Bryan W. Alaspa 1The Second City
June 29th 2009 00:00
Of course, the thing to keep in mind about Chicago and, by association, Chicagoans is that the city and the people have a kind of permanent and large chip on their shoulders. It isn’t something we think about too much, but it’s there. All day long we can stand there and look up at the sky and see the planes flying west and east and know that many, many of them are planes flying from New York to L.A. and back again. If you talk to most people not from Chicago they often say the same thing, “I’ve been to Chicago. Well, I’ve spent time in the airport.”
I wouldn’t put it past the politicians and people who cook up the numbers about this city if they counted those people who just run from one airport terminal to the other as official “tourists.” The city spends a lot of effort trying to make O’Hare Airport something to be memorable. You can almost do all of your Christmas shopping there, for crying out loud, while drinking coffee, grabbing a bite to eat and then eating a cinnamon bun for dessert.
Chicago spends a lot of time creating culture. Sure, the people who run the town try to make it seem like they are just doing this for the good people of the city and, hey, if it happens to attract a few out-of-towners and their lovely disposable income then great. Chicagoans don’t fall for that, though. We know that the stuff was created for tourists and if we happen to like some of it too, great, but if not no one cares they are going to build it anyway.
You see this when it comes to the weather and this is where it starts to annoy us in Chicago. We get hit with a blizzard that dumps four feet of snow on us, for example. We are in misery. Tree limbs are falling on small children from the weight of the snow. Our cars are literally buried beneath mounds of snow requiring earth-moving equipment. After a long day of burrowing tunnels to get to our cars we head inside and turn on the evening national news and what do we see?
Most of the time we see national news and then maybe, just maybe, there might be some small nugget about how it snowed in Chicago. This is often followed by shots of children sledding or cars skidding. Then we go back to the anchors who smile at us and act like we’re cute and nothing like that would happen in a city as great, wonderful and worldly as New York.
Then, as the weather moves east, as it often does, and goes over water like the Great Lakes, those storms often intensify. The weather then meets up with systems brewing out in the Atlantic and become really big. So, two days later New York gets snow and those self-same smug-ass anchors now act like the sky is falling. They have reporters on every corner of Manhattan showing us shows of put-upon New Yorkers huddled against the snow.
We laugh here in Chicago and take some kind of glee in seeing that. We knew it was coming. We put up with it two days ago and are now dug out and moving on with our lives. Did we complain? Did we belly-ache? Now, we shoveled and used our snow-blowers and moved on. That’s what we do.
We find New Yorkers cute and L.A. residents even cuter. When the temps drop below 50 in L.A. the entire town shuts down and people talk about how “cold “ it is. We just turn up the heat as the wind blows off the lake and the temps drop to below zero for the eighth day in a row and smile. We know neither groups of people, New Yorkers or L.A.’ers would not survive here.
Still, they could at least respect us. Throw a little respect our way as the planes fly past. Would it kill ya to dip your wings a bit?
I wouldn’t put it past the politicians and people who cook up the numbers about this city if they counted those people who just run from one airport terminal to the other as official “tourists.” The city spends a lot of effort trying to make O’Hare Airport something to be memorable. You can almost do all of your Christmas shopping there, for crying out loud, while drinking coffee, grabbing a bite to eat and then eating a cinnamon bun for dessert.
Chicago spends a lot of time creating culture. Sure, the people who run the town try to make it seem like they are just doing this for the good people of the city and, hey, if it happens to attract a few out-of-towners and their lovely disposable income then great. Chicagoans don’t fall for that, though. We know that the stuff was created for tourists and if we happen to like some of it too, great, but if not no one cares they are going to build it anyway.
You see this when it comes to the weather and this is where it starts to annoy us in Chicago. We get hit with a blizzard that dumps four feet of snow on us, for example. We are in misery. Tree limbs are falling on small children from the weight of the snow. Our cars are literally buried beneath mounds of snow requiring earth-moving equipment. After a long day of burrowing tunnels to get to our cars we head inside and turn on the evening national news and what do we see?
Most of the time we see national news and then maybe, just maybe, there might be some small nugget about how it snowed in Chicago. This is often followed by shots of children sledding or cars skidding. Then we go back to the anchors who smile at us and act like we’re cute and nothing like that would happen in a city as great, wonderful and worldly as New York.
Then, as the weather moves east, as it often does, and goes over water like the Great Lakes, those storms often intensify. The weather then meets up with systems brewing out in the Atlantic and become really big. So, two days later New York gets snow and those self-same smug-ass anchors now act like the sky is falling. They have reporters on every corner of Manhattan showing us shows of put-upon New Yorkers huddled against the snow.
We laugh here in Chicago and take some kind of glee in seeing that. We knew it was coming. We put up with it two days ago and are now dug out and moving on with our lives. Did we complain? Did we belly-ache? Now, we shoveled and used our snow-blowers and moved on. That’s what we do.
We find New Yorkers cute and L.A. residents even cuter. When the temps drop below 50 in L.A. the entire town shuts down and people talk about how “cold “ it is. We just turn up the heat as the wind blows off the lake and the temps drop to below zero for the eighth day in a row and smile. We know neither groups of people, New Yorkers or L.A.’ers would not survive here.
Still, they could at least respect us. Throw a little respect our way as the planes fly past. Would it kill ya to dip your wings a bit?
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