Sun, Friends, and Universities

Thursday and Friday, Oct. 28 & 29, 2011--Chicago and Suburbs

The sun came out just before noon on Thursday.  I stayed inside doing things until then.  The sun makes such a big difference.  Although the temperature was still in the low 50s, it felt comfortable.  The lack of wind helped there, too.

I took the train to Evanston.  I wandered looking for a place to eat.  I couldn't find anything interesting that was local and family-owned, so I stopped at Five Guys Burgers which I have heard so many people rave about.  They serve a burger with all items free.  It comes with patties that look hand-pressed, but I have toured a meat packing plant in Corpus Christi where they had "free-form" metal outlines for making "hand-pressed" patties for Dairy Queen!!  The burger was good, and it was a decent price for it--two patties, grilled onions, tomato, pickle, grilled mushrooms, lettuce, jalepenos, mayonnaise, and mustard--at $5.49.  Where they get you is their drinks which are all priced at $2.09 and are smaller than a "medium" would be in Texas.  Fries adds even more onto the price, but I didn't need the calories and, therefore, saved that additional money.

I went to the Mather Pavilion, a nursing home, first after eating to visit Jean Petty.  I know her because of being a friend of the family.  Her son Wes is one of my best friends.  I am also a friend with her other son Andre and have met two of her daughters.  I know Jean from visits to Texas and from a visit I made to their home in Chattanooga.  She was sleeping when I arrived and was quite unsure of everything at first.  I told her I was Randy from Texas and that Wes and I were good friends.  I tried to remind her that we had met in Texas and in Tennessee.  Because I mentioned Wes' name several times while telling her all of this, I think she may have trought I was Wes.  I wrote him later telling him that he probably got a "freebie" with her thinking he had come to visit her.  I took her a box of chocolates which she enjoyed.  That was part of what helped perk her up.  By the time I left 20 minutes later, her eyes were wide open and she seemed happy.  Her caregiver had arrived and was facilitating the conversation.

From the nursing home I walked a few blocks to Northwestern University which I had never visited before.  It is a beautiful lakeside campus.  There are lots of limestone buildings, a few modern ones, and, unfortunately, a few concrete bunker style ones from the 1960s with designs that make me think of  Communist architecture.  It's a huge and impressive campus.  There are many church buildings on campus.

After that, I explored more of Evanston.  I kept thinking about the fact that there was little there that would be low-cost.  That made me wonder how much of student loans is wasted on living the good life while being a student.  Restaurants where it is common to spend $20 per person or more were filled with students.  And there were lots of $4 drinks being consumed by students at Starbucks.  I don't guess there are many American students anymore who cook their own meals, live 2-to-a-bedroom in apartments, etc., (other than Indians and other foreign students).

One nice thing I discovered in Evanston was a news stand.  They hardly exist anymore.  My favorite store in Commerce when I was growing up was the news stand.  I loved to see the newspapers from various cities and the magazines covering all kinds of topics.  Even today I remain a news junkie with about 10 websites for newspapers posted on my instant tab bar of my computer.

I was supposed to meet Andre, Jean's son, at 6:00 p.m., so I just slowly walked back toward Chicago exploring along the way down Chicago Avenue and Ashland St.  It started sprinkling just a block before I got to the Heartland Cafe where we were to meet, and I was still an hour early.  Rather than walk further or go inside and wait so long, I just got on the train and took a 30 minute ride, then got on a return train.  As I walked up to the door of the restaurant, a man with an umbrella was standing there to close it before entering.  It was Andre.  Rather than go inside, we just got in his car and left.

We drove to Wilmette which is further north from Evanston.  On the way, we passed by the Baha'i Temple, a well-known landmark of suburban northern Chicago which is a beautiful, large structure.  Andre runs a community service for the elderly, and he is presently staying with one of his volunteers who has had foot surgery and needs assistance cleaning and re-bandaging the wound daily.  Jim is elderly himself and used to be a professional photographer for TWA Airlines.  He had lots of stories to tell about his photography and his life.  And Andre and I who had not seen each other for about 5 years had lots of stories to tell in catching up on our friendship.  The three of us had dinner there at the house.  And because of the late hour and the distance back into town, I just stayed out there for the evening.
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Friday morning, Andre drove me back to my apartment before heading to his office.  I cleaned up and went out for a day in Chicago.  I headed downtown to the Fourth Presbyterian Church for an organ concert I had seen advertised on a poster outside the church as I was walking on Wednesday.  I didn't realize at the time that this church is rather famous for its concerts and has been recognized in print and on TV for them.  It was the church organist playing, and he had planned a concert of ghoulish music to go with the Halloween weekend.  He started with the piece that was used as the theme song for The Phantom of the Opera.  Of course, it sounded much better on the big church organ and inside the big church than it does on that YouTube link!  It was an hour-long concert with an encore of The Addams Family theme song in which we were asked to do the finger snapping.

From there I headed to Millenium Park.  It has opened since the last time I was in Chicago, and there have been rave reviews of it.  I can see why.  The park is a wonder to see.  A small park, they have taken advantage of design plans such as amusement parks use to avoid wasting space.  And the features they have all have a wow-factor that makes a visitor feel he has seen something special.

Next stop was the Union Station area to wander around.  Immediately, I saw a restaurant with a sign showing a luncheon special of an Italian Beef Sandwich including cola and chips for $6.00.  Since that is one of Chicago's specialties that I had been told to try, I had it.  UMMM.  It was a big bun first filled with lots of grated mozzarella cheese, then layered with steaming, thinly sliced beef, and finally topped with pickled jalepenos.  It was great.  The steaming beef melted the cheese and all the flavors mixed nicely.

I decided to spend the rest of the day exploring the University of Chicago and the area around it.  It and Northwestern are the two great universities of this area.  UC has an ivy-covered campus for the most part.  There weren't many students around because it was late Friday afternoon, but I walked the campus enjoying the atmosphere.

From there, I wandered the neighborhood seeing the nice Hyde Park neighborhood houses.  Built in the 1920s and 1930s, they are impressive homes.  I was able to see the Obama home which can be viewed from the end of the block which is closed by the Secret Service.  Two Frank Lloyd Wright homes were among the buildings I saw on and off the campus in that area.

It was 5:30 and starting to get dark by the time I caught the bus to return to town.  I sat beside a young man who was maybe 16.  He turned to me and asked, "Are you afraid?"  That's because the university is in a section of town populated mostly by Blacks and the bus had only a couple of Chinese students and me with the rest being Black.  My response was, "No, why?"  He didn't reply.  I just think he thought it unusual and funny for a white guy to be on a bus in that part of town at that time of day.

I was exhausted by then.  I just returned home by train after getting off the bus downtown.  My feet were sore and tired, and my body felt like it needed sleep.  I spent time on the computer and went to bed around 9:00 and slept for 12 hours!!