Dangers of an Idle Mind

Spud and Moochy arrive Saturday for a visit. It reminded me of an unfinished blog piece from about six months ago. That was in the middle of the longest time we had ever gone without seeing each other. I found the piece and here it is: The four Rolls Royce engines on the Virgin Airbus A340 decrease in pitch and the plane noticeably slows. Beneath the wings the blue waters of Lake Michigan give way to the flat grid of the north suburbs; a buzz of excitement passes through the cabin as the aircraft banks right to start it’s loop into the airport. Two thousand feet below, on the back-step of a rented suburban family house, sits a solitary man enjoying the contrast between the warm early May sun on his face with the cool glass of the French doors on his back. He is strumming ‘Kingston Town’ on an old worn guitar. It is not unusual to find him there while the daily Virgin Airbus from London turns over St Charles and follows the broad line of Lake Street into O’Hare. By the time the airliner...

We left at ten minutes to nine in the morning. The city took sympathy on us and did its best to let us out painlessly, unlike when we had arrived seven days earlier. There is no other city I have seen where the skyline does so much to define its nature. At times it seems so compact you could imagine it is inside the glass dome of a snow-globe, just waiting to be shaken up. As we drove down the Kennedy, the monumental buildings increased in size as we passed by their feet, until we got to Sears Tower. Then faster than they had grown they fell away again. The Kennedy became the Dan Ryan and the soullessly named US Cellular Field appeared on our right. After that it was foot down and head for Indiana. We turned 90 degrees at the bottom of Lake Michigan, the sun shone and the lake was sparkling blue in the distance. We left Illinois via the Chicago Skyway. Sounding futuristic and romantic, the reality is the heavy industrial iron design of the bridge never allows you the feeling that you a...