Just Words, Cross Country Edition: Chicago

The dusty, cracked, almost yellowish road shortly reveals a skyline like I have never seen. One after another, majestic skyscrapers reach toward Babylonian heights; the sweltering summer sun sears the Willis Tower as its finger-like antennae vainly reach for the aquamarine lake of Heaven. The Trump International Hotel and Tower, the Aon Center, and the John Hancock Center are not far behind. With four of its buildings fraternizing in the top thirty tallest on earth, Chicago's mass architecture equals mass appeal.


Yet even ground level maintains small wonders: sufferers of claustrophobia can walk the streets with ease; darkened underpasses provide shade for pedestrians and transients; elevated walkways span over the emerald Chicago River—proof that Oz once lived here, just as the spinach pizza is proof that Popeye once visited the city by tugboat to deliver the prized recipe he procured in Italy by punching out Bluto.


Chicago reaches mythological heights and it also falls to abysmal lows. Fireworks tower above Lake Michigan, squealing across the nine o'clock sky, silencing the millions of submerged South Side souls still squealing for independence.