Back when I was in college at Northwestern, on Saturdays or Sundays when I had nothing better to do (which happened more often than I'd like to admit), I would take a Metra commuter train to the end of one of the lines and back. Cheap thrills, since on the weekend, an unlimited-ride pass cost a mere $5.00.
Since my college days, Metra has started a new line, called Metra North Central Service, up to Antioch, Illinois. It runs on weekdays only, there's only five round-trips a day, and only one of those round-trips allows a one-day trip from Chicago to Antioch. I take the 'L' down to Union Station, getting there in plenty of time to make the train, first buying a ticket at the ticket windows (unlike pretty much every other commuter train system these days, Metra doesn't sell tickets from vending machines; they do things the old-fashioned way).
The train goes past O'Hare Airport, then through suburban sprawl to Antioch. All of the stops have attractive little station houses, although none of them have an agent on duty.
I get off at Antioch, where the line is single-tracked, and the train moves further north somewhere. Why it had to do this is obvious when two freight trains speed past during the half-hour before the Metra train comes back.
The Antioch station has a couple of wooden benches, restrooms, a water fountain, a map showing the location of businesses in downtown Antioch (which is a couple of blocks away from the station, so I decide not to walk over there because I don't want to miss the train), and a "take one" rack of trashy paperback books.
I don't miss the train, I buy a ticket on board, and I successfully make it back to Union Station, then back to Levi and Stacey's.
That evening, Levi's beloved St. Louis Cardinals are playing on TV, so he watches them with his lucky stuffed animals. I walk over to meet Jer for a performance of "That's Weird, Grandma!", which is a series of humorous sketches based on stories written by elementary school children. I saw it the last time I was in town, but since they keep swapping sketches in and out, the show promises to be almost completely different. However, because not enough people show up, they cancel the show and refund everyone's money ("it's the first time we've ever had to do this," they say).
I go back to Levi and Stacey's and watch the end of the Cardinals game, and then Levi and I walk to Simon's Tavern on Clark Street for a regular Monday night get-together that used to involve drinking a lot of cans of Schlitz until the price doubled, and now seems to involve drinking a lot of Pabst Blue Ribbon drafts. I decide PBR is much worse than Schlitz, but I get to see various other friends and acquaintances, so it's not all bad.
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| In another in the series of pictures of cats sleeping, these are Levi and Stacey's cats, (left to right) Pegleg, Captain Spargus, and Spaceport. These cats are even more inaccurately named than Little Boy. (Pegleg has all four legs, Captain Spargus has not achieved that rank in any branch of the military, and Spaceport is a cat, not a spaceport.) |
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| A better picture of Pegleg and Captain Spargus. |
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| The "O'Hare Transfer" Metra station is at the edge of one of the remote parking lots. |
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| Much of the view on the train ride to Antioch was of houses like this. |
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| The Antioch station. |
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| The rack of paperbacks inside the Antioch station. |
It was free day at the Art Institute, so I took my thrifty self on the 'L' downtown to see one exhibit in particular, an architecture exhibit called "Modern Trains and Splendid Stations." While there, of course, I walked around and enjoyed what always happens at the Art Institute, where I walk into a room and there's a really famous painting just hanging right there in the middle of a wall. ("Look, it's 'American Gothic'!" "Hey, it's 'Nighthawks'!" Wow, it's 'Excavation'!")
That evening, Stacey was going to have some people over to see the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" season finale. Levi still had to watch a couple of the previous episodes on tape, so he wanted to get out of the house, and what better way to do that than seeing "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones," which had opened the previous Thursday? (Yes, that's a rhetorical question.)
Jer met us on the 'L' station platform at Belmont, and we went to the McClurg Court theaters. The 7:00 digital projection showing was sold out by the time we got there, so we had to settle for the 8:00 non-digital showing. (McClurg Court has three screens, and all three were showing the movie.)
Fortunately, due to our extremely low expectations, the movie wasn't that bad.
(By the way, note that the ticket itself is an ad for a certain cellular phone company. Clearly, advertising has gone too far. On the back, it does say, "Enjoy the show with your cellular phone set to silent or vibrate," but who ever reads the back of a movie ticket if they're not scanning it for their web site?)