lately i've been studying the german side of the family, specifically the ancestors of my grandmother on my father's side, who i never met because she died of breast cancer three years before i was born. her brother was a doctor but she couldn't get his advice, or support, because her mother, one lizzy singelmann mauer, had a feud with this brother and wouldn't allow him in the house. yet it was she who was staying with grandma velma. i've been uncovering the secrets of what might have made her so difficult.

meanwhile a son came to chicago and parked himself in an airbnb with his wife and two grandchildren. i drove up there (three and a half hours) and also to gary to drop off a friend of my son. gary traffic was a nightmare. chicago's was too, and on the way home a couple of wrong turns and i ended up way deep in the south side, quite a ways from where i wanted to go.

back when i lived in chicago in 1994 that south side going down all the way from comiskey park to beyond 95th, was all black. at the 95th street station it looked like seoul, very busy, but all the people coming and going were black. i think what happened was that the strong black majority simply got a little displaced as ethnic people of all kinds moved in and set up camp. the south side i got lost in seemed to be a conglomeration of races and economic positions. it didn't seem hostile, though.