Postcard From Chicago

Younger Son and I arrived in Chicago at about 4 p.m. on Monday, and we had three hours before our next train departed for Cleveland.

So we wandered the cavernous Union Station looking for coin lockers, and found the most high-tech storage lockers I have ever seen--I used my credit card to pay the fee ($8 for two hours--the only time I felt gouged on the entire trip), and had to provide a finger print both to open the locker initially and then to retrieve our luggage later. The receipt is also printed with a secret code, which has to be entered to open the locker--no key required.

Once we'd dumped the bags, we headed to Sears Tower (a building I had visited in the late 70s, but Younger Son had never seen).

Younger Son has an incredible ability to reflect and empathize on the broader meaning of what he is seeing. For example, when we were at Sears Tower, he told me about a book he had read in school, "There Are No Children Here." From the tower, he searched for the South Side housing projects where the book is set.

I was impressed--of course, I'm his mother.

Then we headed back to the station, ate dinner (cheese ravioli for The Boy, a mozzarella and tomato sandwich for me), reclaimed our luggage, and boarded our next train, this one to take us from Chicago to Cleveland, a six-hour journey. We arrived in Cleveland at 2 a.m. Tuesday.

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Comments

[jessica]

by any chance, was George Jetson working those lockers?

i just think its great that you and your son are able (and willing!) to take this trip together. and it seems you both are really taking advantage of the opportunity.

"There Are No Children Here." didn't oprah make that into a TV movie?