We're back home in St. Pete after having spent a week in the frigid mid-west, although I think we brought with us on our coattails some of that cold weather we thought we had left permanently in our wake as we boarded our plane out of O'Hare. Folks...it's cold here in the Sunshine State.
Of course (and I purposefully digress), the head Chicken Little of Global Warming, Albert Gore, would profess that these abnormally cold temperatures being experienced all across America is nothing more than an anomaly and, much sooner than later, we nevertheless are doomed to have the shores of Lake Michigan lapping at the city limits of St. Petersburg. What I'd like to propose is Mr. Gore be staked, buck-naked, at the geographical center of these United States and let him stay there in all of his egotistical glory until the spring thaw...should be sometime around late May...and see if he can even pronounce "anomaly." But, alas, such a fondly held New Year's resolution on my part shall never come to pass. Pity...
Carl Sandberg was correct is his poetic description of Chicago as being the "City of the Big Shoulders." One cannot from a distant vantage point gaze upon the lofty and mighty towering spires of this city's magnificent, emerald skyline, or transverse as a mere mortal speck through the canyons of its bustling commerce, teeming with the multitudes of determined and purpose driven citizens awash in the business of their living and not join in like affirmation of Sandberg's declaration to "come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning." Chicago is all of that and more...
Including, but not limited to, a gigantic ego that is first and foremost propagated by it's long standing imperial mayor, Richard M. Daley. One cannot turn a corner in Chicago without being confronted with the fact that Mayor Daley is firmly and resolutely in control of the city's reins, his name being emblazoned on every city owned facade, beginning with each of the "Welcome To Chicago" portals to every trash receptacle that dot block after block of the city's streets. His father, Richard J., served as Mayor for twenty-one years and son, Richard M., is poised to equal and soon break his father's consecutive years as mayor while serving in his current term. Apparently, despite the many allegations of favoritism and charges of corruption, Chicago without a Daley in City Hall wouldn't be Chicago. The trash cans would certainly look less festooned without his stamp of ownership.
In the ironclad grip of winter, Chicago is bundled up in layer upon layer of heavy coats and gloves and scarfs, where the well-to-do appear no more distinguishable than the destitute, each and all on a determined quest to find shelter from the bitter cold, that after only a few moments of exposure turns any unprotected flesh into stinging reminders that an extended vacation in the Caribbean about now would be a fanatical dream come true. Standing on an elevated platform awaiting the arrival of the next scheduled train on the "L" is to confront the infamous "Hawk" screaming unabated from the land of the polar bears, whips across the frozen depths of Lake Michigan, and arrives like a hammer to drive its confronted huddled masses into clutches of shivering humanity. I cannot but applaud the truly hardy citizens of this city who regard this daily venture through the weeks and months of this relentless, bitter cold as the necessary price one must endure in order to be citizens of Sandberg's pride and joy. God bless 'em.
I am most looking forward to a return trip to Mayor Daley's playpen, but it will only be when the ice has disappeared from lake's edge, the trees are again in their full throes of summer finery, and Chicagoans have shed their igloo cocoons for less encumbering and freeing attire. In the mean time I'll just solider through this highly uncharteristic Florida flirtation with winter's deep freeze and look forward to Mr. Gore's perdiction that in short order all of God's children will be basking in the warm glow of Hell. It can't come soon enough to suit me.
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