North vs. South sides not just an excuse for baseball brawl; weather differs too

It’s just more evidence of how physically huge the Chicago metropolitan area is – we don’t even get the same weather!

Vacuums, fans put to work to dry out No. Chgo.

I was reminded of that while reading the news coverage of the massive rainstorms that hit the Chicago area and caused severe flooding for some people. In some cases, the floodwaters continued to rise even after the heavy rain quit falling.

BASEMENTS FLOODED. CARS seen floating down the streets. There is one report of an entire public park that found itself completely under water overnight, causing severe problems for everybody who happens to live nearby.

This is one of those major storms that will be remembered for years to come – even though to the best of my knowledge there were no fatalities as a result of the inclement weather.

Yet all of this is true only if you happen to live in the northern part of the metropolitan area. Specifically, the north suburban part of the Chicago area. That’s where the heavy water fell. That is where problems arose. That is where Gov. Bruce Rauner joined state and Lake County officials on Friday to survey the damage due to inclement weather, then declare Kane, Lake and McHenry counties to be state disaster areas.

Those of us who lived in the city proper saw some rain, but none of the horror stories of flooded basements or other severe property damage.

FOR THOSE PEOPLE in the southern part of the county of Cook? Yeah, it rained overnight. Even a bit during the day. But by that point, the rain had dwindled down to a drizzle.

I’m not about to call those people living up north “sissies” who can’t handle a little water. But down around the parts of Chicago and suburbs that affectionately refer to themselves as the “Sout’ Side,” the Chicago Tribune headlines such as, Flooding of this magnitude has not been seen before seems like such an exaggeration.

I know in my own case on Wednesday, I happened to be downstairs in a basement of my father’s home when I happened to notice some water trickling into the basement.

Gov. Rauner surveyed Gurnee flooding, ...

When I went outside to check, I found that an outside drain had been clogged with leaves – meaning that the water had no other place to go but inside.

THE MOMENT I reached into the drain and pulled the leaves out, all the water immediately got sucked down the drain. It quit going into the house. End of problem, although my father then pulled out his handy “shop vac” and used it to suck up the dribble of water that had got inside.

Basically, the mess was cleaned up even before the rain stopped falling. And yes, I helped my father maintain a watch over the basement and drain to ensure it didn’t get clogged again.

It didn’t.

No more floodwater in that basement. At least for this storm. Although I don’t doubt there will be a future storm that will direct its wrath at the southern part of metro Chicago – and it will be all those northernmost residents who will claim there wasn’t anything worth noting in that day’s “storms.”

THIS PHENOMENON ISN’T unusual. The six counties that officially comprise the Chicago area truly are big enough that one end of the area can have totally different weather than another.

This week’s storms (severe in one part while non-existent in another) reminded me of a long-ago rainfall – an incident back in 1987 when I was a beginning reporter-type person in suburban Chicago Heights. I did a story about that day’s particular flooding up north where the rainfall didn’t extend to anywhere south of 55^th Street.

... while Labrapoodle Carmelo sees nicer weather in his part of Cook Co.

As one local firefighter put it when I questioned him about the lack of emergencies his department had to respond to that day, he quipped of the bad weather elsewhere, “We don’t allow that sort of thing in Camelot.”

Probably the only time anybody’s used the reference to King Arthur’s court to describe the South Side. Yet I’m sure there are some water-soaked people living up north these days who would view the dry turf down south these days as a bit of paradise.

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Schaller’s Pump a disappearing part of the old Sout’ Side Irish part of Chicago

Schaller’s Pump is a Bridgeport neighborhood tavern that could claim the distinction of being the oldest in the city of Chicago – tracing its lineage from 1881 until Sunday, when it closed for good.

One-and-a-third centuries of Bridgeport drinking now complete

It could also claim its current ownership by George Schaller and his family, which has held the property since the days following Prohibition. We’re bound to get a few sentimental reports in coming days (the Chicago Tribune kicked in with theirs on Monday) about this “cultural” loss to the city.

YET LET’S BE honest. There were elements of that place near 37^th and Halsted streets that weren’t exactly the most welcoming aspects of Chicago. It wouldn’t shock me if a great number of Chicagoans had never been there and probably wouldn’t have given much thought to setting foot in a place that viewed itself principally as existing to serve the people of Bridgeport.

The pea soup, meatloaf and Prime Rib on weekends? I never experienced them.

Personally, I only visited the place once. It was back in 1999 and several of my work colleagues and I wound up going together to a ballgame – at then-New Comiskey Park to see the White Sox take on the visiting Chicago Cubs.

It’s actually the only time I ever have gone to see a Sox/Cubs game (too many knuckleheads feel compelled to show up, which is why I usually catch those games on television or by reading a box score). Afterward, the batch of us decided to try to hit an area bar for a quick drink.

WHICH IS HOW we wound up walking over from Shields Avenue to Halsted Street and spent a bit of time at Schaller’s Pump. Bridgeport ain’t like Wrigley Field with the Cubby Bear Lounge located across the street,

The place was (I recall) in a good mood, largely because the White Sox that particular night had come from behind to beat the Cubs.

Our group took up a separate table and was pretty much watched quietly by people who wondered if we’d cause trouble because it was pretty obvious we weren’t Bridgeport native.

Will Sox fans have to drink in stadium bar now?

I do recall one guy asking me “what the story was” about our group, which had several younger obviously-suburban women and also some of the non-white types that a certain element of Bridgeport had long feared coming into their neighborhood.

WHEN TOLD THAT we were a batch of people who worked together, he kind of sighed, rolled his eyes then focused his attention back to his beer.

Like I already said, it helped that the White Sox won, so people were in a good mood. If the Cubs had won, maybe his reaction would have been more harsh.

But people were happy, particularly when the one colleague of mine who had worn a Cubs jersey into Schaller’s Pump was immediately told upon entrance to take it off (he did, and the bar’s staff kept it behind the counter; returning it upon his departure).

There also was the semi-humorous moment; when the bar’s patrons – upon seeing a televised recap of how the Sox beat the Cubs that night wound up bursting out in song. Giving us a genuine take on “South Side Irish,” which one of my work colleagues mocked by referring to it as the “Band Aid jingle.”

A GOOD THING that the Schaller’s crowd didn’t hear that wisecrack. It might have been contemplated as “fightin’ words.”

But no, there wasn’t a fight. In fact, we had our drink there, then moved on. Which probably kept the night from escalating into an incident.

Sox' ballpark doesn't have a Cubby Bear-like bar across the street

Although I recall one of my former colleagues saying she had now “experienced” the South Side, and I recall her asking me what it had been like to have “grown up” in the area. Even though the part of the South Side I call home is about 60 blocks further south and way to the east.

We of South Chicago and the East Side (and the 10^th Ward in general) think of Bridgeport as being “way up North,” which is a thought that I’m sure would grossly offend the 11^th Ward locals who now won’t have Schaller’s to hang out at to console themselves.

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150 years and counting; what have we learned from Civil War tales?

It may wind up being the most over-quoted statement in coming days, but the view of a Confederate commander upon his surrender at Appomattox in Virginia is a thought that continues to have relevance.

Attributed at times to Henry Wise (and at others to an unknown Confederate soldier), it was the thought that there exists a serious split in the view of North and South – one that will never truly wither away.

“YOU MAY FORGIVE us, but we won’t be forgiven. There is a rancor in our hearts which you little dream of. We hate you, Sir,” was supposedly said to U.S. general Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain when he oversaw ceremonies in which those Rebel soldiers laid down their arms before going home.

Do we fully appreciate the “rancor in our hearts” that was expressed at the ceremonies held in the days following the actual surrender document signed by General Robert E. Lee some 150 years ago Thursday?

It comes across from political operatives in an almost joking sense every time we see the maps that show blue and red states, with the “red” that signifies Republican victories seeming to be based heavily amongst those states that actually talked secession and tried to break away from the United States.

I remember one political operative literally saying that the opposition to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential victory was evidence that “they’re still fighting the Civil War” in the south.

I ALWAYS FIND it a little absurd to use Civil War analogies in such cases because one has to admit the significance of that military conflict from 1861-65 was that the split was so severe that people felt compelled to take up arms.

Heck, the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln as president was the act considered to be the final straw to the “state’s rights” camp that caused them to try to break away and form their own country. The political observer in me never fails to be amazed that Lincoln could win that election even though he wasn’t even on the ballot in most of the southern states – opposition to his alleged abolitionist ways was so strong!

We may have some serious splits in our national psyche, but I don’t see anyone outside of those militia types seriously talking about taking up arms. And the bulk of us realize those people are nuts.

We’re not taking such talk seriously. Perhaps that is the lesson we learned from the Civil War – that of the need to compromise.

PART OF WHAT motivates me to write this commentary is that I recently stumbled onto a re-run of the Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” documentary on the local PBS affiliate.

The Wise quote (if he really said it) caught my ear, as did the belief of historian Shelby Foote that the Civil War was caused by the ultimate failure of the two sides to reach a compromise – something he believes is the very premise of our society’s successes.

Does that make the Civil War merely an aberration? Something that we learned our lesson from and don’t need to focus so much attention on any longer?

I’d hate to think that, because then the quote from Winston Churchill about “fail(ing) to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” comes up. As in could our social split on so many issues someday become so extreme that somebody feels compelled to dig out their firearm and start shooting at those people who disagree?

TRYING TO MAKE sure that doesn’t happen could be the real significance of the talk that will occur Thursday from all the repeat references to people that the Civil War ended (for all practical purposes, if not literally) on this date in 1865.

That I’m sure many of you will dismiss with little thought – before moving on to the latest White Sox or Cubs score. Or perhaps you’re more intrigued by the sex-change conversion of one-time Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner?

Which is why a poem such as “Unreconstructed Rebel” (performed as a song by Hoyt Axton, although some say it was written as a parody) continues to have some relevance, rather than withering away into a relic of the past.

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