Last Sunday I had breakfast on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building. Yesterday, I had breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in London, Kentucky. In between I went to book stores in Chicago, raked leaves and rode bicycles in Indianapolis, and went to an Appleseed Shoot in Maynardville, Tennessee. I've been such a busy little blogger.
Just below your northern horizon was the old Lincoln Park Gun Club, a relic of the days when Chicago was gun friendly to honest men and women as well as to the Mob.
ReplyDeleteThe club was shut down in 1991 by an obscure city bureaucart named Roland Burris.
The LPGC was home club to Carolla Mandel, the first woman to win a world skeet title.
I visited a friend on the North Shore once. She lived in one of those huge megalopoli where the lobby is a block square and has more marble per square foot than a Roman villa.
ReplyDeleteThe supermarket, shopping mall, and health club were on the second floor, a few restaurants on the third, along with some business offices.
There was a garden, a sunbathing area, another restaurant, and a running track on the roof. Stick a generator in the basement and they could have started issuing visas to tourists at the gate.
Without getting into ethnicity, let's just say everybody in the place had lots of money and voted Democrat.
Scary, and that was before I read Pournelle's Oath Of Fealty. Todos Santos indeed. Chicago is a place I'm just as happy to drive through.
What? No Waffle House in between?
ReplyDeleteYou know, Chicago gets a bad rap for its politics, but it's actually a great city full of great people. I like Chicago.
ReplyDeleteAnd ten years from now, the corruption of its political system will be unchanged, but gun rights there will look radically different.
At the far top end of the picture is where I used to live, 6 blocks west of Sheridan road in the PR evanston. A town full of silly uber-liberal (redundant?) people and sillier laws.
ReplyDeleteI am glad to be away from there.
I drove to Minneapolis a week ago, am still trying to recover from the funk THAT put me in.
Glad you made it out alive, Tam.
Holy crap, Tam. I saw Hancock building and thought you meant this one...
ReplyDeleteI'd just bet the breakfast at the Cracker Barrel was the better deal and better taste. Yankees in Chicago don't know what a grit is.
ReplyDelete"I'd just bet the breakfast at the Cracker Barrel was the better deal and better taste."
ReplyDeleteHmmm, a lot may be subjective but I vote "no" as to both.
Imagine breakfast streching off into infinity--fruit, hotcakes, omelets, prime rib, sausages, and cheesecake, never ending coffee, Eli's cheesecake and then there was the other Eli cheesecake. That is the breakfast bunch at the Hancock.
Tam did roll her eyes when I pulled my chair up to the omelet station and then made happy food noises while eating the Eli's cheesecake.
"Yankees in Chicago don't know what a grit is."
Got me there. I'll trade quality, fresh food from the Hancock for grits any day. However, Mimi's in Knoxville will give a Yankee joint a run for its money, even on Yankee terms.
But I'll trade darn near anything for Eli's cheesecake. Have I mentioned the cheesecake?
Shootin' Buddy
I guess it is subjective but you couldn't pay my way, round trip, and buy the food if I have to go to Chicago for anything. I visited there many years ago and found the people to be both abusive and bigotted and I don't think I'll go back.
ReplyDeleteHad to forego the Appleseed, more's the pity since it was only two counties over. give us an in-depth report when you can.
ReplyDeleteDid someone say "cheesecake"?
"Yankees in Chicago don't know what a grit is."
ReplyDeleteWTF is a grit? Do you mean, like, sandpaper?
;)
ChiTown is a big city - after living here most of my life, there is still much to explore. There are good parts, bad parts (2x4 anyone?), corruption, beauty, and all shades in between.
Chicago gave us the UofC school of economics (Milton Friedman), as well as the Daley's. In short, like most things interesting, it is complex and multifaceted and takes a bit to get used to.