EXTRA: We're 180!!!!!

Happy Birthday, Chicago!

For an ol' gal of 180, you're holding up quite well, no matter what incredibly derogatory comments the current U.S. president continues to make about you. Probably because he's jealous that he doesn't have local ties to our city like the previous president did (and no, that ugly tower he erected on the shores of our namesake river doesn't count as a local tie).

YES, IT IS the 180th anniversary of the date upon which Chicago was officially incorporated as a city. It is a place that could easily have been wiped off the map following its Great Fire at age 34. Instead, it rebuilt itself into a place that truly qualifies as one of the intriguing cities on Planet Earth.

And we can now start the countdown, 20 years and counting, 'til we can have Bicentennial celebrations for the Second City (which may actually have sunk to 4th by the time that date comes about).

Not that it matters much; because many of us will always enjoy the wonders that exist at the southwest corner of the shores of Lake Michigan.

And now, we'll enjoy the musings of gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt playing our city's song.

  -30-

EXTRA: 100 and 50 years ago this date; 35th & Shields the place to be?

The Chicago White Sox were in Anaheim, Calif., Thursday night, finishing up a series against the Los Angeles Angels that has been as dismal (three losses thus far) as much of this season (55-63, or a .466 winning percentage).

So if you want to find a moment of glory connected to the Sox, you have to turn to history.

FOR IT SEEMS that Aug. 20 is a fairly historic date connected to the American League’s franchise in Chicago.

It can be argued that the greatest ballplayer to ever wear the White Sox uniform was “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, whom the White Sox acquired in a trade with the Cleveland Indians on Aug. 20, 1915.

Back in the day, it was a big money deal – Cleveland got $31,500 in cash, along with three journeyman ballplayers. The White Sox got the guy who arguably was the second-best hitter in the American League – behind Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers.

Seriously, how many .400 hitters (.408 in 1911, compared to .420 for Cobb that same season) can’t even win a batting title. And still hold the Cleveland and Chicago team records for triples.

JACKSON, OF COURSE, went on to help the White Sox win American League championships in 1917 and 1919. They got a World Series title in the former, but about all most people remember about Jackson these days (aside from thinking he looks and sounds like actor Ray Liotta) is that he was one of the eight ballplayers who got indicted on criminal charges for allegedly taking money to play less-than-well during the ’19 World Series.

LENNON: Above 'sacred' ground

That was a stink that lingered over the franchise for decades; one that some Cubs fans would like to think still ought to be associated with the ball club all these decades later.

Of course, time passes, and it was 50 years later to the date that another moment occurred on the grounds where Shoeless Joe once roamed.

The White Sox themselves were in Kansas City, Mo., to play the Athletics – whom they beat 3-1.

BUT THE BALLPARK still saw one of the city’s moments – the Beatles were on their 1965 tour of the United States, and 50 years ago this date they were in Chicago.

Where the music fans packed their way into the 45,000-seat ballpark to see one of the biggest rock music groups ever give one of their many less-than-stellar performances.

It’s the drawback of playing day after day after day of the same set of songs. Although I’m sure those who were actually on hand in the ballpark that day could care less. For all I know, the prepubescent screams drowned out the actual sounds of music that came from White Sox Park that day.

Even Ringo Starr gave an interview in the basement of the ballpark saying he thought that the people in the stadium, “they’re too far away, really” to enjoy the music.

SO WHAT SHOULD we think of Aug. 20, 2015?

The shorts, on display

Somehow, I suspect there won’t be anything terribly notable about the date. Unless you get excited by the anniversary coming up on Saturday – 49 years since the last time the White Sox ever wore shorts during a regulation ballgame.

  -30-

EXTRA: How old is 5 in Internet yrs?

I enjoy this postcard image of the Chicago skyline, and think it a shame that modern-day shots of the skyline feel compelled to go out into Lake Michigan and shoot toward the west -- rather than look along the Chicago River to the east

This weblog turns 5 years old Thursday night – the “wood” anniversary, I’m told.

With this being the 1,847^th post, I have to confess that the Chicago Argus has become a more substantial thing than I ever envisioned it would be on that evening a half-decade ago when I first created the site.

I THOUGHT I’D be doing the “semi-regular” posts that I alluded to in the introductory commentary on this site, and I figured it was a way to teach myself some new “computer-type” skills. I wasn’t sure if I could even keep the site going for a full year.

But from a personal standpoint, this site has helped keep me apprised to what is happening in Chicago largely because it requires me to pay attention to detail in a way I might miss otherwise.

And if any of my analysis has actually helped a reader comprehend why things happen the way they do, then perhaps there has even been a public benefit as well.

How little some things change, ...

I know for a fact that the biggest days I have ever had in terms of readership are the dates that coincide with the significant happenings in the investigation and prosecution of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

PEOPLE ON THOSE days were typing in his name to whatever search engine they could find in an effort to learn whatever they could about the man with the hair-do and the over-bloated ego whose judgment went al awry. Many of them were directed here!

... while others disappear completely

I also have to confess that the coming of Barack Obama (an official I first met on his first day in the Illinois state Senate) has helped to extend the life of this site. Because it gives the “Chicago” angle to many a national and international story.

So I’m not the only Chicagoan to benefit from having our city’s adopted son in the Oval Office. I don’t know what I’ll do four years from now when he finally steps down and has to focus attention on his presidential library.

I once parked atop 1st Base

Perhaps that will become a fight between interests on the South Side and Honolulu, and I’ll have to resort to following that. Along with the antics of Rahm Emanuel, the ongoing fight to replace Jesse Jackson, Jr., and whatever other scandals emerge from our public officials.

BUT CONSIDERING THAT this is Chicago and we can always count on an act of public policy insanity on the shores of Lake Michigan between Evanston and East Chicago, Ind., I’m sure I can keep this weblog running for as long as I have the energy.

So for those who actually bother to check in on a regular basis, I say thank you and hope you enjoy the historical video snippet featuring Gypsy jazz guitar player Django Reinhardt playing what is really our city's theme song (forget Frank Sinatra). For I know there have been many other websites that thought themselves serious news-related efforts that have come and gone during the time I have published this site about what I still consider to be “the greatest city on the planet.”

I feel fortunate to know that this weblog still has a life at 5. Although I’m wondering what that constitutes – Middle age, perhaps? – in Internet years.

  -30-

 

Happy boit’day, dear She-caw-go

Still a recognizable image, all these decades later

I am a Chicago native by birth, and one who has lived in the metropolitan area (both city and suburban) for the bulk of my life. Even those times when I have left Chicago, it has always been in my brain that I would return (and I did).

So what is it about this metropolis in Illinois (not to be confused with Metropolis, Ill., at the state’s southern tip) that makes it so appealing that I never felt I needed to move to New York in order to consider myself successful?

WHY DO I fully comprehend the idea that people from across the Midwestern U.S. feel compelled to relocate here for an adult life?

It doesn’t even have to be Midwesterners. Take our current president, a Honolulu native who saw our city as being ever so attractive to live (although I wouldn’t be surprised if someday, after the kids are grown, Barack and Michelle wound up retiring to the Hawaii islands).

To me, the appeal of Chicago has always been its variety – the fact that there really isn’t any such thing as the quintessential Chicagoan.

You can take two people who have lived here their entire lives and feel completely devoted to life lived north of 138^th Street (or south of Howard Street) who have next to nothing in common.

OTHER THAN THE fact that they can use the label of “Chicagoan.”

My point being that there is such a variety to this city. One can never have truly experienced it all. There is always something new to see or hear. It can never get dull – unless you are the kind who is inherently dull yourself.

In which case, you’d probably be bored anywhere.

Keep in mind that when I talk about a variety of types of people, I’m not thinking much of (if at all) the varied ethnic and racial beings who populate our city. Although I have always felt the fact that there is no predominant ethnic group for Chicago (no matter how much the Irish want to dream it’s them) is what makes us unique.

“WE ARE THE World” isn’t just the title of a tacky ‘80s musical number. It is an accurate description of our current composition (the 2010 Census Bureau population count for Chicago has it at 33 percent African-American, 32 percent white and 29 percent Latino, with the bulk of the remainder being Asian).

That is roughly where the nation, as a whole, is expected to be by century’s end. In Chicago, we’re leading the way. Perhaps our racial and ethnic outbursts are the nation working out the kinks of how well we behave together.

Just as a part of me wonders if the “Council Wars” of the mid-1980s was a test run for the partisanship tactics now taking place in Washington, D.C. between Obama and those who desperately want to dump him from office. Only the modern-day ideologues are less blunt in their language.

There’s also the fact that Chicago has its elements of high society and sophistication – certain aspects that can only be found here and to which the people of places like London, Paris, Tokyo or New York (just to name a few) must look toward us to experience in their ultimate form.

YET THOSE ELEMENTS don’t totally predominate our existence. Because there also are “very Chicago” places where the locals could care less about anything quite so elite or “hoity-toity” as the world-reknowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra. And anyone who would suggest doing away with those places would be missing the point.

They add to the ambiance that is Chicago. We’re better off for it. The Cubs are NOT quintessential Chicago. The tensions between White Sox and Cubs fans as they co-exist are.

Chicago wouldn’t really be Chicago if it had ever fully appreciated the literary work of Nelson Algren; which in-and-of itself is odd because Algren’s work often championed those “working classes” who wouldn’t have wanted Chicago to get too effete.

Yet we’re also not the types who are eager to linger in the muck for too long. It is a place whose people are constantly remaking themselves – except for the political people.

ONCE SOMEONE GETS elected to public office in Chicago, it seems a foregone conclusion that their grandchildren will be running for office.

Just the other day, I used my “early voting” ballot to refuse to vote for Patrick Daley Thompson – the nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley and grandson to former Mayor Richard J. – for a seat on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District.

How inherently Chicago that is!

So what is inspiring this love-letter, of sorts, for my home city?

IT IS THE fact that we’re in the weekend that marks the 175^th anniversary of the signing of the articles of incorporation that made Chicago an actual municipality (population: 4,160), rather than just a trading outpost with a few cabins built nearby.

I don’t know if I’ll still be around (if I am, I’ll be 71) when Chicago hits its bicentennial. So now is the time for me to leave my mark on Chicago’s uniqueness – although no one is likely to match the Carl Sandburg poem of old.

We might not literally be the “City of the Big Shoulders” and “Hog Butcher for the world” any longer. But it’s still a sense of what we aspire to be, and I can’t think of any other city with a more noble goal for itself.

  -30-