More Travelogue

From the window of the train from O'Hare into downtown, I noticed that the Evangelical Covenant Church is next door to Hooters. Also I sat across from a woman in a baseball hat, embroidered with roses, that read "Property of No One."

Finally I arrived in my son's neighborhood, Pilsen, where most people speak Spanish and the stores are stocked with unlabeled bags of some kind of food that might be pork rinds or might be pastries. I wish I knew.

We spent most of the afternoon walking around, looking at fading flower gardens and peering into crowded shop windows, and I listened to my son and his girlfriend tell fine old fashioned tales about incompetent landlords and bizarre tenants and an old guy in a top hat and an antique Oldsmobile who feeds the local stray cats.

Today, I hear, we are going to the zoo. In the meantime, I am lying here in bed listening to the elevated train rattle by. Also, a rooster is crowing. That is a peculiar combination of noises.