By the Seat of Technological Advancements

I mention my travels a lot. I hope my readers (both of them) don’t think I’m boasting or showing off when I do. It’s just the part of my life that seems to generate things to write about.

Today I returned home from an 8-day sojourn from Chicago to Lawrence, Kansas (3 days), to Montreal (5 days) and back to Chicago. I spent most of the flight with the window shade closed. Normally I prefer the aisle, but today’s flight was less than full, and I had the rare opportunity of an empty seat beside me. I had taken advantage of the window seat and the wall to lean against and sleep -- without having a body squeezing me in and hindering my exit -- while we sat out a delay on the tarmac, and then, during the flight, I had fired up my laptop and watched an episode of “The Sopranos” from the borrowed boxed set of season five.

During the final approach to O’Hare airport, with the laptop and related paraphernalia stowed, I opened my window shade and was surprised to find that we were right in the thickest part of a huge rain cloud, so thick that at points I could see wispy vapor partially obscuring the engine suspended beneath the wing. Water streamed across the outer surface of my window in a seemingly endless bundle of rivulets, spreading wide in an explosion of droplets when it hit the rearward edge of the window.

The thought occurred to me, the frequent driver of a car, that as unnerving as it is to drive in a fog so thick I can’t see the rear end of a car 15 feet in front of me, how is it for the pilot of a plane careening through space at 150 knots when there’s not enough time to even BLINK, let alone avoid a collision with something at that speed.

And then I heard and felt the landing gear deploy, and the thought ran through my mind as I looked out at the blank gray-white cocoon, “Well, I guess there’s a runway down there, somewhere.” And my mind was off.

I don’t claim to know much about the history of commercial aviation, nor of anything else, but one can make an educated stab at the progression and be pretty close…at least I hope I can! To keep this short, and to keep it from sounding like a history lesson, let’s just skip everything up to just past the point of the inventions of radar and radio navigation, and the world of advancement it meant to the field of aviation.

What would air travel be like today without the conveniences of radar and radio? What was it like back in the 1930s and ‘40s? Granted, we had radio communication back then, but what of radio navigation? Air traffic grids didn’t exist, then, and flight crews needed a navigator to study landmarks and geographical features, as well as relate them to a map, in order to get them to the right place. Everything was by sight and by the seat of the pants!

And then, probably back in the late ‘40s or early ‘50s, certainly when some genius thought to hook eight jet engines to an otherwise fairly anemic-looking plane with a wingspan greater than its length in order to reach the skies over the Soviet Union, some other genius realized there would have to be some sort of system to get a plane from point “A” to point “B” other than someone in the cockpit pointing out the window and saying, “I think it’s that way.”

I don’t know what they are or were called, but I know that there’s a massive grid of radio transmitters laid out across our nation and the globe, and that the world’s commercial and private pilots use this system to keep themselves on track to their destinations. So, no matter how bad the weather, how thick the clouds, the pilot has all the tools available to let him know he’s headed the right way. I guess the radar helps keep planes from crashing into each other.

So as I watched the water dribbling past my window, and the landing gear deployed, I knew that there was indeed a runway down there, somewhere, and that the slightly overweight, tall, balding guy locked away in that little room in the front of the plane knew right where it was, even though he couldn’t quite see it at the moment. I wondered what this flight would have been like without the technologies that had advanced and been perfected a lifetime ago, and it dawned on me that the flight probably would never have happened. It was a very docile weather system. There seemed to be no wind, no lightning, no torrents of rain. We punched through the bottom of the overcast at what I would guess was between 500 and 1,000 feet above the ground. Way back when, such a day would have grounded all flights out of O’Hare, and any pilot caught in the air in such a soup certainly would’ve needed a week at a nervous hospital, or at least a stiff drink, just to calm him down afterward.

But there I sat, my bored face stuck in the window, staring out at the boring clouds, so confident that the pilot knew the runway was there, as complacent with that belief as when I take my sock off that there’ll be five toes wiggling at me from the end of my foot.

And now I’m home, safe, and concerned only with important things. Things like the hopes that the Tigers will pull it out and clip the Cardinals’ wings. Things like being the closest to prayer I’ve been in over 25 years for the Bears to have a Super Bowl team this year. Things like hoping both of you have stuck it out and read my post this far, and not being pissed off at me because there’s no payoff.

A Soft, Warm Fuzzy

Her plump, dark brown face was at my window seemingly out of nowhere in the darkness, and startled me. I had an awareness that she was the same one I had seen near the dumpsters moments earlier, along with two other people, when I came out of the PetSmart store with the thirty-pound bag of dog food slung over my shoulder.

The other two people were children, a boy and a girl, neither older than ten years.

She spoke, but I could not hear. City-dweller alarm bells were going off in my ears. She was in violation of my vehicle's personal space. Talking. But I could not hear. I knew what she wanted, but what I wanted was to get home. I rolled my window down a crack, my psyche unable to be so callous as to ignore her.

"What?" I said, disrespectfully.

Her voice came out in a monotone, a line seemingly rehearsed and delivered by a bad actor. "Please sir could you spare some change sir for I could buy my kids some food we have nothing to eat at home and we hungry a dime a quarter a dollar..."

"Clever ploy," I thought as my eyes darted first to the boy, and then to the girl, both fidgeting like bored kids fidget, neither looking famished, neither looking embarrassed that their mother was begging in a parking lot. "Using the kids kicks it up a notch."

On the even chance that the woman, herself overweight, was telling the truth about their plight, I caved. They were worth lightening my wallet by the weight of a dollar. I opened my wallet and frowned at the lone bill tucked away there.

I felt the power shift to the woman. I had opened my wallet, I was committed to giving her something, and I was struck by how absurd it would be for me to ask if she could break a twenty. Feeling slightly desperate, my eyes scanned the parking lot. About a hundred yards away I saw the bright red letters above the door of the discount grocery, Cub Foods.

"Look," I said to the woman while avoiding eye contact, "all I have is a twenty." I looked back at Cub Foods, heard its suggestion, and I forwarded it.

"Can I buy you some food? What do you need?"

It is an old, 1930s B-movie cliché, but it is also the truth. In response to my question the woman's eyes widened brightly, white contrasting powerfully against the black of the night, the brown of her skin. "OH! Thank you sir! Thank you! Some ground beef and some cheese and a loaf of bread will feed us tonight sir that would be wonderful sir I thank you so much..."

"Okay," I said, pointing toward the grocery store. "Meet me by the entrance of the Cub Foods."

The woman gathered up her children, and I pulled out of the slot and steered my car toward the grocery store.

At the door I confirmed her grocery list, and then I headed toward the door.

"And please, sir, if it's not too much trouble, could you get me some laundry detergent for my kids could have clean clothes for school tomorrow?"

She had passed my test. She had asked for money so she could feed her kids, and I had countered with an offer to buy them food. Her enthusiastic response had sold me, so I did not, I could not refuse her additional request, though I did feel she was taking advantage of my charity, just a little.

In the store I picked up a pound and a half of ground beef, a pound of sliced American cheese and a loaf of white sandwich bread. I also grabbed two large cans of soup, and I debated getting a candy bar for each of the kids, and then decided against it for fear that the kids might just want to eat the candy and forego the opportunity for some real nutrition.

As I roamed the aisles of Cub Foods, I felt a surge of something in my chest, and then in my throat. And suddenly I was on the verge of tears. The woman's response had been counter to my expectations. She preferred a gift of food to a handful of change. She had given the right answer to the one-question test I had given her, and now I was in the rush of knowing I was doing the right thing the right way for someone less fortunate.

I stepped out into the cool evening air half expecting her and the kids to be gone, either disbelieving me, or shooed away by store security. But they were there. I raised the plastic grocery bags for her to see.

"All that's for me? Oh! Thank you sir! God bless you! God bless you, sir!" She clutched at the bag as she praised me, yet I was still unable to look her in the eye. "Come on, kids! Let's go home," she said as she turned away from me, and then she spun once more. "Thank you sir! God bless!" Again with her back to me, she disappeared into the night.

I walked to my car a bit lighter in my step, and with pride in my chest. In my reluctance to hand her a twenty-dollar bill for fear that I'd never see my nineteen dollars in change, I had instead spent fifteen dollars and change, and fed a family...perhaps twice.

When you feel the impulse to give to someone begging for spare change because he's hungry, and you have the time, opportunity and money, offer to give him food instead. If he accepts your offer, then you know you've done the right thing by helping to feed the truly hungry. If he refuses your offer and insists on cash, then you're still doing the right thing by keeping one person away from the alcohol or drugs that a few more coins might help them obtain.

It does them good. It does you good.

Mourning

Recently an assignment required that I get some shots of automobile dealerships in the Chicago area. I had to get a smattering of everything from an auto mall to a multi-line dealer to as wide a variety of manufacturer logos as possible to the cheesiest-looking, shadiest-looking used car dealership I could find.

The only place where I know my way around to such a plethora of sights is the area where I grew up, in the south suburbs. It was raining when I left the house, so there wasn't much promise for the day. The rain fell hard when I entered the tollway, and was still falling when I stopped at the Hinsdale Oasis for a tinkle and a Sausage McMuffin with Egg value meal. The rain hadn't let up when I went back out to my car, nor in the entire drive down to Matteson.

I couldn't shoot, so I decided to use the time to scout locations on the off chance that the rain would let up, and then I wouldn't waste more time looking for locations when I could be shooting them instead. I found the auto mall right where i had left it last, and it was chock full of cars. I drove around it, stopping at points and looking out my windows at various compositions in my head, trying to imagine how it would look under a blue sky and sunshine.

I needed to call a co-worker, the producer who had sent me on this little jaunt, so in the interest of safety, I pulled in to the parking lot of Lincoln Mall in Matteson. The first thing I noticed was that the Lincoln Mall cinema had been torn down some time ago, as the spot where the building had stood was now a patch of asphalt integrated into the former cinema parking lot. I had seen innumerable films there in my adolescence, the most memorable of them "Killer Clowns From Outer Space." And now it's gone.

I drove on toward the building that encompassed the mall itself, and toward what I always considered the main entrance, that door between the old anchor retailers, Wieboldt's department store and Montgomery Ward, that door closest to the video game arcade that once had racing bumper cars at the rear of the space. Wieboldt's had closed many, many years ago, and the space it had occupied stood empty forever. And now? Montgomery Ward was gone, too. Not just the recently defunct chain, but THE BUILDING! GONE! Half of Lincoln Mall has been torn down. HALF!! All that is left now is Sears, of all things -- now in the former Wieboldt's space, and the Carson, Pirie, Scott store, still there since the mall opened in the early 1970s.

I felt a hole forming in my chest. This was one of my haunts; "stomping grounds," as my father would say. Sure, it had come on hard times recently, with anchor stores going away or going under, but still! I felt as if a good friend had died, and I was the last to hear about it.

After the shock wore off, I called my co-worker and told him of my plan...if it ever stopped raining. And I continued to scout.

The example I had in my head for the "shady" used car dealer is actually in the town where I grew up. Back in the late years of the 19th century, the economic center of Bloom Township was incorporated as the city of Chicago Heights, honoring that burgeoning metropolis a mere 25 miles away to the north by taking that city's name as part of her own. Only 14 years later, residents in the southern reaches of Chicago Heights -- by then known affectionately (or not) as "da Heights" -- unsatisfied with their city, organized successfully and seceded, forming their own village and, reaching deep into the heaviest brains available to name their new town, came up with South Chicago Heights, a name that, perhaps, doomed the village to forever remain a footnote to its namesake. In the collective mind of most residents in the area, South Chicago Heights has always easily folded into Chicago Heights, so for what it's worth, I grew up in "da Heights."

I had as typical a childhood, as typical an adolescence and as typical a coming of age as just about any kid. I never had any burning itch to leave "South Heights," as it is known -- or "Soddeights," as it is pronounced in the local tongue -- but to get anywhere in the career I had chosen, I knew I would have to leave. I went back there after my time in the service, lived there, technically, while I attended Southern Illinois University, and moved back in after graduation and for two more years afterward until someone within my chosen field decided to hire me, at which time I moved away, back to Southern Illinois.

That was almost 14 years ago. In that time I moved again, to south Georgia, and I returned "home," living now in Chicago. I changed jobs four times. I married. And my father sold the house in South Heights. Rare has been the occasion for me to return, as I no longer have any immediate family living there, and when the occasion does arise, it's usually a drive through on the way to somewhere else. On this day, I had time to kill.

I headed east on the street with three names. U.S. Route 30 is known -- in Illinois, at least -- as The Lincoln Highway. It's certainly so in Chicago Heights. It is also 14th Street. I cut across a corner of Park Forest to get to 26th Street, the border between Chicago Heights and South Chicago Heights, and turned south to swing past my old grade school, and then south on Chicago Road. So many buildings and houses that exist in my childhood memory are now gone or so sadly in disrepair they might as well be torn down. Fortunately for my heart, the old Farrago former homestead still stands, humble but proud. I headed north again and did a loop around the high school, a majestic building erected during the Great Depression, with the main entrance guarded by impressive concrete statues designed by the man who designed the Jefferson nickel, and entering its 25th year on the National Register of Historic Places.

South and east again, still through the rain, to Marnell's Drive-in, home of one of Chicagoland's greatest Italian roast beef sandwiches...or so I thought. Either the recipe has changed, or my memory has. I was sadly disappointed.

From Marnell's I headed to where my father's old barber shop was, now operated only one day a week by the woman he sold it to, and, I'm certain, no longer providing the service to the neighborhood that my father did. I sat in the main attraction the building has to offer, an old-school tavern to which the barber shop is merely an adjoining room, and chatted with the owner of the building and tavern, my father's former landlord. I ordered a beer and was not allowed to pay for it, thanks to a friend of my father's, one of many of his friends...most of his friends...who keep the place alive. This friend used to own a business on Chicago Road, a business I walked past every day on my way to junior high. He lamented all the businesses, all the great buildings that have disappeared to municipal apathy and abandonment.

And that's when it sank in. I had long harbored the thought, long denied it, and hoped it would go away. But the old man's words brought it home: Chicago Heights is dying. The relentless rain outside seemed to amplify the moment. My eyes had seen it on my drive around town. My eyes had been seeing it since my return from the military, but my heart refused to believe it. A population's children grow up and move away, and a community stagnates. Only the poor stay, as they don't have much choice. Fewer taxes are collected, school referenda are defeated by the tax-paying empty-nesters, teachers leave or are let go, and the children remaining swirl around the drain. Factories close. Businesses close. Veteran workers retire, and there are no younger workers to replace them. A town that was once an industrial dynamo, an exclamation point on the boom that made Chicago, is now gasping in the dust of its own storied past.

Along Lincoln Highway in the west end stand the shells and empty lots where once stood a row of three or four auto dealers and a locally owned department store, all now either shut down or moved away. The building that was forever in my memory a K-Mart closed, then reopened as a Cub Foods, then closed and reopened as a thrift store, then closed and is now gone, a flat, empty, open lot. Beside it stands an empty shell, once a Handy Andy hardware center, then a Builder's Square, then the nothing it's been for years. It's the same in places all over town. Buildings boarded up or missing all together, the once dazzling smile of a young beauty, now faded and marred by rotted or missing teeth.

The rain finally stopped, my beer glass was dry. It was just past noon, and I had work to do. I said good-bye to my dad's friends and hopped in the car to the first location, a place that, in my mind, passed as a "shady" used car lot. I headed west, back toward the auto mall, as the sun began to peek through the clouds, and I was steeped in the feeling that I had just left a funeral. I had met friends. I had reminisced. I was sad, and I sensed the duty to move on.

Maybe it is closure. My mother passed away just as my career called me. In my absence, my father progressed from "senior" to "elderly," sold the home I grew up in, sold the home he had gutted and rebuilt by himself, and has now moved in with my sister.

I'll be drawn back to "da Heights," the hollow shell of the memories of my youth, but I'm certain it'll be more as one is drawn to the grave of a deceased loved one.

To pay respects.

To remember.

To mourn.