Living in Champaign and guzzling way too much beer forty or fifty years ago, I can't say that I ever gave much thought to the future. I was operating in those years under the totally absurd theory that every place was pretty much like everyplace else so you might as well stay where you were since that was easier than moving.
I did have a thought in those times that things might happen that would find me living in Chicago in my dotage. I imagined myself living a few blocks from Wrigley Field in that seedy neighborhood that it was at the time, and spending the summer going to every home game and stumbling home drunk every afternoon. That rather appealed to me, a little thought to tuck into my hope chest.
But when fate finally put me in Chicago, the neighborhood was far from seedy and the tickets were sky high, so basically I went once a year. I missed a couple years because of covid. Remember those empty stadiums and the crowd noise played like muzak with the announcers juicing the boom box up whenever the team scored a run or two, and commenting wryly "And the crowd goes wild." They way overdid that, but I never got tired of the joke, it just seemed so fitting.
Anyway went to a game last night. One of my Champaign beer drinking buddies, now living in Missouri, rented a skybox and invited me and some other Champaign people and her son and his son, and a couple of her neighbors.
Skyboxes. Oh I hate them, the flaunting of privilege over the poor schlubs of the fans in the stands. Of course those poor schlubs likely paid a hunnert bucks for their lowly streets, so I dunno.
You know one thing I needed was a new Cub hat, and I recalled all those rickety stands along Addison with profane and scatological t shirts and cheap hats. I would pick me up one of those. But there was one stand at Addison and Sheffield which only had t shirts, none of them offensive in the least, and all the way down Addison nada. No place for them, the street was chock a block with shiny new buildings, all part of the new Cub Disneyland, all the money spent within a block or two of Wrigley is funneled right into the Ricketts' coffers and much of that ends up in Trumps coffers.
And those guys selling programs and peanuts and bottles of water, all gone. There were a few scalpers, but dollars to donuts they were agents of Ricketts. I didn't get a new hat.
I had some kind of app on my phone which produced a ticket on the screen and then I walked down a bit and there was an elevator and then I was in skybox row. All the workers were obsequious and cheerful. I wanted to say something mean, but of course they were all poor schlubs, who maybe manned the stands or pushed the peanuts only now they were in the hallways helping out fatcats like me, and having to be damned cheerful about it and probably making half of what they once did.
And damn those boxes were fancy, but as I went down the hallway, they got smaller and less sumptuous, and the one we had was at the end of the row and deep into right field. I imagine the high rollers in the big boxes over home plate referred to us as poor schlubs.
But it was nice enough. There were fat hot dogs and the beefs weren't bad, but the only beer they had was Budweiser, which okay, I choked down three or four.
The Cubs lost.
I have tasted of the fruit of the mango tree and found it to be good. If we ever get a logo, and guys, shouldn't we be thinking of this right now, I think a mango tree would fit in nicely somewhere.
I like the new developments in Ukraine of course but I am a little skeptical of things spoken of in the past that did not come a cropper. Remember all those stories about how Putin was on death's doorway?
I thing there should be another category, like you are guilty of being a mope or asshole, and it would be on your "permanent record." Or you would be known as not being trustworthy, or something like that.
I don't know that sounds a lot like that Chinese Social Credit thing. Of course if we, meaning me, got to decide who got what score it would not be so bad at all.
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