That Toddling Town

The lyrics of an old song declare that Chicago is a toddling town. I’m not sure it toddles, but it is certainly an interesting place. For example, when we went for lunch at a Mediterranean Restaurant here in the airport, I heard Spanish, an Arabic dialect and several other languages. I heard very little English, except from one woman seated at our gate who said that she was from Chicago. From her accent I would swear she was from the southern Appalachian Mountains. This city is as diverse as they come. It is remarkable. My only complaint is that the coffee concession at the airport is not diverse. Starbucks has a monopoly on the coffee shops at O’Hare. There must be 20 coffee shops in the airport, and all of them are marked by pictures of the green lady. The hot coffee was an excellent ending to the chilled chicken salad I had for the midday meal. Randy and I will go to McDonald’s in a minute to grab a bag of burgers for our evening meal on the airplane.

While we were getting our burgers, I passed a memorial to Lt. Butch O’Hare, the first recipient of the Navy’s Top Gun Award, which was awarded in 1942. It features an actual Grumman F4F Wildcat. As a tribute to him Chicago named its airport O’Hare Field. He and a colleague developed a maneuver called the Thach Weave, which rendered the Wildcat as an effective opponent of the superior Japanese Zero fighter aircraft. We also passed the skeleton of a dinosaur peering down at the travelers in her airport. I didn’t see any identification, so I assume she was one of the first residents of the Windy City.Read more