The Institute depends
(I mean you dawgs)
Upon it's friends.
Having dispensed with that I have a tale to tell, a stirring tale of a lone condo owner taking on the all powerful board because, because Godamnit, it's the right thing to do.
When I was just a teenager, a troublemaking student of Gage Park High, I remember that when the towers were rising on the north bank of the Chicago river it was a big deal, tongues wagged, they are so different, they are, well they're round. I remember one day standing on State Street and some guy, some Texan (in my memory he is wearing a ten gallon hat, but that may be something that memory has added) walked up to me and asked me what was that and pointed to the towers nearly done then and asked what are those, and, my heart bursting with pride for the windy city, I replied, why those towers are Marina City.
Some years later an actual cousin of mine lived in the towers, I was so proud. I had known her as a kid, but hadn't seen her at all since we had both grown, nevertheless I was pleased as punch. For the first dozen years the towers were apartments and the management put white circular bulbs on all the railings of the balconies and when they lit them up they were stunning. I remember my cousin had some kind of problem with the lights, maybe it was who paid for the electricity, but when I asked her about it some years ago she didn't remember it, so maybe I am mistaken about that, but it is a foreshadowing of what is to come..
In the middle seventies the apartments went condo, and though you can still see a few of those globular bulbs the towers became a rainbow of all sorts of lights which many found more pleasing than the rigid regimentation of the whites, and Marina City at Christmastime was something to behold.
When I came back to Chicago in 1987 it was my intention to just grab a grubstake and go on to see the world, but I got a pretty cushy job and I was loathe to leave it and try to get a new job in a strange city. I had been living in my parents' attic and when I looked for a place to stay one of the first places I inquired at was Marina City. The guy was kind of snooty, as I recall, and upon hearing of my salary sniffed that I could never afford to live there.
A few years later I had more dough and came back and bought myself a unit. I was proud to be a resident, and I wanted to be a good condo citizen, and attended my first board meeting intending to be attentive and analytical and to lend my well intentioned shoulder to the smooth running of the towers, and I was sawing logs a half hour into the meeting.
Oh well, none of the board members had an eye-patch, or a peg-leg, or said Arrr, so I could probably trust them and since Christmas was approaching I headed out to Walgreens to buy some Christmas lights eager to join the rainbow throng that graced my tower.
Geez, I am only halfway through my backstory, but I guess I will have plenty of time to write this story of Uncle Ken's fight for what our forefathers fought for at Valley Forge because apparently
The Institute depends
(clicketty clacking before dawn)
On Uncle Ken
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