When I think about the weather, two sayings come immediately to mind. Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. And, if you don’t like the weather in Chicago, wait a minute.
I’ve been thinking about the summer weather in Chicago a lot lately. Mainly, because no one has really complained about it lately.
I think about this lack of commentary because the last two winters people have really complained about how cold and snowy Chicago has been. People said they have never seen such a frigid winter before or so much snow before. But I remember Chicago winters as cold and snowy. Then, suddenly, winters warmed up somewhat and everyone forgot about the bitter, cold Chicago winters. Or they weren’t born yet. Otherwise, they would think of our last two winters as average.
Surprisingly, no one seems to comment on the severe thunderstorms we’ve had lately. I’ve lived in Chicago some fifty years now and I can honestly say I have never seen thunderstorms as severe as the ones we’ve had in the last few weeks. Sure, I’ve slept through most of them, but when I wake up, I see my flooded backyard and downed trees everywhere in my neighborhood when I go running. Yet, no one mentions how bad these storms have been.
I went to visit one of my old haunts today because I had a taste for Al’s Italian beef. While eating my Italian beef from Al’s Beef and trying not to drip on my shirt, I looked across the street and saw Mario’s Italian Lemonade. The sign wasn’t up yet, but I’ve been there so many times that I know exactly what frozen delectable delights this summer haven offers to the sweaty throngs on a hot summer day. People like me, with absolutely no will power whatsoever, will stuff themselves at one of the restaurants on Taylor Street and then go to Mario’s for Italian ice. So now that I’ve gotten myself all worked up, I can’t wait till Mario’s opens on May first.
And just for the fun of it, I thought I would cross the street and take a picture of Mario’s Italian Lemonade stand to post on Facebook before I went to teach my last Spanish class of the day at UIC. I took a couple of pictures with my iPhone and started walking back to UIC. Suddenly, I hear someone yelling, “Mr. Photographer! Mr. Photographer!” I look back, but I can’t locate who was yelling through the crowd on Taylor Street. As I’m walking back, I see a man in a blue shirt waving at me. I’m not sure, but I have this strange feeling that I’m about to walk into trouble.
The man asks me, “Did you just take pictures of my place?” “Uh, yeah,” I said nervously. “Are you from the newspaper?” he asked. “Uh, no,” I said, confused. He wanted to know why I was taking pictures of his place. I began to wonder, too.
Apparently, someone from some newspaper was coming out to take pictures of his Italian lemonade stand for a feature article and he thought I might be the photographer. I was flattered because this was the first time I was ever confused for a photographer. My faithful blog readers who have seen the pictures I’ve posted know exactly what I mean.
Well, I must admit that we had an interesting encounter. He introduced himself as Mario, the actual Mario in the flesh, owner of Mario’s Italian Lemonade stand. As a lifelong Chicagoan, I can truly say that I was in awe as I shook the hand of the purveyor of Chicago’s best Italian ice! He was curious as to why I took pictures of the stand. I was too embarrassed to tell him that I was going to post the picture on Facebook. Then, right at that precise moment, a brilliant idea crossed my mind. I would write today’s blog entry about Mario’s Italian Lemonade! But I didn’t tell Mario! I still couldn’t get up the nerve to reveal my true intentions.
I asked Mario if I could take his picture in front of his stand, and he agreed smiling happily. As we walked back, he asked me if I was Hispanic. When I said I was Mexican, he said he could tell. He said the secret of his success was his wife, who is Mexican. It turns out her family is from Guanajuato, México. He smiled when I told him my father’s family was also from Guanajuato.
He posed willingly. However, I think he was a little disappointed that I wasn’t a photographer from a newspaper. As I was taking his picture, I told him that his stand looked strange without people standing in line. He agreed and said he couldn’t wait to open.
I can’t wait either. I need an Italian ice. Right now! I hope you like lemons if you go there. You see, no matter what flavor Italian ice you order, –watermelon, pineapple, whatever–they all have lemon inside. And that’s exactly what I love about Mario’s Italian ice!
I have never studied or trained to be a theatre (or theater) critic. And yet, I am about to review a play I went to see today at the UIC Theater. I saw In the Blood because I love going to the UIC Theatre to see plays produced by our university. Well, I’m on campus anyway, so it’s very convenient. And few people I know like going to plays anyway. And the people I know who like plays never seem to be available at the same time as me. So, I always see the plays at the UIC Theatre alone. Well, not actually alone. I mean, there is an audience that includes other people besides me. Occasionally, I meet students I know, and we chat a while. But otherwise, I go alone.
Well, In the Blood is loosely based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter that I had to read in high school but didn’t because I was too busy rebelling as an adolescent. But I did read it years later, on my own and again in college as part of my English major. For some reason, I still remember the story well. The play I saw today merely took the principal elements of The Scarlet Letter and juxtaposed them in our era. The updated Hester Prynne becomes an African American single mother on welfare. And she also has a child out of wedlock. Five times. With five different fathers. Much to her disgrace! The father of her fifth child is an African American minister who is afraid the scandal would ruin his success with his flock who have just constructed a new church. Shades of Pastor Arthur Dimmesdale indeed!
I’m not sure whether or not I liked the play. I spent most of the play recalling The Scarlet Letter to make a connection with In the Blood. There were enough allusions to Hawthorne to keep me interested. But there were also enough original ideas and controversial topics to keep the play engaging. I did enjoy the set that suggested the ambience of the residence of the homeless who lived under a bridge. The set was vaguely reminiscent of the homeless when they lived on lower Wacker Drive years ago. But the play could take place in just about any large American city.
One of my favorite fried chicken places in Chicago is Harold’s Chicken.
The first time I ate at Harold’s was about twenty years ago. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. I don’t even remember which one I went to the first time. It was somewhere on the south side, perhaps around 71st and State. I ordered the 1/2 chicken dinner. They literally gave me half a chicken. When they asked me if I wanted hot or mild sauce, I asked for the mild sauce because I wasn’t sure how hot the hot sauce would be or if I would even like it. I watched as they prepared my order. I got my half chicken with French fries on a slice of white bread and a small Styrofoam cup of cole slaw that was warmed by the chicken–I’m used to eating my cole slaw cold. Then the cook put the mild sauce on the chicken, the fries, and the bread with a two-inch paintbrush. Yes, the kind you and I use to paint a house. I suppose it’s sanitary if they only use it for putting hot or mild sauce on chicken. I loved how good chicken tasted that I often went back to Harold’s Chicken to eat. I think the paintbrush added that je ne sais quoi.
The first time I ate at Harold’s, I thought the slice of bread was a rather peculiar addition to the meal. I mean, it was underneath the chicken and the fries, so the sauce dripped all over the white bread. But when I ate the slice of white bread, it was delicious! Now, I look forward to the slice of white bread.
Over the years, I have eaten at other Harold’s Chicken restaurants. And I always order the half-chicken dinner with fries, warm cole slaw, and one slice of white bread. When I taught at Columbia College Chicago, I often ate at the Harold’s on Wabash and Balbo. You could actually sit down and eat there, but it was always so crowded and homeless people would always ask for money. After a while, they just ignored me–probably because I just ignored them. My only real complaint about this Harold’s Chicken was that they didn’t put mild or hot sauce on the chicken with a paintbrush.
I love music! But I don’t know very much about music. In fact, thousands upon thousands of music books have been written about everything that I do NOT know about music. And I am proud to say that I have never read even one of those books! Even though I love music so much.
I really do love music. I listen to music almost every waking moment. But I listen to different kinds of music, depending on where I am. When I’m at UIC, I listen to rock on my iPhone. When I’m driving, I listen to the oldies. However, whenever I’m home, I listen to 98.7 WFMT. All the time! Even when I’m sleeping. And I always crank up WFMT all the way to eleven. Except when I’m sleeping. Listening to classical music allows me to read or write, or even correct Spanish compositions. I don’t know much about classical music either, even though I listen to it all the time.
Even though I’m not qualified to critique music, I would like to tell you about a concert I attended at the Chicago Symphony Center. I went to see Beyond the Score that explained the structure and meaning of Sergei Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead. The orchestra played the works of other composers who influenced Rachmaninov for this piece. It was a multi-media presentation, so there was a giant screen to show pictures of the painting Isle of the Dead that also influenced this piece as the story was narrated. I sat in the third row right in the middle of the screen. When the conductor Vladimir Jurowski came out, he stood right in the middle of the screen, illuminated by it from behind. This ominous sight made such an impression on me that I wanted to take out my camera and take a picture. But I managed to refrain myself. I regret it now. I should have lived a little more dangerously and taken the picture anyway!
So why do I love music so much? I’m not really sure. Why do I especially love classical music even though I don’t understand it? Okay, you really got me on that one!
However, if I think really hard, I picture Sister Cecilia from my grade school days at Holy Cross. Sister Cecilia was the music director for our school. She would teach the school songs for Sunday mass, for Christmas, and–her favorite holiday–the pastor’s birthday. For Father Edward’s birthday, the school would meet in the assembly hall at least twice a week and we would sing a special birthday song that Sister Cecilia prepared just for him. She would take a current top forty hit and change the lyrics just for Father Edward. For example, one year, she took “Georgie Girl” and we sang “Hey there, Father Edward …” Another year, “What’s It All about, Alfie?” became, “What’s It All about, Father Edward?” Pretty clever, huh? Unfortunately, I can’t remember the rest of the lyrics to these wonderful songs or any of the other songs we sang for Father Edward’s birthday.
Sister Cecilia went through great pains to teach the entire school these songs. When we met to rehearse, she would pass out the sheet music with her new, improved lyrics. She was very demanding. We would stand at attention while we sang, and she would walk among our ranks ensuring that everyone sang. She would tell us, “Open your mouth wide when you sing! I should be able to put a silver dollar in your mouth when you sing!” Things didn’t always go smoothly. Sometimes she would yell at us if too many students sang out of key. She would yell, “Look at the music! If the note goes up, your voice goes up, too!” I always sang at my best when she stood directly in front of me. The rest of the time I merely lip-synced the words. I was ahead of my time.
When we got a new pastor, Father Mikolaitis, she didn’t seem that enthusiastic about his birthday celebration. In fact, we never called our new pastor by his first name.
In the seventh and eighth grades, we took a music appreciation class, taught by none other than Sister Cecilia. I actually enjoyed this class. I don’t remember much from this class. Well, I do remember f – a – c – e and every good boy does fine, but other than that, not much. My favorite part of the class was learning about the orchestra. She would place the phonograph that came in a box that always reminded me of a traveling valise. She would put it on her desk and play a 78-rpm record. The narrator described all the instruments of the orchestra one by one. Each instrument would demonstrate its range and what it could play. I was truly fascinated by this information. To this day, I recognize most of the instruments of the orchestra. Sometimes, I like to amaze my friends with my knowledge of music while we listen to classical music, despite them insisting that we listen to something else. Ever the veritable font of wisdom that I am, I will correctly point out, “Did you hear that instrument? THAT was a triangle!” And they’ll stare at me with their mouth gaping. Because I know that they’re utterly amazed by my knowledge of classical music and the orchestra!
Chicago USA 