The Smile

Ever since my grandson was born, it seemed that he would smile whenever he saw me.

In my office I have a picture of my grandson taken when he was but three months old. He is with my daughter and son-in-law and across his face: a huge smile. Now that he is almost a year old there can be no doubt that his smiles are genuine and not muscular accidents. He will spot me across a room – smile, then dart over to me. It makes my heart sing.

But as I write these words I am riding a commuter train home from my office in Chicago. I have now ridden this train over 15,000 times. But as I look around the train car tonight, I notice that it is without smiles. A few people are reading papers. Some are looking out the window. Some are just staring out into space. But smiles? Not a one. Yet everybody on this train, including myself, was once a small child. Back then, life was an adventure and smiles were automatic things. What happened?

As the economy worsens, Americans adjust to the fact that a lower standard of living will mark their futures. So perhaps there just isn’t much to smile about. But we continue to have dreams of betterment and the hope that one of those rags to riches stories that appears in the newspaper will one day be about us. In the meantime we ride the train, earning just enough income so that tomorrow we can ride it again. We are a nation of worker bees. Somewhere out there must be a King Bee and a Queen Bee. But they are not on the train.

Europe. I was there a long time ago, in the early 1970’s. In those days Europe was divided into east and west. Western Europe was “good” and “Eastern” Europe was “bad.” It’s all changed since then. Now all of Europe leans to the left and is therefore almost entirely “bad.” Evil socialism has crept in.

But wait - those Europeans look like they are having one hell of a time. Their money is worth more than ours. They have free health care. They have a free educational system. They have democratic governments. They are off during the entire month of August. They swim naked on the beach. They have sex. They don’t get fat. They drink fine wine. They live longer than us. And they smile.

America. The sign says: Love it or leave it.

Maybe so.

NICK & NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST

I wonder where Michael Cera will be in ten or fifteen years. He seems to be a skilled actor, but is constantly type cast in the same role: confused teenager in chase of The Girl, who ultimately winds up being mutually attracted to Cera because of his innocent nerdiness. In this case The Girl is played by some young actress named Kat Dennings. She’s got something. If I were single and 18, 19, 20 or even 35, I would probably chase after her myself.

But alas, time has passed me by and I just don’t understand the world that these kids live in. Sex is casual and only slightly more difficult to obtain than cigarettes. They go to New York City on the weekend, hopping from bar to bar while trying to find a band called Where’s Fluffy. And none of these high school kids ever gets carded. Compare to the suburb where I live, Elk Grove Village, Illinois where everybody gets carded. And by everybody, I mean everybody. A man in his 70’s once confronted me in the parking lot of Jewel Food Store and asked me to buy him some beer because he didn’t have his ID.

Anyway, this film started out okay, but began to lose me with a pretty disgusting scene in which a drunken young woman reaches into an unflushed toilet to retrieve her ringing cell phone and her bubble gum. No way that's funny. And so I decided that life in Elk Grove Village isn’t so bad so long as I have an ID.

2 stars out of 4

Olympics (Not)

I’m not used to hearing live rock music playing from the courthouse at 8:00 a.m. But that’s what happened this morning. You see my office faces the Daley Center Plaza and the volume of activity taking place there made it difficult to work.

Yes, today was the day that the 2016 Olympic games were going to be awarded to Chicago. And Chicago was ready. Clark Street, adjacent to the Daley Center Plaza, was closed to traffic and instead was occupied by a fleet of media trailers armed with satellite dishes. Two JumboTron monitors simultaneously displayed the goings on in Copenhagen and the activities that were taking place on a large stage that had been constructed in the plaza itself. The music was mostly from the 70’s and had a celebratory feel to it. If the crowd had been wearing green instead of orange, it would have had the feel of St. Patrick’s Day. Only bigger.

Being from Chicago, I had mixed feelings about the Olympics coming here. On one hand it probably would have been the only chance I might have in my lifetime to witness some Olympic events. On the other hand, the City of Chicago claimed to be broke. It has sold off the Skyway toll bridge and leased out its parking meters for 75 years just to raise some instant cash. City employees, including police, are being forced to take days off without pay. But we were assured that no tax dollars would to go pay for the Olympics and that it would all be financed privately. Sure.

For me the most unsettling part of Chicago’s Olympic bid was the construction of a $300,000,000.00 Olympic stadium which would not survive the Olympics and which would be razed following the games. I know we have turned into a disposable society, but I thought that term referred to items like shaving razors.

But the very first vote in Copenhagen eliminated Chicago as a candidate city. All of of a sudden, the noise in the Daley Center quieted. It was like a wedding where the bride had shocked everybody by failing to appear. On television, a camera panned the crowd. The facial expressions: like ten thousand children finding out simultaneously that there was no Santa Claus.

I decided to go home.