Cook County Experience

During the period 1987 until 1993, I spent a lot of time in Chicago. We lived in Lake County, Indiana just across the Illinois-Indiana line, yet for a while I worked in the loop for Amoco Oil Company. My work took me often to truck driving schools in Chicago and throughout the upper Midwest, where regular people attempted to work through changes in society originating in the Ronald Reagan administration.

I recently stayed overnight in a working class neighborhood in Cook County. The mostly younger folk who live there can’t afford to buy a home and apartment rent is very high. It takes multiple working people to make ends meet in a single apartment. It is difficult to see how today’s working class can get ahead.

I arrived in late afternoon and everyone in the household gathered in the kitchen as dinner was prepared. While attempting to help, our child told me twice, “I got this.” I stepped back and enjoyed the conversation and studied the meal preparation process. It seemed a very Middle Class experience, which I appreciated.

The purpose of the trip was to spend time with our child before the election. We didn’t talk politics much, yet I recommended a vote for Jan Schakowski in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District where they live. Schakowski seems like a solid Democrat and a reliable House vote where there is a narrow division between Republicans and Democrats. The rest of the political discussion had to do with the Israel Hamas War and the apparent lack of a spine among most members of government who work in Washington, D.C. Short version: We know where Republicans want to go. What will Democrats do to represent liberal values? Like many, I can’t wait for the election to be over.

Errands included a trip to the Secretary of State’s office in Deerfield. Taking care of business is easy there, from security standing outside the entrance screening arrivals, to an efficient way of processing customers. Richard J. Daley, the last of the big city bosses would have smiled at the efficiency. Of course, changing a voter registration was easy because, “this is Chicago.”

We made a trip to Costco where I paid for a cart mostly full of “protein items.” That means beef, pork, chicken, hummus, and sausages of indeterminate origin and recipe. I added one of the rotisserie chickens for which the chain store is well known. The purpose was to provide options other than simple carbohydrates for meal preparation. When money is tight, folks lean into pasta, rice and bread for meal calories. The shopping trip was designed to create options. One of the first tasks upon returning to the apartment was dividing everything between the refrigerator and freezer to spread out use of the items.

It was a bit weird for a vegetarian to buy so much meat. Our child was raised vegetarian yet became an omnivore upon exposure to the broader world beginning in college. I feel comfortable with the purchase for two reasons: I worked in a meat packing plant and am familiar with where meat comes from. In visiting our child in other apartments, I found meat items in the freezer and was able to prepare a meal for us with them (I know how to cook). I do a lot of meal preparation in our home, where one of us if vegan. Labels like vegetarian, omnivore, and vegan have lost meaning in my life. I should really say, “I am mostly vegetarian” yet that doesn’t really capture it.

From years of driving into and through Chicago, I am comfortable while driving. I continue to use WBBM AM Radio for traffic reports “on the eights,” and Google maps for directions. A driver must be attentive when working the Chicago interstate highways, yet they seem well-organized and efficient. Years of experience, combined with modern communications, makes it easy to find my way. There is value in that.