a wild trip to chicago started before i even left, when i got pulled over for expired registration and out-of-date insurance card; the citation for the insurance will go away when i show we were up to date, but the warning for the registration was just that: you drive around with that orange 2025 sticker, we'll see it and pull you over. sure enough, november had gone by, and four other months, and we hadn't noticed. a warning was a warning.
but the online registration computers were down, and at the dmv they weren't giving out stickers. turns out when i got there that they were giving out 2026 stickers as they were old, but not 2027. it was a this-year one that i needed, having failed to renew last november, and i was in luck, but an hour late on my way to chicago.
these days i take interstate straight north forty miles to moline, then east on 80 a couple hours until i get to 55 which shoots me right into the loop. it's a pretty straightforward route. was also lucky that my son lives but a few blocks from laskeshore drive, and our destination was also a few blocks from it, just further up the lake. so lots of lakeshore drive and otherwise pretty reasonable traffic.
i saw my policeman, though, right in the median, nose pointed at me as i passed a truck. if i still had that orange 2005 sticker i would have been a dead duck.
the only major event of the trip was that upon landing at the intersection of 80 and 55, a large sign said RAMP CLOSED. No detour, no sign warning, no alternate route. So I went south on 55 one exit and turned around. Probably half of us did that, the other half just shot past the ramp and came back on the next exit east. when it's unmarked you get that kind of random distribution and maybe that's best. a single detour might have overloaded either of those options.
lakeshore drive was beautiful; sun was setting to the west, sky was pink, lake was blue, the city shimmered alongside it. my sons seemed a little battered by life but it might just have been battered by making it to chicago during the week. it was good to see them and also grandchildren that accompanied them.
it so happens that today is a kind of longevity day. their grandfather, who would be my ex father-in-law, is turning 100 today. he's not in great shape but at least most of the family is there to celebrate what there is to celebrate. my ex herself is not showing up for whatever reason but that makes it easier for me to come and go.
but march tenth is also the birthday of my brother, who is 63, and of a guy named frank who he was named after, who was perhaps the most famous leverett. this guy walked 100,000 miles of the midwest collecting data and figuring out where the glaciers had been back in the ice age. he had mastered this technique which later became very valuable to the oil companies, of using surface features to predict underground things. he'd collected data his whole life, but he never had children, though his second wife had march tenth as a birthday as well. and then, toward the end of his life, he began collecting data about the family - how many? born when? married? to whom? etc. ect. he was obsessed with data, and yet of all the data he collected the most important number seemed to be longevity. how long did they live? what does that tell us about how long i'll live?
an ironic thing about his life is that while he was born on the iowa side of the river, back when iowa was a territory, and the river, of course, even then was the line between east and west, his research proved conclusively that long ago, that river flowed to his west, thus he was actually an easterner, given that ice age layout. today we are similarly obsessed with that line, at least in this territory.
in the end his longevity wasn't better or worse than anyone else's. yes he had walked 100,000 miles. i assume his knees and ankles gave out just like the rest of us. i'm not sure if he died happy. but he died at a relatively normal time (~87), nothing unusual.
i'm thinking of him, my ex father-in-law, and my brother as we go hurtling into spring. spring is springing. the dog is sound asleep, but it's beautiful out, and i, tired from my long trip, am just hanging in my chair.
forgot to finish the story though. nine-thirty or so, time to call it quits, and i take the third son home down lakeshore drive and get on the road for the west again. this time my ramp is open but i see that two of the four are closed including the one i'd have come in on. now it happens that i'd forgotten to change my hearing aid batteries upon leaving in a hurry, and now one was dead already, and the other about to die. it did die, somewhere around that junction. the last 2 1/2 hours i drove in silence, more or less, with lots of coffee, because, while it is somewhat dangerous to drive in silence, the real danger is in falling asleep from lack of loud trucks bearing down on you. i have a small car that blows around because of trucks and winds and i have to keep white knuckles on it all the way, but i did, occasionally taking a sip of a huge coffee i'd bought to make it. i made it. home ragged, but still here.
but the online registration computers were down, and at the dmv they weren't giving out stickers. turns out when i got there that they were giving out 2026 stickers as they were old, but not 2027. it was a this-year one that i needed, having failed to renew last november, and i was in luck, but an hour late on my way to chicago.
these days i take interstate straight north forty miles to moline, then east on 80 a couple hours until i get to 55 which shoots me right into the loop. it's a pretty straightforward route. was also lucky that my son lives but a few blocks from laskeshore drive, and our destination was also a few blocks from it, just further up the lake. so lots of lakeshore drive and otherwise pretty reasonable traffic.
i saw my policeman, though, right in the median, nose pointed at me as i passed a truck. if i still had that orange 2005 sticker i would have been a dead duck.
the only major event of the trip was that upon landing at the intersection of 80 and 55, a large sign said RAMP CLOSED. No detour, no sign warning, no alternate route. So I went south on 55 one exit and turned around. Probably half of us did that, the other half just shot past the ramp and came back on the next exit east. when it's unmarked you get that kind of random distribution and maybe that's best. a single detour might have overloaded either of those options.
lakeshore drive was beautiful; sun was setting to the west, sky was pink, lake was blue, the city shimmered alongside it. my sons seemed a little battered by life but it might just have been battered by making it to chicago during the week. it was good to see them and also grandchildren that accompanied them.
it so happens that today is a kind of longevity day. their grandfather, who would be my ex father-in-law, is turning 100 today. he's not in great shape but at least most of the family is there to celebrate what there is to celebrate. my ex herself is not showing up for whatever reason but that makes it easier for me to come and go.
but march tenth is also the birthday of my brother, who is 63, and of a guy named frank who he was named after, who was perhaps the most famous leverett. this guy walked 100,000 miles of the midwest collecting data and figuring out where the glaciers had been back in the ice age. he had mastered this technique which later became very valuable to the oil companies, of using surface features to predict underground things. he'd collected data his whole life, but he never had children, though his second wife had march tenth as a birthday as well. and then, toward the end of his life, he began collecting data about the family - how many? born when? married? to whom? etc. ect. he was obsessed with data, and yet of all the data he collected the most important number seemed to be longevity. how long did they live? what does that tell us about how long i'll live?
an ironic thing about his life is that while he was born on the iowa side of the river, back when iowa was a territory, and the river, of course, even then was the line between east and west, his research proved conclusively that long ago, that river flowed to his west, thus he was actually an easterner, given that ice age layout. today we are similarly obsessed with that line, at least in this territory.
in the end his longevity wasn't better or worse than anyone else's. yes he had walked 100,000 miles. i assume his knees and ankles gave out just like the rest of us. i'm not sure if he died happy. but he died at a relatively normal time (~87), nothing unusual.
i'm thinking of him, my ex father-in-law, and my brother as we go hurtling into spring. spring is springing. the dog is sound asleep, but it's beautiful out, and i, tired from my long trip, am just hanging in my chair.
forgot to finish the story though. nine-thirty or so, time to call it quits, and i take the third son home down lakeshore drive and get on the road for the west again. this time my ramp is open but i see that two of the four are closed including the one i'd have come in on. now it happens that i'd forgotten to change my hearing aid batteries upon leaving in a hurry, and now one was dead already, and the other about to die. it did die, somewhere around that junction. the last 2 1/2 hours i drove in silence, more or less, with lots of coffee, because, while it is somewhat dangerous to drive in silence, the real danger is in falling asleep from lack of loud trucks bearing down on you. i have a small car that blows around because of trucks and winds and i have to keep white knuckles on it all the way, but i did, occasionally taking a sip of a huge coffee i'd bought to make it. i made it. home ragged, but still here.
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