Unless you count the time I fell asleep on the Red Line twice – I don’t know that I’ve ever ridden a train for more than thirty miles. Give or take. Will that change this Thanksgiving?
In my memory I planted a flag called “Panera Bread”. It marks the time after finishing my undergraduate degree and before leaving for grad school that I worked for Panera where bread was our soul, passion, and expertise. I took the job because Roger was the manager. He had been my manager at Applebee’s and was a cool guy and I liked working for him. But I was also going nowhere fast in my life. And so I planted that mental flag so I could always look back and know how far I’d come.
Other flags:
My twenty-seventh birthday party in Orlando, Florida
Grand/Halsted/Milwaukee
My wedding day.
July 4th in Chicago was always a great time to be in the city. The best one was the year Pete had moved to town and we spent the evening at that party on the rooftop with fireworks in every direction. It always felt like my Chicago-anniversary, the Fourth. It sort of was.
I remember about the time I lost my sense of magic,
but when I did lose my industrial luster?
I just want to be on a bicycle riding up and down the lakefront with my wife and my dogs.