Be honest now. If you were given a choice between an all expenses paid vacation to Chicago or Rio de Janeiro, which one would you choose.
Personally, I’d choose Rio. I’ve never been there so the town would offer a new experience. Just looking for the Girl from Ipanema would take a week or more.
Chicago is so, well, so American. America is a great country, but it’s pretty similar in most geographical areas. Sure, there are beautiful mountains, grand vistas, lakes, rivers, fields of amber waves of grain, ocean waves crashing against seashores, wild horse preserves where magnificent animals run free, and cypress swamps where old-growth timber still thrives.
The trouble is, none of this is in Chicago. Oh, sure, Chi has its wind from Lake Michigan and a beautiful lakeshore drive. And there’s the Sears Tower, a wonderful example of American architecture and engineering innovation.
You may even find a speakeasy or two if you’ve got the guts to wander off the beaten path. Only, the Windy City’s 21st Century speakeasies are speakeasies in name only, Hollywood’s concept of Chi in the Roaring Twenties.
Before the Roaring Twenties, Chicago had another history and another reputation. The American poet, Carl Sandburg, said this about the city in 1916 in his poem Chicago.
HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
In many ways, Chicago is still the brawling City of Big Shoulders. There is a bravado about its residents that speaks to its industrial past and reputation as Hog Butcher for the World.
But the stormy brawling today is reflected in its drugs, gangs, and the crime that inevitably accompanies these activities. Chicago can be and often is a city that elicits a degree of apprehension when potential tourists are planning their vacations.
Rio also has its share of crime, but few people in the world are aware of it, whereas most of the world’s inhabitants who have seen Hollywood movies and television shows about Chicago are convinced that a vacation there would be an unpleasant experience at best.
In contrast, the vision of Rio is largely one of frivolity, symbolized by its annual Carnival, beautiful girls walking virtually nude along the beach at Ipanema, and the breathless magnificence of the city as seen from Mount Corcovado.
When I learned that the International Olympic Committee had eliminated Chicago as a contender for the 2016 Olympics on the first round of voting, followed in subsequent rounds by Madrid and Tokyo, leaving Rio as the winner, I wondered if the visions of Rio’s sugarplums in theit heads colored their votes.
Certainly, I do not know the answer to that question, and I doubt if even the judges themselves could explain their rationale. Oh, sure, they could provide reasons, such as “Rio’s presentation was the best of the lot.” But what is “best.” I have a hunch that the judges voted their preconceptions but we’ll never know. It’s a done deal. Why agonize over it?
Don’t get me wrong. Of course, I wanted Chicago to win. If Chicago won, I reasoned, America would win. I didn’t attach Barack Obama’s name to the matter in any sense. Even if Rush Limbaugh were president and supported the selection of Orange, Texas, I would still want the Olympics in the United States.
But if it came down to a vacation, I’d still opt for Rio.
Leave a Reply