edge.  I can seemingly not look at someone, yet take them in completely.  I can walk at an unreasonable pace without having anywhere important to go.  I have waited at bus stops, in 10 below temperatures, wearing a skirt believing this was normal behavior.  I have gone to beaches littered with trash and dead ale-wives.  I have inhaled car and bus exhaust on 90 degree days.  I cannot fall asleep without noise in my bedroom.

I grew up in four flat. When I was a child, I could lean out of my bedroom window and if I stretched a bit, I could touch the building next door.  Luckily we were friends with the people on the bedroom side of the building. 

My universe did not extend much beyond our block.  We played baseball in the empty lot in the middle of the block.  We had three bases in that lot which was about 35 feet wide.  We played hockey in the alley and tag football in the street.  The only basketball hoop was at a park 5 blocks away. The four corners of the south end of the block consisted of three taverns and a Catholic school.  I never thought this odd.  Still don't.

People were on the move all the time.  There was a certain rhythm:  cars doors opening and closing at all hours, engines back firing, people shouting.  The street lights were bright, gave off an orange glow and when they turned on at dusk were our signal that it was time to go home, or be embarrassed by your mom shouting your name out the window. 

On summer evenings adults got together on the front porch at one end of the block or the other depending on, I'm not sure what.  They talked, smoked and drank beer (for the men) and rum & coke (for the ladies).  Everyone got up early and went to work the next day and sat out again the next night, all summer long.  You knew it was really hot when somebody opened the fire hydrant and 50 adults and children ran through the geyser, until the fire department came and shut it off.  Didn't everyone cool off this way?

I grew up, got married and introduced my suburban husband to the ways of city life.  Then something happened.  We wanted to buy a house.  We made the big step and bought a bungalow in the suburbs.  Then we had a baby and then another.  We bought a bigger house in a bigger suburb close to my husband's job and even farther from the city. 

My children have never waited at a bus stop,  they have never been to a dirty beach or sweltered on public transportation.  At night their rooms are dark and deadly quiet.  We don't have an alley and they don't play in the street.  I'm not sure they know what a tavern looks like and they most certainly have never seen an open, spewing fire hydrant.

They don't know what they've missed.  I do and it makes me sad.