Big bike race in Northbrook!

    

     The cliche about the suburbs is that they're one big undifferentiated anodyne nowhere populated by glozing neuters, to borrow Thomas Pynchon's phrase. An attitude formed after World War II, when culture was roiled by the image of identical ticky-tacky boxes set along interchangeable streets.      

     That such living arrangements were highly attractive to people packed into decaying city apartment buildings might have been the truth that such generalizations were trying to obscure. Just as the more I hear Chicagoans complaining about people saying they're from "Chicago" instead of, I don't know, Des Plaines, the more insecure they seem. If where you live is so great, then why are you so greedy about it? Abundance should be generous. For example, I'm always shocked to see Jews who squint hard and evaluate newcomers who adopt their religion. To me, anyone reckless enough to want to call themselves a Jew should be welcomed into the club, no questions asked. 
     Yes, some suburbs, maybe even most, are sprawling bedroom communities. Absolutely. And most poetry is crap. But just as bad verse doesn't indict the concept of poetry, so bland suburbs shouldn't poison the concept. For all the talk bout "15-minute cities," I'm the one who can walk to the library and the post office, the village hall and the grocery, the hardware store and the drug store and the bank and the neighborhood book store. Most Chicagoans can't say that. My house has wide cedar flooring and a spire that some blacksmith pounded out of strips of iron in 1905. 
     You never know what's going to happen in Northbrook. I was shopping at Sunset on Sunday (an hour before my infamous trip to Aldi, which seems to have broken Reddit, based on accounts from survivors who have staggered over to fall weeping at my feet) and the bagger was none other than Ron Bernardi, 79, whose uncles started Sunset in 1937. He immediately brightened — was I going to write about the Northbrook Grand Prix Bike Race on Thursday? I hadn't planned to, but of course promised him I would.

     Northbrook has a velodrome — a stadium for racing bicycles — and last year hosted a Grand Prix. This year is a repeat performance on Thursday, July 27. 

     "Let me show you my office," Bernardi said, and sprinted up the stairs. I followed. He grabbed a press release about the bike race. I watched last year, as bicyclists tore around our downtown. Good bicyclular fun.

    While I was in the office, he of course showed me photos of his family, proud immigrants from Italy, and outside, an arcade machine that plays a real accordion when you put in a quarter, next to a photo of him at 15, playing the accordion, an instrument once closely associated with Italian-Americans.

    As we listened to the music, I thought: This is not the stereotypical suburban experience. A reminder that interesting people are everywhere, if you are open to them. Odd that some people don't know that. And if you want to claim you are a Northbrook resident, even if you've never been here, please be my guest. There's plenty to go around.

     Anyway, the race is in downtown Northbrook from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Unlike NASCAR, which charged $267 to stand there and watch the racing, admission is free.

The 2022 Grand Prix Race.