This post will most certainly go under my personal title of, “Wow, how naive this little ‘ol Canadian gal really is”! I have lived in Chicago for quite some time now, and I saw something today that I have never seen; not on this side of the 49th nor on the other side.
We live in a very nice neighborhood. It’s a lovely area laden with tree-lined streets, lots of walkable restaurants, theater, and grocery stores. I have always noticed a grouping of lovely town homes. Large windows, three stories, you get the picture. Today as I was strolling down this street I was a bit taken aback; there were four, yes four Cook County Sheriff’s Office Vehicles, with a plethora of officers in sight. As unnerving to me as this was, I kept walking, acting as if it was an everyday occurrence for me! Do you ever get that internal butterfly sanctuary going through your tummy but your exterior is maintaining its cool persona? That was yours truly this a.m. (and my new “cool-ray” dark shades helped too).
So here it is, my first sighting of a house eviction in progress. Now at this point you might be wondering, okay, was there a take-down, did anyone get hurt? No. The only thing hurt in this scenario was my feeling of ignorance, my naivete, my, okay, my Canadianishness (not a word, yes, but I like it; it has a good beat, and I can dance to it).
Alas, there is one more point of interest along the way of this eviction observation. A young girl passed by me just as we both walked past the home. She must have dialed someone in lightning flash speed because I heard her say, “Yeah, it’s a 3-storey. I don’t know how much the rent would be. No, one of those town homes. Okay, check it out and let me know.” To say the grass did not grow under this young lady’s feet is putting it mildly. While thoughts of, oh, I hope the people are okay, I hope their doggie is alright (I use to see a yellow lab in the side-yard), clearly someone else’s mind was how to benefit from another person’s bad circumstances.
Perhaps I am a naive Canuck; possibly. But I am pleased that my first reaction was that of compassion for, not the cashing in of….someone’s misfortunes. Nonetheless, it does have awfully nice windows! *teasing* 🙂
The Chicago Files 