It's The Little Things In Life...

Since my shower curtain was becoming a health hazard, I took the opportunity to replace it with a brand new Chicago Transit Authority shower curtain, as seen in the photograph on the left.  It definitely gives you something to look at while you are sitting there on the toilet in the mornings, as I often do.  For me, it brings back many memories, such as the stop where I would get off while attending the Illinois Institute of Technology (35th Street, which is also where Comiskey Park, or whatever it is called now, is located), not to mention the Addision (Wrigley Field) stop on the north side of town.  It also makes me remember how the "El" train would curve around St. Bernard's Hospital close to 63rd Street, where I was born and had some unhappy stays when I was a youngster.  During one of those stays, the kid in the next crib and I decided to make a break for it, but we only got as far as the elevator before we were captured. Even at that young age, I knew that when it was time to leave, it was time to leave.

But most of all, sitting there, contemplating these various "El" train stops, my eyes are drawn to the Lake and Harlem stop in Forest Park, the end of the line and only a block from the location of my first apartment.  It was a studio at 7416 Franklin, directly across the street from both the "El" train barn and the Daisy Hill meatpacking plant.  I loved that apartment, and on my days off I could get to downtown Chicago in 15 minutes.  Forest Park, by the way, has more people there that are dead than alive, thanks to it's many cemeteries. Years ago, a circus train ran head on into another train near Forest Park, killing many animals and circus performers.  Many of these performers were buried in Forest Park, and since nobody knew the real names of many of these people, there are a lot of headstones with inscriptions like "Bobo the Clown" or "Vanessa the Trapeze Artist." And at night, people sometimes hear the sound of lions roaring and elephants bugling, which they attribute to the ghosts of the animals that died there. Of course, cynics say that since Brookfield Zoo is only about 10 miles away, what they are really hearing are those zoo animals when the wind is just right.  Don't believe it. And by the way, the photograph on the right is a self portrait I took in April of 2009, in front of that very same apartment building on Franklin Street, when I returned to visit Chicago after a 27 year absence.  It is all covered in my international bestseller The Journey Home: Returning to Chicago, which amazingly enough is still available to view (or for that matter buy) at http://www.blurb.com/b/1361398-the-journey-home-returning-to-chicago. Definitely time for another visit.