To and From Chicago

The journey to Chicago was very different then my journey home. The South Bend to Chicago run was marked by two women who wanted someone to talk with during their trip. While the Chicago to South Bend journey was marked by strange and unusual people.

I first met a 70 year old black woman on the South Shore who was traveling from her home in South Bend to visit her cousin in Chicago. When she found that I was reading this Sunday's sermon notes she began to tell me all about the large Baptist church she attends and how it has gotten to big for her.

I asked her about her family and she told me about all four of her children. She told me that her husband had passed a couple of years ago. She lives with her daughter in South Bend but she still seemed lonely. She asked me if I would walk with her in Millennium Station and helped her up the steps to Michigan Avenue. Once we were there I think she wanted me to stay with her but I needed to get about 15 blocks away to Union Station to catch the Metra.

While waiting to board the Metra I struck up a conversation with a middle aged lady who was headed home from a nursing meeting she had attended downtown. I would have preferred to have read on the last leg of the trip but again I think this lady needed conversation. In the end I was glad to have talked with her.

Then there was the trip home. The Metra ride from Libertyville to Union Station felt quick and uneventful. After arriving at the station, I came up the steps to Canal Street. I found the bus stop for Bus 60 that would take me closer to Millennium Station. While I was waiting for the bus to arrive I noticed there was a heavy set young woman in her late 20's talking with the people who were already waiting for the bus. She was telling them that there has been a rash of robberies and that the robbers were targeting backpacks and luggage. She said she knew this because she was one of "them" and had just been in jail for robbery.

When the bus came I got on; I was limited in seat choices due to the fact that I had a suitcase with me. She promptly sat down next to me and began to tell me the same things that she had been saying at the bus stop. The whole time we were talking her eyes kept flitting down to my suitcase. She also noticed that I had my wallet in my front pocket of my jeans.

We got off at the same stop and I went over to the edge of Old Navy. She tried to get me to walk with her but I told her to go on ahead. It is a bit scary being scoped out like that but at least she wasn't a very good crook. Plus, I don't think she could have ran away very fast. Maybe that is why she had been arrested.

I eventually got to the Millennium Station and boarded the train for South Bend. I thought I might get a nice pleasant ride home only to have a stinky person sit down next to me in the very crowded train. Thankfully he got off about an hour into the 2 1/2 hour trip home and I was able to stretch out a bit. The only other interesting thing on my trip home was the drunk lady singing hymns in the McDonald's at Goshen when I stopped to use the restroom.