It was a little after 7 AM when my phone pinged, signaling that I had a text message. “I’m going to pick you up in 10 minutes and take you to breakfast, be ready.”  It was a change of plans from my friend Tom. Originally, I was going to meet him at Starbucks to put together a blog post for his company’s website. These plans had apparently changed.

Tom and I have many similarities; in fact, we are more similar than different. However, we do have one significant contrast. I’m a planner, and Tom is spontaneous. I believe that he enjoys rocking my boat, and I enjoy steadying his. I pull back Tom, and he pushes me forward. Since we respect each other, our actions benefit both of us. 

Tom was being his usual cheeky self as we drove into the city, refusing to say where we were going but emphasizing that we would be driving through some “dangerous neighborhoods!”  The latter deliberately injected into the conversation to add a bit of drama.  However, I think he sometimes forgets that I was raised as a city boy, familiar with such places. 

We pulled off the Eisenhower and into a different world.  A place devoid of grocery stores but full of burger joints and fish shacks.  A grassless zone of buildings pushed close to the edge of streets.  Primarily old buildings, many seeming to need some repair. Some had grand facades from bygone days, the most spectacular being the churches.  Towering and majestic, many former Catholic, some now reclaimed to other religions.  Often showing architectural styles borrowed from the home countries where the immigrant builders originated.  

I can’t attest to Tom’s route, but for whatever reason, it zig-zagged past places that evoked memories in me, some despite the fact that I had never seen them before.

We drove by Douglas Park, a vast green space with a lagoon.  This park was close to where my parents grew up on Chicago’s west side.  Driving by it evoked memories of stories that they told me.  Stories of how the park’s pool was decommissioned and filled in due to infection fears during the polio epidemic.  Stories of how, during the Great Depression, some of my aunts worked as maids for the rich people who lived around the park.  They would stay at their residences during the week and return home on the weekends.  The park is a bit shabby now but still retains a feeling of class and elegance.  

We then drove by an enormous public high school built of brick in the Collegiate Gothic style, popular in the 1920s and 1930s.  Its three-story edifice stretched an entire block, dominating the neighborhood.  I spied its name etched on the school and it felt like I had just been punched in my gut.  It was the Manley High School, the school where my father had been the Chief Operating Engineer.  This was the last school where my dad worked, and once one of the largest high schools in Chicago, with a capacity for 3000 students. Its glory days are now past, with a shrinking enrollment since CPS has initiated its school choice program that allows students to attend schools outside their district.

I realized my dad’s enormous accomplishment as his position of COE was the physical plant’s equivalent of the academic position of the school principal, and he did this with an 8th-grade education.  He stopped his formal schooling so his older brother could attend college but continued to attend night school for years, eventually taking classes at the Armour Institute, the precursor of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Seeing the last school he ran made me appreciate his ambition,  and it gave me a better understanding of why my mother and father were so adamant that all of their children achieve a higher level of education. Ultimately, all 5 of us obtained a 4-year college education, and four hold graduate degrees. 

My grandparents immigrated as peasants from Slovakia at the turn of the century with little to nothing.  Yet, most of their grandchildren became highly educated and successful.  I imagine that would not have been the case if they had remained in their motherland, as they would have been restricted by their class limitations.  As they advanced their lives, in turn, they advanced ours.  I am grateful for that.

We continued our drive eastward and reached the Illinois Medical District, a concentration of hospitals, research centers, and medical schools.  Once again, I was filled with nostalgia.  In the 1970s, I was a graduate student doing biochemical research.  One of my experiments required the use of a device called an ultracentrifuge.  Our lab didn’t have one, so we used one at the school’s medical center. It was an old machine without many of the controls of modern devices.  I remember the professor of that lab quizzing me as I set up my experiment.  “How will you calculate the speed of the ultracentrifuge?”  After a moment of panic, I answered, “By graphing its values.”  I had no idea how that thought popped into my head, but it was the correct answer.  I recall that the professor struck me as being a bit odd. She spoke to me in a thick Eastern European accent, and I had to carefully listen to her.  She had a poster board hung on the wall with her children’s academic accomplishments listed.  Her one son did research in high school that was quoted in Lenniger’s Principles of Biochemistry, the de facto Biochem Bible of the day. I felt sorry for her other boy as his academic prowess was less. Why did I, a stranger, have to know that he was less gifted than his brother?  It saddened me for him.  

I would walk one-and-a-half miles from that medical campus lab to my spot at UIC’s Science and Engineering Lab building late at night.  During those days, this was through a rough neighborhood, and I would do my best to stand at my full 6’3″ height as I deliberately walked with a blocky, overly masculine gait.  I guess my stance worked because I was never bothered.

I was shocked at how nice the medical campus now looked, with many formally trashy areas gentrified with exciting shops and restaurants.  From being a bit scary in the 1970s, it now had a warm campus feeling.  It felt nice.  

We drove east and soon were upon UIC’s campus.  Built in the 1960s in the Brutalist Style by Walter Netsch, the campus was decidedly ugly when I attended in the 1970s.  With almost zero greenery, it was a concrete jungle with hideous, giant elevated walkways blocking the sun and dripping on students who used the lower level.  My wife attended graduate school at UIC decades after I did, and many of these monstrosities were demolished and new green spaces established, giving the campus a softer and more welcoming look.  

UIC’s mission was to offer an excellent education at an affordable price. Initially a commuter-only school, it has helped countless individuals obtain an education that would never have been possible otherwise. Over the years, it has grown to include dormitories and other facilities; I had no idea how nice the campus had become.

Tom drove down Halstead Street as I gazed at the new and improved UIC. Yes, the majority of the buildings were in the Brutalist style, but newer, more appealing buildings peppered the campus, which was also graced with more green spaces. With the backdrop of downtown Chicago, UIC had a clear urban feeling and a college campus vibe. It looked good.

Once again, I was awash with memories of my years as a graduate student at UIC.  As an undergraduate at NIU, I pretended to be an adult.  At UIC, I was treated as, and became, an adult.  Nights in the research lab, hours teaching undergrads, and time reflecting on my future.  In those days, my goal was to become a university professor, a plan I would deviate from.

Growing up on the Southwest Side of Chicago, my worldly experience was limited. UIC gave me more than just an academic education; it exposed me to new ideas and divergent opinions.  It introduced me to foods from other cultures.  For the first time in my life, I had Greek food, Korean food, and Thai food.  I fondly remember walking to the Jewish garment district to dine on potato latkes from Manny’s cafeteria.  UIC also showed me I was on an equal playing field with my contemporaries.  If I wanted to accomplish something, I could.  

Seeing the campus made me nostalgic for those times, and for a brief moment, I wished I was back in the lab.  Such feelings reflect the rose-colored glasses that one wears with age. It was a pleasant feeling to recall the promise of youth.  A time when everything and anything seemed possible. A time when every option seemed so close that I could almost touch it.  Nostalgia is a great thing. 

We drove a little more and were at our surprise destination, Jim’s Original Hot Dogs, a bright yellow and red building at the corner of Rochford and South Union.  The place is an open air stand with several walk-up windows.  As we approached the line, I was struck that we were the only white people.  I experienced an unnecessary feeling of caution, not for my safety, but if I would be rejected due to my race.  That was not the case, and we were greeted with open arms as the woman at the window cheerfully asked me for my order.

I ordered a pork chop sandwich and cheese fries based on Tom’s recommendation.  The sandwich was unique, an actual unbreaded pork chop, bone and all.  On top of the chop was a cloud of sauteed onions, plus a little yellow mustard.  It was fantastic.  With our bellies full, we returned to Tom’s pickup for the drive home.  

An enjoyable adventure culminated in a new experience.

How often do we go somewhere oblivious of our surroundings?  Always in a rush and stressed to get to our destination. How great it was to pause and “smell the roses” of my past. How lucky I was to be invited on this adventure and to be allowed to reconnect with my history. 

Peace

Mike