On Mondays and Fridays Ben gets out of school at 11:20 am but Sam doesn't get out until 3:15 pm. So Ben and I have almost four hours to either go home and hang out, run around and do errands or go off on some sort of an adventure. And so today, even though the cats need food and the house is a bit of a train wreck, I chose embarking on an urban outing. I was partly motivated by the forecast--it predicted a high of 58 degrees. We're in mid-November in Chicago and I am not sure how much longer we are going to be blessed with these insanely mild and gorgeous days.
We headed down to Bridgeport, it's an old Irish neighborhood, the birthplace of Mayor Daley and home to the White Sox ballpark. It's also where the tiny Ramova Grill has been serving up simple diner food for almost 80 years. (That's even longer than Daley's been da' Mayor.)
There are only 4 old wooden booths and then a short counter with sparkly red vinyl seats that spin. You don't get menus you just look at the faded hand=painted sign above the counter and take it from there. Our waitress had a hard face but a completely warm disposition. She is what Central Casting is looking for when you say "Waitress. South Side Chicago." Every person that walked in the door, she greeted by name. She didn't know ours but she flirted a little bit with Ben and called me "Hon." Ben ordered a cheeseburger. It cost $1.80. Yep. Seeing how it was Friday I felt compelled to order the Fried Perch Special for $5.50. We were quite the happy couple in our wooden both as Ben chomped on pickles (our waitress brought him extra after he told her how much he likes them) and I slathered homemade tartar sauce on my crispy fish. And we both ate too many french fries because they tasted just right, especially after being dragged through ketchup.
We will certainly be back soon to try the breakfasts because their hash browns look exactly like hash browns should, griddle-cooked, crispy and frizzled on the edges. And I need to come back to try the chili because that's what they're known for and what half the folks in the room were enjoying. Oh and because the sole fry cook in the window working multiple burners with boredome meets ease looked like a combination of Anthony Bourdain and Lou Reed.
We left the Ramova and got in the car and were headed north on Halsted when I saw the sign for Monster Island Toy Shop. I had to pull over. I mean, I knew a park was on the agenda and it was a lovely fall day, but it's not every day you find yourself in front of a shop the specializes in Godzilla. Or Godzillas.
Sorry the photo is so crappy. But we enjoyed looking at Vintage Godzillas, Godzillas with wings, glow-in-the-dark Godzillas and trippy new "highly collectable" Godzillas from Japan. The shop also sells action figures from Star Wars, GI Joe, Halo and other genres I don't know much about. Ben talked me into buying him a Darth Vader. I felt like I caved a little too easily but I also wanted to support the shop. It was tiny and we were the only ones in there. Had it been my choice we would have bought the glow-in-the-dark Godzilla because you never know when you're going to need one of those.
We walked out of the shop and I had every intention of going straight to the car but then two shops up from Monster Island I spotted the Let's Boogie Record Shop.
I peeked in the window and all I saw were rows of records and tapes, just like the sign on the window states. I turned away and was walking toward the car when someone behind me said, "Are you sure you don't want to come in?" I turned around to find a pear shaped man with salt and pepper hair smiling at both of us. "Do you sell any cds?" I asked. "Sure do," he replied. "What are you looking for?" "I am looking for Michael Jackson's Thriller," I said and I think I blushed. "For you or your kid?" he asked and winked. And so he welcomed us in his store and we happily entered. It was bright, spartan and a little dusty. There were faded posters of 70's bands on the walls. He handed Ben a roll of Smarties, walked to the back of the shop and returned with a stack of Michael Jackson cds. Sam has been totally interested in Thriller and we've watched the video on YouTube several times. I tried to buy it Target a few weeks but had no luck. And it struck me then and there that if there was a supremely perfect place for me to buy my son a Michael Jackson "record," then the Let's Boogie shop in Bridgeport was about as close to perfect as I was going to come. So I bought it, with cash since they don't take credit cards. I walked back to the car with Ben, completely lost in memories of the summer of 1980 when every single day I sat on the porch of my friend Lei Elkins' house and sang Billy Jean at the top of my lungs. I think I need to go to record shops more often.
We finally made it to the car and we headed up Halsted. We only had about eight blocks to go and then we found ourselves at a new-ish park that I wanted to check out all summer and just never got around to: Stearns Quarry Park.
From the late 1800s until 1970 it was a limestone quarry. After that it was a dump for construction materials. Thousands of years before it was those things it was a Coral Reef. And ten years ago the Chicago Park District had the brilliant idea of turning it into a park.
It's not your typical park at all and has no playground structure. That was the first thing Ben asked when we arrived, "Where's the playground, Mom?" There's a modern metal walkway that zig-zags past native plantings and a very intentional waterfall feature. Ben zigged and zagged on it, clutching his brand new Darth Vader figure. I was silently wondering if the lack of a playground was going to turn this "adventure" into an ordeal.
Then when we got to the bottom, to the dock where a Chinese family was feeding the ducks, Ben danced around a bit, thrilled to discover a pair of White Ducks amongst the quacking group of Mallards. And then he decided he wanted to play under the walkway. And so we did.
I am pretty confident that the architects and designers who came up with the plans for the space never acticpated that kids would want to actually play on the wobbly chunks of limestone under the metal structure. But then again, I think architects and designers ought to hang out with three year-olds in outdoor spaces a little more often.
After navigating the shifting clumps under the walkway we headed over to a sloping hill of stone steps and Ben ran up and down them, jumping off the rocks at the top. This set of dramatic steps reminded me somewhat of the steps at Monte Alban. Note well that I said "somewhat." But Ben has never been to Monte Alban so this was totally fabuloso for him.
The steps went right down to the water's edge. After going up and down a dozen or so times, Ben ran all the way down, peered in the water and noticed something. I looked too. And then he shouted, "Rocks!" He thrust his little arm into the water and plucked out a small square rock. He carefully put down Darth Vader, stepped back a few feet and then threw the rock in the water where it landed with a little splash. He pushed his sleeve up, put his hand back in the water and pulled out two rocks. They landed with a little kerplunk. He was giggling and jumping up and down on the rocks. He repeated this several times. His arm was red from the cold water, his sleeve had gotten wet, his knees had wet patches and I noticed he had a big smear of dried ketchup on his cheek. But he didn't notice any of these things because he was having way too much fun throwing his rocks in the water.
And so that is what he did for about twenty minutes. He would have done it much longer but I realized we had to head north to go pick up Sam. He wiped his wet hands on my jeans. He leaned down and picked up Darth Vader. (It wasn't lost on me that Rock Throwing momentarily defeated Darth Vader, if only for a short spell.) We walked slowly back up the steps and then the walkway, with the light coming through the red and yellow trees above the quarry walls and Ben looked up at me and said, "It's a really nice day today, Mom." And he was right.
