such is my life that on a monday morning my wife could say to me, "want to go to gary?" referring to a city in indiana, and i, interpreting it as pressure, though tired and burnt out, would agree to do it anyway. it would be for our son, whose friends moved to gary a while ago. it would be for one friend's birthday, which was apparently monday.

gary is a three hour drive from galesburg; we go straight north to moline, then straight across the state of illinois, into northern indiana, where gary is about twenty miles from the border. most of the trip then is illinois. and it goes from sheer farm country, nothing harvested corn fields and husks blowing around, to more and more orange cones, traffic congested, cars and trucks bumper to bumper - in short, chicagoland. the two boys i took with me fell asleep instantly although it was only about two in the afternoon when we started. out.

it took four to get there, because of an accident and because we landed in chicagoland right as rush-hour traffic was clogging up the arteries/ i was starving. i found a fish place in the neighborhood while the boys went in to celebrate a birthday.

an interesting thing about the fish place was that it barely sold any fish. it seemed like it had been a fish place by tradition, called the shark fin or something, and the signs advertising catfish, shark, shrimp etc. were ancient and nobody had done anything to replace them, only add a few for chicken wings. but they sold mostly chicken wings, and those fish things were there but not even really on the active menu that they used the most.

if you're white, everyone's a little surprised to see you in gary. or maybe it surprised them that i got out of the car, since most people were using the drive-through. i have trouble hearing what people say and find it better to just get where i can see their lips - but it makes for a situation where i can almost read in their faces, what's this guy doing here?

the boys were hungry when i got them out and we got back on the road. the poor woman, mother of three large teenage boys in a small house, probably had trouble feeding her own kids, and ours i think popped in by surprise, as far as i could tell. the kid whose birthday it was wasn't even home at the time, but came home toward the end.

but to me, a trip to gary is always interesting. they live in a part of town, south of the interstate, where lots of people let their yards go unmowed and it almost feels like woods on various streets as the vegetation overtakes the road, putting you in deep shade as you drive through. in addition some railroad tracks cut through, and one of the streets you need is one way, so there's always the possibility. of getting lost. but i've been there several times and have used their house as a base to explore a little, at least on the broadway side of it.

broadway is interesting to me because, years ago, i had a friend whose family lived on broadway; it might have been his grandmother. we came through there at least once when traveling together; his grandmother was romanian. in addition, when i'd go visit my first wife's family in chicago, they also were from gary - a jewish family that had settled in gary originally and then found its way up into chicago. all kinds of history all over the place, but it seems to be getting covered up as nature takes over where people have other concerns.

all of this leaves me back home somewhat shaking my head. why is it that, of all things i could be doing at the age of seventy-one, i am still indulging the impulses of a twenty-year-old who needs to see his friends, yes, but has no idea of how difficult traffic is, how lucky we were basically to slip in and out of there without some major disaster. at one point i found myself on the interstate behind some major truck carrying about five army tanks, probably used in the invasion of chicago, and i had a fantasy about what would happen if someone were to just disrupt it. like every truck, it was going about sixty bumper-to-bumper in a nine-lane road going east through gary. broadway was one of about ten exits but of course the one i was looking for. coming back, i was grateful to get back on that nine-lane madhouse, and the boys, very hungry now, got me to stop at an oasis. i'm surprised they still have those, but they do - there's one up by ohare too - and they kind of hang over the road but this one had seen better days. let's just say things didn't work out as planned, but they never do, and i'm glad to be home, in a sleepy town where i'm used to things.