Back in the days of slow cars and narrow highways, it was a long trip, those 150 miles or so to Chicago. It was our big vacation - my dad left the hired man do the milking for a couple of days and we would drive down to Chicago to visit my cousins and Uncle Emil Waelti, the kid who left the farm for the big city.
Today, with fast cars and broad highways, it's just a quick jaunt. With the improved Illinois tollway, and an "I-Pass," allowing you to sail through toll stops, you can easily reach the northwest edge in two hours. When my wife was a senior flight attendant flying out of Chicago, we acquired a house near Midway Airport, a reason for an occasional trip to that interesting burg.
Chicago, where, according to that song, a man was once seen dancing with his wife. "City of the Broad Shoulders," personified by Mike Ditka and Dick Butkus. Recent Bears coach Trestman could never fit in.
Chicago's history goes back to the Chicago Portage, and includes figures such as Mrs. O'Leary's cow that started the Chicago fire, and "Scarface" Al Capone. My high school classmate, Alan Hixson, billing himself as "The Other Big Al," now resides in northern Wisconsin near where the original Big Al vacationed to relieve stress from his Chicago "business ventures."
Before the Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee, southern Wisconsin was Chicago Cubs country. The White Sox were just too far south.
A few years ago, I was innocently walking our dog in our neighborhood near Midway. Some kids were playing, and a little girl looked at me in shock, "Mister, that's a Cubs leash on that dog." Yikes, I forgot. Here I was, deep in the heart of White Sox territory, with a dog leash covered with Cubs logos. I took the coward's way out, assuring her that it was my wife's error.
Chicago, the "Windy City" - how did it get that name? No, not because of the weather. It's less windy than Boston, and only marginally windier than New York and Los Angeles. Amarillo, Texas claims to be the nation's windiest city.
Yes, there's often a nice breeze off Lake Michigan. Summer weather reports usually end with "cooler near the lake." And in bygone days, Chicago billed itself as a resort community with refreshing breezes off Lake Michigan.
Myth has it that one Charles Dana, editor of the New York Sun, originated the term during the competition between Chicago and New York for the 1890 World Fair, popularly known as "The Columbia Exposition." But the mythical editorial has never been found.
A more credible explanation predates the 1890 mythical editorial - going back to a rivalry between Cincinnati and Chicago, centered on hogs and baseball.
Cincinnati was once a leading meat packing city, known as "Porkopolous." Sometime during the 1860s, Chicago surpassed Cincinnati in this enterprise, becoming known as "hog butcher of the world."
The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings were baseball's first professional team. Chicago came up with another team, the White Stockings, designed to rival the pride of Cincinnati. The term, "Windy City," was frequently used in Cincinnati papers, specifically, the Cincinnati Enquirer, to refer to Chicagoans as "braggarts."
Somehow, the name stuck, enhanced by Chicago politicians and Chicago's frequent hosting of political conventions. But politics was not the basis of origin.
Few people think of flat Chicago as having interesting geography. But its geography and history are intricately linked.
In frontier days when the primary mode of transportation was water, strategic points of land enabled transition from one waterway to another. For example, Wisconsin's Fox River flows northeast to Green Bay of Lake Michigan - the Great Lakes empting into the St. Lawrence River reaching the east coast of the North American continent.
There is a point on the Fox River that is only a mile from the Wisconsin River that flows in the opposite direction, southwest to the Mississippi and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico. Frontier travelers going by water would "portage" their gear across land at this strategic point. That location between the Fox and the Wisconsin Rivers developed into the present city of Portage.
The early "Chicago Portage" played a similar role in history.
During the last ice age, the area that became Chicago was covered by a large lake that drained into the Mississippi Valley. As the ice and water retreated, a low ridge was exposed about a mile inland from present day Lake Michigan, separating what is now the Great Lakes watershed from the Mississippi Valley. When the Europeans arrived, the Chicago River flowed sluggishly into Lake Michigan from Chicago's flat plain.
Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette were the first to write of their visit in 1673 and the vital, strategic "Chicago Portage."
In addition to a mode of transportation, a less laudatory use of rivers is as a convenient sewer system. As the city grew, the Chicago River carried sewage into Lake Michigan, the source of Chicago's water supply. The river became known as "the stinking river."
Several early attempts were made to divert the flow of the river west, across the Chicago Portage. Later, through a system of locks and diversion of Lake Michigan water, the flow of the Chicago River was reversed to flow west. Outflows from the Great Lakes Basin are regulated by the joint U.S. Canadian Great Lakes Commission.
Through the 1980s, the Chicago River remained polluted and filled with garbage. During the 1990s, Mayor Richard Daley initiated a cleanup and beautification effort. Several species of fish now inhabit the river, and it is now a tourist site.
Chicago has changed over the years but retains traditional ethnic neighborhoods, still somewhat intact. Not everyone talks in that distinctive Mike Ditka manner, but I find its people to be friendly.
And, it's just a short jaunt down there - an interesting burg, that toddlin' town.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
Today, with fast cars and broad highways, it's just a quick jaunt. With the improved Illinois tollway, and an "I-Pass," allowing you to sail through toll stops, you can easily reach the northwest edge in two hours. When my wife was a senior flight attendant flying out of Chicago, we acquired a house near Midway Airport, a reason for an occasional trip to that interesting burg.
Chicago, where, according to that song, a man was once seen dancing with his wife. "City of the Broad Shoulders," personified by Mike Ditka and Dick Butkus. Recent Bears coach Trestman could never fit in.
Chicago's history goes back to the Chicago Portage, and includes figures such as Mrs. O'Leary's cow that started the Chicago fire, and "Scarface" Al Capone. My high school classmate, Alan Hixson, billing himself as "The Other Big Al," now resides in northern Wisconsin near where the original Big Al vacationed to relieve stress from his Chicago "business ventures."
Before the Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee, southern Wisconsin was Chicago Cubs country. The White Sox were just too far south.
A few years ago, I was innocently walking our dog in our neighborhood near Midway. Some kids were playing, and a little girl looked at me in shock, "Mister, that's a Cubs leash on that dog." Yikes, I forgot. Here I was, deep in the heart of White Sox territory, with a dog leash covered with Cubs logos. I took the coward's way out, assuring her that it was my wife's error.
Chicago, the "Windy City" - how did it get that name? No, not because of the weather. It's less windy than Boston, and only marginally windier than New York and Los Angeles. Amarillo, Texas claims to be the nation's windiest city.
Yes, there's often a nice breeze off Lake Michigan. Summer weather reports usually end with "cooler near the lake." And in bygone days, Chicago billed itself as a resort community with refreshing breezes off Lake Michigan.
Myth has it that one Charles Dana, editor of the New York Sun, originated the term during the competition between Chicago and New York for the 1890 World Fair, popularly known as "The Columbia Exposition." But the mythical editorial has never been found.
A more credible explanation predates the 1890 mythical editorial - going back to a rivalry between Cincinnati and Chicago, centered on hogs and baseball.
Cincinnati was once a leading meat packing city, known as "Porkopolous." Sometime during the 1860s, Chicago surpassed Cincinnati in this enterprise, becoming known as "hog butcher of the world."
The 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings were baseball's first professional team. Chicago came up with another team, the White Stockings, designed to rival the pride of Cincinnati. The term, "Windy City," was frequently used in Cincinnati papers, specifically, the Cincinnati Enquirer, to refer to Chicagoans as "braggarts."
Somehow, the name stuck, enhanced by Chicago politicians and Chicago's frequent hosting of political conventions. But politics was not the basis of origin.
Few people think of flat Chicago as having interesting geography. But its geography and history are intricately linked.
In frontier days when the primary mode of transportation was water, strategic points of land enabled transition from one waterway to another. For example, Wisconsin's Fox River flows northeast to Green Bay of Lake Michigan - the Great Lakes empting into the St. Lawrence River reaching the east coast of the North American continent.
There is a point on the Fox River that is only a mile from the Wisconsin River that flows in the opposite direction, southwest to the Mississippi and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico. Frontier travelers going by water would "portage" their gear across land at this strategic point. That location between the Fox and the Wisconsin Rivers developed into the present city of Portage.
The early "Chicago Portage" played a similar role in history.
During the last ice age, the area that became Chicago was covered by a large lake that drained into the Mississippi Valley. As the ice and water retreated, a low ridge was exposed about a mile inland from present day Lake Michigan, separating what is now the Great Lakes watershed from the Mississippi Valley. When the Europeans arrived, the Chicago River flowed sluggishly into Lake Michigan from Chicago's flat plain.
Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette were the first to write of their visit in 1673 and the vital, strategic "Chicago Portage."
In addition to a mode of transportation, a less laudatory use of rivers is as a convenient sewer system. As the city grew, the Chicago River carried sewage into Lake Michigan, the source of Chicago's water supply. The river became known as "the stinking river."
Several early attempts were made to divert the flow of the river west, across the Chicago Portage. Later, through a system of locks and diversion of Lake Michigan water, the flow of the Chicago River was reversed to flow west. Outflows from the Great Lakes Basin are regulated by the joint U.S. Canadian Great Lakes Commission.
Through the 1980s, the Chicago River remained polluted and filled with garbage. During the 1990s, Mayor Richard Daley initiated a cleanup and beautification effort. Several species of fish now inhabit the river, and it is now a tourist site.
Chicago has changed over the years but retains traditional ethnic neighborhoods, still somewhat intact. Not everyone talks in that distinctive Mike Ditka manner, but I find its people to be friendly.
And, it's just a short jaunt down there - an interesting burg, that toddlin' town.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
