Snow & Toboggans - Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
12:56 p.m.
It snowed. This is not New York snow. It is Chicago snow. You know about New York snow. There, they measure it in feet. We measure it in inches.
Just the same, it was too much for all but my most committed regulars. No amount of calling out the news of the day will draw in a frozen, wet commuter to pick up a copy of what can probably, in all reality, wait until later. He can buy the thing in the train station, or at a kiosk deli in his building.
What days we live in when mere snow shackles our doings. It is snuffing out my fun, that's for sure, but I think everyone is not enjoying it. Not downtown, at least. Not in the Loop.
Chicagoland has places that snow is an asset. I have slid a time or two down Swallow Cliffs, after trudging over 100 awkwardly shaped steps, dragging an old rented toboggan. Hot chocolate never tasted as good as it did after a few hours of that terrible, awful, fun hill.
The view from the top of Swallow Cliff was a sight missed by city dwellers. Looking northward, well above any tree, and near the clouds, I would see what perhaps Adam first saw had he lived in Illinois. Eye-to-eye with flying birds, they surely looked at us strangely, wondering why we moved so slowly up the hill, and so quickly back down. We, to a bird for which flight is natural, might have thought of us as Sisyphus, with his tired, futile, endless one-man brigade to push a rock to the top of a hill.
There's news in the paper, but my fingers aren't willing to type as much thanks to wet gloves and a tough morning. Getting to my corner was hard - the snow kept blowing, and Daley's boys had more than they could deal with. Sometimes, God is stronger than the City That Works.
12:56 p.m.
It snowed. This is not New York snow. It is Chicago snow. You know about New York snow. There, they measure it in feet. We measure it in inches.
Just the same, it was too much for all but my most committed regulars. No amount of calling out the news of the day will draw in a frozen, wet commuter to pick up a copy of what can probably, in all reality, wait until later. He can buy the thing in the train station, or at a kiosk deli in his building.
What days we live in when mere snow shackles our doings. It is snuffing out my fun, that's for sure, but I think everyone is not enjoying it. Not downtown, at least. Not in the Loop.
Chicagoland has places that snow is an asset. I have slid a time or two down Swallow Cliffs, after trudging over 100 awkwardly shaped steps, dragging an old rented toboggan. Hot chocolate never tasted as good as it did after a few hours of that terrible, awful, fun hill.
The view from the top of Swallow Cliff was a sight missed by city dwellers. Looking northward, well above any tree, and near the clouds, I would see what perhaps Adam first saw had he lived in Illinois. Eye-to-eye with flying birds, they surely looked at us strangely, wondering why we moved so slowly up the hill, and so quickly back down. We, to a bird for which flight is natural, might have thought of us as Sisyphus, with his tired, futile, endless one-man brigade to push a rock to the top of a hill.
There's news in the paper, but my fingers aren't willing to type as much thanks to wet gloves and a tough morning. Getting to my corner was hard - the snow kept blowing, and Daley's boys had more than they could deal with. Sometimes, God is stronger than the City That Works.
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