A lovely day in the city

Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2025

      I'm not a spot news kind of guy. Not anymore. My years of racing to a breaking story are long past — the paper has kids doing that. I thought of toddling over to Broadview to inject myself into the chaos. Then thought better of it. Judge me harshly if you wish.

     Truth is, most days I don't go into the city. But my pal Tony is not feeling well, so I wanted to visit him at Rush hospital on Wednesday. Since I was venturing downtown, it made sense to go eyeball the supposed war zone that Donald Trump claims demands his sending in the Texas National Guard, already in Illinois and on their way, to do ... God know's what.
     A plan was in order. Search for troops, then troll for ICE. So I patrolled Wacker Drive, from Union Station to the Wrigley Building, hoping to encounter soldiers. Only there weren't any soldiers. Not on North Michigan Avenue, up toward the Water Tower. 
     Realizing I was drawing a blank, I turned around, cued up Gang of Four's "I Love a Man in a Uniform" on iTunes — that seems apt — and headed south, to Lake Street. Not so much as a lone sentry leaning against a rifle. 
     Just lots of tourists of every description on a glorious sunny October day. Which might be itself be news, maybe even important news. The media has an idiot capacity to all look at the same thing, the same block of discord and nowhere else. Don't get me wrong, regular Chicagoans blocking ICE operations in Broadview is significant and needs to be reported, day after day after day. 
      But also important is the rest of the city going about its business in relative peace and harmony. That doesn't seem to get mentioned as much. We need to remember that this is oppression for oppression's sake, a practice crackdown built on lies. The city is fine.
      Onto the Pink Line at the Thompson Center, or whatever Google calls the place now. A quiet ride to 18th Street, scanning the streets for squads of soldiers, or for menacing vans disgorging faceless militias. Nothing.   

     To Panaderia Nuevo Leon, with its quaint glass-doored wooden cabinets.  I took the traditional metal tray and tongs to load up on marranitos — ginger pigs — for myself, and a big bag of sugar cookies, muted pastels and dun browns, shaped like hearts and watermelons and oblongs, for Tony. Or rather —  I suspected, correctly as it turned out— his nurses, important too, as they work long hours, need a steady supply of sweets, and appreciate a good freshly baked cookie. A happy nurse is an attentive nurse.   

    I wanted to ask the two ladies behind the counter, "Are you afraid?" But there was a language issue and, besides, when I asked if I could take their photo, they said no, which itself is an answer.

     Quickstep over to 5 Rabanitos, where I bumped into State Senator Celina Villanueva and exchanged greetings and a few words about The Situation. I urged her to get in touch with me so we can have a formal conversation for the paper. She probably won't. But maybe she will. Stranger things have happened. I'll give her a call today and try to prod the process along. But politicians aren't battering down my door anymore. I'm sure they have their reasons.

     The place was packed, by the way — a good sign. I got what I usually get — the grilled chicken in a garlic honey marinade with vegetables. O...M...G! Initially, I thought I might take half of it home for later, but failed in that intention. 

     Then into the National Museum of Mexican Art — free, as always. There was something new — the doors had "THIS IS PRIVATE PROPERTY" signs designed to prevent ICE from storming in and arresting the Mona Lupe, the museum's wry rendition of the Mona Lisa by Cesar Augusto Martinez. To be honest, I like it better than the original. You don't look at her through thick lucite in a crowded hall that smells like a high school locker room either. 

     "Carlos Totolero isn't around, is he?" I asked, signing in. The high school teacher who founded the museum and first invited me here, years ago. Otherwise I'm sure that, like most Chicagoans, I'd have never set foot in the place. Just not on the radar, embarrassingly.

     "He comes in sometimes," the receptionist said. "But not today."

     "Well, he can do whatever he wants," I answered. "He's earned it."

"Farmer Skeleton" by Jorge Rosano

      I spent a long time checking out the 39th Day of the Dead show, "A Celebration of Remembrance."  Always colorful and beautiful and especially poignant, keyed toward victims of the Texas and New Mexico floods over the summer. I found myself wishing that ICE could be forced to file through here, the way Eisenhower made the Germans walk through concentration camps. "Look, these as the people you're randomly plucking off the street, you assholes."
     The plan was to walk the 40 minutes to Rush. I started east along 19th Street. High school students were playing on the swings in Harrison Park. A couple fussed over a baby in a carriage. I paused, considered pressing a few questions. "Is ICE worrying you?" I decided against it — heck, ICE is worrying me. And I just didn't want to intrude. They didn't look worried. They looked happy.

     Past the Peter Cooper Public School, just letting out. Lots of security in bright vests shepherding the kids. Pigtailed girls, wearing pastel backpacks dangling small stuffed friends, escorted by a parent or two. One very small girl waved at me, "Hola," she said, smiling. "Hello," I replied, touching my cap, and she echoed it back. "Hello," she said, carefully maybe a little amused, as if trying out the word to see how it sounded in her mouth.

"Mona Lupe,"
 by Cesar Augusto Martinez

     But at Ashland, the No. 9 bus was approaching, and I decided to give the old bones a rest and hop on. People of various races and nationalities go on and off. Nobody shot anyone else. I snaked my hand into the brown paper bag of my private stash and broke off a few chunks of marranito. 
     Tony is in better spirits than I would be, and I'll talk about our conversation another time. I handed the bag of cookies to him, he looked inside, admiringly, then gave it to a nurse, and various nurses over the next hour popped in to thank him for being so considerate. We talked about migratory birds. He shared a friend's poems. I brought him up to speed on the situation at the newspaper.
     An hour passed, and, not wanting to overstay my welcome, I made my exit and popped over to the Blue Line Racine station. Another quiet car of regular folks. I got off at LaSalle, met my wife at her office, first chatting with the guard while waiting for her to sign out and come down. We walked a few blocks west and met our younger son for an early dinner at Bereket Turkish Mediterranean Restaurant, 333 S. Franklin. I'd never been there; our son had birddogged it. Service at the family-owned restaurant was warm and attentive, the kabobs were juicy, and something happened at dessert that literally had never happened to me in a restaurant before. We ordered a square of flan and a chocolate baklava, to share,, and the waitress brought the flan and three baklavah. 
     Oh no, we protested, just the one. We just want to taste it. We tried to make her take the extra two back. That's okay, she said, they're on the house. We tried out baklavah; it was fresh and fantastic — not too sweet. I called the waitress over and insisted we must pay for the three pieces — they were so good, we enjoyed them so much, it was a revelation. 
     "No, it's impossible," she said. "The bill is already made up." We yielded; I tipped 30 percent, and left wondering if that were enough. Our son headed to his car, and my wife and I hit the Metra. 
     Chicago isn't perfect. There is crime and struggle, like every other city on earth. Terrible things are happening now— people are being plucked off the street, families torn apart, immigrants who came here in good faith and worked hard and built lives being victimized out of malice and spite. That's all going on right now, with troops coming to help the grindstones crushing up lives turn more quickly.  We should never lose sight of that.
     But do not let the president's clonic lies poison how we view Chicago. The city is still wonderful. The people are wonderful. The food is wonderful. Protest with all your might. Resist resist resist. And one way to resist is to go about your ordinary business, to still enjoy your life, somehow, and revel in the world they are trying to take away. It's still here.   

"Reinterpretation of a Tumulo," by Alexandro Garcia Nelo (National Museum of Mexican Art)