Testing the Taste

I can handle the annual Taste of Chicago about every other year. Sampling from the city's bill of fare is great, but I can do without the unruly mob ... which hardly explains why I waited until July 3, when the city holds its major fireworks, to attend.

My girlfriend Brooke loves it and attends several times during the week-long festival. She and a friend research their options beforehand, strategically plan a route and exchange reviews afterwards. Prior to last Thursday evening's adventure, Brooke did us the courtesy of re-reviewing the alternatives and -- no joke -- indicating the preferred stops with color-coded Post-It flags. She's that into it.

We didn't stay for the fireworks but a million other people did. Following the show, four people were shot (one fatally) right near an L stop in the Loop. It's the station I used to get off the train for work and, if you saw Planes Trains & Automobiles, it's also where Steve Martin returns to find John Candy in the end (although there's really no indoor sitting area as the film depicts).

As expected, the three wounded and one dead were young gangbangers with a score to settle and not some nutjob shooting random citizens. It's hard to be sympathetic when the media frames that aspect as solace for the general public, but that's the current state of Chicago. Police were quick to reassure the city that they would beef up presence and make sure the rest of the event was safe to attend, but it didn't stop one more shooting the next night a few blocks north near the diamond-roof building made famous in Adventures in Babysitting (I can relate nearly any Chicago intersection to a popular 80s movie).

It's sad to see these incidents put a stain on the city during a major event attended by thousands of out-of-town visitors. To those from the suburbs and other less metropolitan areas, it probably confirms their suspicions about the city as a dangerous place to be avoided. But considering the annual increase in violence during summer months, exposure to such unpleasant reality is as much a taste of Chicago as any restaurant booth could offer.


P.S. - As not to end on a downer, I'd like to add that the next night we went to Evanston (where much of Sixteen Candles was shot!) to see Wall-E and enjoy their city's fireworks display.

It was a lovely date night. No one was shot.