l was going to say the time Jesus got on my bus downtown carrying a big 'ole cross on his shoulder. I didn’t know this was a thing (and it was a pretty unforgettable introduction to The Big City since I was new there), so I’ve learned something new today.
Also, Jesus looks a lot like Jeff Lynne.
A black helicopter left unattended.
There used to be a nightclub in Chicago called Medusa’s. We used to park under the L tracks when we’d go there. Medusa’s was a weird place, it didn’t serve alcohol, it opened at midnight and closed at like 7 or 8 am. It attracted some very odd folks.
Anyway, one Friday night a friend drove us to medusa’s in his mom’s VW Beetle. When we came out in the morning the side windows were broken out, the stereo was gone, and there were 8 or 9 used condoms and at least 40 beer cans strewn around the inside of the car.
I gotta tell you, that made me do a double take and scratch my head.
I was riding the bus to Midway one day. A slender gentleman dressed in a sweat suit boarded carrying a large duffel and sat down a couple seats away. On the ensuing trip he proceeded to entirely change his outfit, down to his underwear, for a minidress, fishnet stockings, high heels, wig, etc. and walked off the bus looking like a sexy woman.
This happened in 1975. Me and a couple Navy buddies went to Chicago for a day. While riding a bus trying to find the Sears Tower, a young black kid, 12 to 14 years old, stopped and asked if we wanted to buy a watch. He opened his jacket, safety pinned inside were about 8 watches. He wanted anywhere from $5 to $50, depending on the watch. We declined and he was off to pitch his sales routine to the next passenger.
After a Grateful Dead concert, I was hanging out with a friend in the 31st street parking lot. About 20 or 30 yards away there was a CPD paddy wagon parked. A young freak jumped onto the back bumper, and started hopping up and down, rocking the vehicle. I tapped my friend on the arm and pointed, saying: “That dude is going to get his ass beat.”
The wagons doors flew open, and 2 cops hurried out and chased this guy around the Paddy Wagon like something out of a Marx Bros. comedy, and began to shoot him with a super-soaker.
A super-soaker. The guy was drenched.
Oh yes, I was not hallucinating. They all had a good laugh, and If I didn’t see it happen, I probably wouldn’t believe it, either.
Nope. Date was August 12, Ciubs won 8-7 in daytime, White Sox lost 10-4 same night.
(Click the scores of each game to see box score and game details.)
Normall, the Cubs and Sox schecules to never be home on the same day, but there was usually one day when the Cubs would play the last day of a homestand in the afternoon, and the Sox would start a homestand the same night. I usually drove 500 miles to Chicago for that day of baseball.
I saw one.
I work at the airport, & there is a firm that does contract repair & maintenance for the Feds, and for others.
Sure enough, in the late 90s, there was a helicopter, black, with no ID number on it, in for repairs.
I assume that new ID would be painted on, later.
So I assume.
I saw the Cubs try to win a ball game.
His OWN wife? Not somebody else’s? Well, I never…
My wife remembers a busker (although she didn’t know that word then) from the early 50s, a “Rooster Man” in the West Rogers Park area. He was a skinny old black man with a trained rooster that would dance on street corners. She’d see him on the bus, with the rooster under his arm.
During the late 80s, I saw THREE Oscar Meyer Wienermobiles heading east on the Eisenhower Expressway, single file in the same lane with no cars between them. I didn’t even know that more than one Wienermobile existed.
It’s kinda like the department store Santa Claus. The real one can’t be everywhere at once.
Not the strangest, but probably the funniest thing I’ve seen in Chicago. At an El stop, a Black street performer with no teeth, and no talent either, but with an unshakable committment to the material.
Singing at the top of his lungs:
“MEEEE-AN MIFFIV! MIFFIV DOENZ, MIFFIV DOENZ, MIFFIV DOENZ…WE GOTTA THEHHH…GOWA-AHHHN”
(If you’d do the aural equivalent of a squint, you could tell he was singing this song.
Of course, all us white people were trying our best to pretend he wasn’t there, while Black people were going past yelling “shut the fuck up!”