Day One
I traveled from Minneapolis to Chicago on Saturday, got the rental car and on to the hotel. I barely took any time to look around as I was a bit tired of being on the go. Also, the Razorbacks are playing down to their competition, so I really need to get in front of a television and do a better job of influencing from the sidelines. The hotel is nice and they’re hosting a wedding. At check-in, I was asked if I was with the wedding party. I was tempted to say “yes” based on the menu for the reception, but I decided to pull the Razorbacks through to victory instead. And they needed all the help they could get. Goodness gracious.
Day Two
I have a rare “day off” today. Scheduling happens that way every once in a while. So, I wake up at my usual time but without the alarm, and that is just pure bliss, isn’t it? I am scheduled to meet up with my former client Mark and his wife Kathy for lunch and I’m excited to go. We’re having authentic Italian food, and I let Kathy order for me. I’ve already forgotten the name of the actual pasta I had, but it was fantastic and served in enormous portions. Mark and Kathy both shared their plates with me, so I had some great lasagna and another pasta dish with shrimp. We also had baked clams, which were a new thing for me, but dadgummit, they were fantastic. The lasagna was good, but I’m spoiled with my mother’s lasagna, which she learned to make in Italy from her Italian neighbors. Dad was stationed at Aviano Air Force Base, but they lived off-base in the nearby town. She learned to make a mean spaghetti there, too. Mark and I worked together in December of 2023, and he’s headed to campus in the last part of this month for his first Leader Dog. Very exciting times for him.
Day Three
I’m in town to work with Luis, a former on-campus client who has requested some work with the public transportation system here to get into the city for the Fire and Cubs games. For those of you who don’t follow, the Fire is Chicago’s Major League Soccer team, and the Cubs, well, they have this little place on the north side. The happiest place on earth, as far as I’m concerned. We spent today making sure that he’s getting to and from the bus station well, and across the street to the train station. He’s doing well in that area as he’s been getting some orientation and mobility (O&M) training from the Chicago Lighthouse.
If you’re reading this, get all the O&M you can get from anyone who offers it. Even if you’ve been to Leader or from me on the road, keep receiving all the services you can. We get you for a week, but the instruction you can get from folks at Lighthouses and state service for the blind is extremely valuable. It’s obvious that Rebecca from the Lighthouse has been doing a great job with Luis and I certainly hope she picks up after I’m gone. He’ll need it.
So, the plan for tomorrow is to take the train into town in the morning and start working on getting around Union Station and to the el for routes to Soldier Field (Fire) and Wrigley Field (Cubs), but maybe just Union Station. Don’t want to bite off more than we can chew.
Day four
O&M can be so linear, and I love it. Yesterday, Luis and I worked on the route from the bus to the train station. Today, we walked that route, got on the train, and rode to Union Station. Tomorrow, we’re going to go from Union Station to el stops around town. I love this job. I really do. I’ve never done anything else for real money, and I don’t want to.
So, we rode the train into town, to Union Station, and then Luis used his visual memory (the memories he has stored up from his time as a sighted person) to direct me out of the immense, multi-level building, to two different el stops, and many other intricacies of the “big city”.
A couple of things stood out to me:
- Holding your head up and looking around you while you’re traveling, whether you’re blind or not is so very important. If Luis had not been so observant while he had vision, and even while he was slowly losing it, he would not have these visual memories. Get your heads up, people! Pay attention to your surroundings! You’ll be safer, for one, and you’ll be much better off as free human beings, alive, on the earth!
- If you can auditorily analyze an intersection, you can cross streets literally anywhere in the world. Luis hadn’t been in downtown Chicago for at least four years, maybe more, he’s not sure. But he crossed some major intersections today because he knows how to listen to traffic and determine a safe crossing.
On our way back to Union Station we passed Giordano’s, home of a great deep-dish pizza. It just so happens; it was time to eat. When you pass Giordano’s, it’s pretty easy to make it time to eat.
Fortified by our deep dish, we went back through Union Station, exited onto a completely different street, and located another El stop. Back in Union Station again and on our way back to our train, I thought I recognized some architecture. By the way, Union Station in Chicago is a beautiful building and very well preserved. The Great Hall inside is truly a sight to see.
Has anyone reading this ever seen the movie “The Untouchables”? With Kevin Costner and Robert DeNiro portraying Elliot Ness and Al Capone? A true story about Prohibition-era Chicago. Very good stuff. A great role played by Sean Connery, right Tommy? Anyway, the scene from the movie where Ness and one of his lieutenants capture Al Capone’s bookkeeper in the train station was filmed right there in Union Station.
On our way back to Elgin, we were on the train with everyone else in the city trying to avoid rush hour, which starts around 3:30 p.m. in Chicago. We were blessed to find a seat before the washed and unwashed masses hit the train. Elgin is the last stop on our route today and the gentle bouncing of the train (coupled with the deep dish) lulled me to a quick nap. I only missed one stop, but it refreshed me for the remainder of my day. If you’ve never slept on a train, well, you just haven’t lived a full life yet. While taking a train nap, I missed a train stop one time on a run up the East Coast and slept in the downtown Baltimore train station overnight, but that’s a story for another blog.
Day five
We drove to an el park and rode and then took the el to the south side of Chicago. No, I did not meet Leroy Brown, but according to Jim Croce, I wouldn’t be able to anyway because of the incident in the nightclub. Tommy, I sure hope you’re reading this…
We got off the el and took a bus to Soldier Field. Again, Luis’ memory of the area served us so well. He knew right where everything was supposed to be. We walked the entire perimeter of Soldier Field, took our picture with George Halas, and searched in vain for the statue of Walter Payton. Like Meatloaf says: “two outta three ain’t bad.”
Soldier Field is right across the street, literally, from the Field Museum, which is a wonderful place to go. I went there some time ago and saw the lions made famous in the movie “Ghosts in the Darkness”. As the narrator says: “When you look in their eyes, you will be afraid.” I was. I think about them a little too much, as evidenced by my going on about them now.
Luis and I didn’t go there, but we did catch our bus back to the el station on that side of the street. We had lunch and then went across the street to take Luis’ picture outside his favorite ESPN radio station. He’s a frequent caller on the show and is known as “Tio Luis”, a term of affection from his nieces and nephews.
He has a Bears jersey on today that has “Tio Luis” emblazoned on the back. The wall of the radio station facing the street has a clear view of the studio and the on-air personalities, and when Luis turned toward me for his photo, the hosts both recognized the name on his jersey and spoke about him in the air. He’s a local celebrity. Luis is almost as crazy about sports as I am, but I’m not known anywhere, except maybe in my home. I’m in busy downtown Chicago and radio personalities are calling out his name. Nice.
We take the el back to the park and ride which doubles as a bus stop. We worked on the bus stops in which Luis was interested and somehow I figured out how to get out of the parking lot. I want to mention that this travel that Luis is doing is pretty high-level stuff. He’s on a train platform with drop-offs on both sides, stairs, escalators, elevators, train doors and location seats, somehow deciphering the information coming over the loudspeaker on the train and the platform and navigating inside the station. Plus, crossing streets in downtown Chicago, dodging pedestrians and vehicles. For an O&M specialist like me, it hits a lot of the areas of travel that we could want in one day. Or two or three.
Day six
We drive to one of Luis’ old neighborhoods closer to the city to maximize our training time. The bus and train are great training grounds, but it is quite a bit of sitting around. Not that I mind sitting around a bit, but we’ve got stuff to do!
In his old neighborhood, we cross some streets, look up a pub where his friend works, and then go investigate yet another el stop. He knows exactly how it’s set up and where everything should be. And I could say this about any day on public transit in Chicago, but the transit staff have been incredibly helpful. Not just for Luis, but me also. Answering all my questions, helping me figure out which ticket to purchase, etc. Just really helpful folks, all-around.
So, we’re here to practice taking the el (Brown Line to Red Line to the Addison exit) so we can get to Wrigley Field. Anyone who knows me knows I’m a die-hard Cubs fan and would not be above conniving my way into seeing a Cubs game while I’m in town. However, this is exactly what Luis asked for. He wanted to feel better about his ability to take the train, bus, el, etc. specifically to get to Soldier Field and Wrigley Field. While I’m getting extremely personal gratification from this particular O&M lesson, we’re doing O&M. And, tomorrow, we’re going to reward ourselves with a game at Wrigley, putting all our work from the week together into one trip. It’s going to be a great day!
Wrigleyville isn’t too busy when we arrive because they play a night game tonight, but there are plenty of folks around. And the streets aren’t straight. This is a complex travel environment. We traveled to a store that I follow online called “Obvious Shirts”. They’ve made a killing making shirts about sports that have, well, obvious sayings on them. Sayings like “I miss Anthony Rizzo”, “Try harder not to suck”, and “Mark Grace is still my favorite” are some of my favorites.
The door is locked but there’s a sign asking any potential shoppers to call the number below and someone will cross the street from the warehouse and help. I did, and Collin showed up in about five minutes. We shopped, I purchased items, and we headed back toward the el.
Luis suggested a lunch spot close to the el, a place he used to eat after games. I’ll have to ask Luis for the name again, but I could walk you right to it. I had a torta that was as big as my head and so, so good.
I had dinner with my good friends Jeff and Kim tonight. Eating out is great and all, and I’m blessed to have my meals paid for but it gets old pretty quickly. Kim cooked a wonderful home-cooked meal, and I enjoyed myself immensely. Jeff and I played rugby together about 1,000 years ago and Kim got me tickets to my very first Cubs game, which occurred on my birthday. Can it get any better than that? We’ve been friends ever since and it was so good to see familiar faces out on the road, especially these two faces!
Day seven
When I picked up Luis at his house this morning, it would have been hard to mistake us for anything else but Cubs fans on our way to a game. He was decked out in a Cubs version of the “Tio Luis” special and I’m wearing my brand new (still kind of scratchy) Cubs t-shirt.
Now, don’t get ahead of yourselves, here. Despite my giddiness concerning the result, we worked today. We went into town again and worked some intersections with audible pedestrian signals. All of these are different. There ought to be a law that makes them all operate the same. I feel the same way about elevator buttons. The numbers ought to be in the same place on every elevator. Alas, no one is asking me about these decisions. Regardless, pushing a button at a stop-light-controlled intersection is supposed to lengthen the walk signal, so I suggest to everyone to push them before crossing the street, if you know they’re there. If you don’t know, don’t go hunting for something that may not be there all the while losing your alignment. It’s a fine line, and every intersection is different.
Luis suggests that we head over toward Wrigley, so we take the el from the same stop as yesterday (the first repeat of the week) and make our way to the friendly confines. What a difference 24 hours make! It was so busy, it looked like someone kicked an anthill. People everywhere.
A great mobility challenge is to be able to do all the things you’ve practiced under stressful circumstances and we got that in spades. In crowds, it’s usually a good idea to shorten up on your cane (or choke up, as my dad taught me to do when I had two strikes on me) and not swing as wide as you normally do. In such crowds as we had today, Luis wasn’t going to go anywhere fast anyway, so he didn’t need nearly as much reaction time as he usually does. We are sitting on the upper level so we’ve got stairs, ramps and elevators to negotiate, as well as the millions (seems like) of other fans, all seemingly going in the opposite direction as us!
We locate our seats about an hour before the first pitch, which is exactly what my dad would have loved. He always wanted to see the groundskeepers prepare the field and I inherited that desire. I volunteered to narrate the game to Luis, but he declined, just wanting to soak it all in. He promised he would ask if he needed extra information. I’ve done this for people before. Clients and friends alike, and I really enjoy it. But Luis knows enough about the game of baseball to keep track of what’s happening without my interruptions. Another great way to do it is to take a small radio and listen to the radio broadcast.
Radio announcers are always so much more descriptive than TV folks. They have to be able to paint the picture to those who can’t see it, for whatever reason.
The weather is perfect and I’m at a day game at Wrigley, just like God intended. The Cubs beat the Nationals three to one and are still in contention for a wild-card berth. Hanging on by a very thin fingernail, but still in the hunt. I’ve been to three games now, and they’re undefeated when I’m at Wrigley. I should attend more games! We stay long enough to sing Steve Goodman’s “Go Cubs Go” and head out with the crowd.
Luis suggested that we take a bus to a different el stop, avoiding some crowds and he was right. As he has been all week. We hit rush hour for the first time this week getting out of the city, and I’ve got to pack and get to the airport by five-ish tomorrow morning.
Luis is going to do great. I’m really looking forward to hearing about his exploits on the el. He had the skills and the desire. Now he has confidence as well. Boy, I’ve got a great job! I’m headed to Morrisville, PA next trip. I’ll talk to y’all next time.