Big Shoulders, slim hips

Traveled by train to Chicago — to what Carl Sandburg called the city with “Big Shoulders” — to see a show, visit with friends and relatives, and shop for stocking stuffers for family members and some new jeans for me.

All went well, except that I discovered that the “Hog Butcher for the World,/ Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,/Player with railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling,/City of the Big Shoulders;” mostly sells pants for those with slim hips and bird legs. The styles today are not my style, nor would they be suitable for hog butchers, tool makers, wheat stackers or freight handlers.

Sandburg was writing 110 years ago, midway between Chicago’s hosting of two world fairs (1893 and 1933). It was an era when Chicago’s streets were muddier and the air was smellier.

It was a time when “supply chain” issues didn’t mean foreign shipments were being delayed at our nation’s ports; it meant there was some congestion in moving America’s goods through the massive rail yards of Chicago. This was the 19th Century’s “Crossroads of America,” long before Indianapolis appropriated that phrase as a marketing and branding scheme to a consumer nation which had become addicted to automobiles and interstate highways.

Empty storefronts are indicators that Chicago’s brick and mortar merchants have been affected by consumers’ long-developing drift toward online shopping, a shift that has gone on steroids during the on-going Covid pandemic. There are signs that the merchants also worry about “smash and grab” mobs that have wreaked havoc in some places.

I awoke one day to early morning television news that informed me that a shooting had occurred the night before just a squib kick away from the corner restaurant where we had been enjoying a pleasant meal. We were unaware at the time, but I estimate the shooting occurred as I was ordering dessert.

Still, nothing dissuades us for naming Chicago as our favorite northern city. It has immense challenges and struggles, as do all big cities; but we love it.

We remain charmed by Chicago’s public green spaces that run the full length of its eastern border — nearly 30 miles — all of it along the fresh water ocean we call Lake Michigan. And by the Chicago River that cuts through a canyon of buildings, with a 3.5 mile public riverwalk.

It seems strange to say, but we’ve walked the neighborhood streets and public paths of Chicago with as intense interest and nearly as much awe as we have felt when we’ve hiked in our country’s national parks and forests.

JER