Earlier I mentioned how the city had major arteries every mile west from State Street. Also midway between those major arteries were minor arteries, Canal, Racine, Damen, and then between Kedzie, the shortchanged artery, and Pulaski what? Central Park, which despite its imposing name, like the proverbial ne'er do well son, never amounted to anything. Certainly not in Gage Park where its route was supplanted by the Grand Trunk Railroad. The railroad of my childhood, though callow youth that I was I never much noticed it except to sled down its raised sides in the winter. In Urbana there was a train yard a few blocks north and I could hear the cars go bump in the night.
When I went to Austin I did it by train, St Louis at midnight, Little Rock at dawn, Dallas at noontime, and then miles and miles of miles and miles before arriving that night in Austin. After Austin the next stop was San Antonio, and as it happened my apartment was right at the bend where the train turned southwest on its way out of town. This would take place about seven in the evening, and crossing a minor busy street it would blow its horn, which was so loud that if I was on the phone with someone they would hear it and ask what it was, and I would say, "That Son, is the train to old San Antone." I always liked trains.
Of course those are big trains and they have little in common with the CTA trains, but I like them too. As a kid the only train I knew was the main north/south train now known as the Red Line. Once or twice a year my mom and maybe some other neighbor lady would gather a passel of the neighborhood kids and take us all to Wrigley Field on Lady's Day. This was for my sake, all my friends were Sox fans, but any kid will go to any game any time. We had to take the bus downtown of course, but once there we would go underground to the strange exciting world of the subway station, then we would woosh through the dark a few stops and then we would emerge into the daylight. Not only the daylight, but into the air. Wasn't all that high, but it seemed like that to us kids, cars looked like toys, people looked like ants.
When I came back to Chicago in 1987 I was mad to ride the trains, the Green Line to Oak Park, the Blue Line to O'Hare, the Brown Line which I now take to the Ten Cat. On a day off I would just ride trains, partly to see the city and partly just to be riding a train. After I moved downtown I would still be taking the Archer Express to visit my parents in their bungalow.
But then in 1993 the Orange Line opened up going from downtown to Midway Airport, crossing Kedzie just north of 51st Street, a short walk to my old neighborhood which I visit every summer to tip my hat to the old bungalow, so there is no reason to bother with the Kedzie bus.
Archer is not as busy as it was before the Orange Line and there is no reason to have an Archer Express. There is still just the plain old Archer bus. that sometimes in the old days you would take if you had just missed an Express and the plain Archer bus was right there. For twenty seven years now I have been telling myself I would take it again just for old times sake but I never have.
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