A couple hundred miles further north, as I drove to and through Ripley, West Virginia, I saw rolling hills gradually growing into mountains. I saw forests populated with nothing more than deer hunters and their prey. I smelled gravy, spied camouflage, and heard rural poverty speak with a particular twang. I wondered how median household incomes of $20,000 can keep the Bob Evans, gas station, church, Holiday Inn Express, and McDonald's in town in business. And I soaked up the enthusiasm of hopeful young cheerleaders on the road to Disney World and a way out.
Thousands of miles south west, in Phoenix, Arizona, I saw purple mountains, cacti soaking up the desert sun, and hikers who knew every rock on Squaw Peak. I saw baseball stadiums, an enthusiastic network of fans who had arrived for the season, and the ball signed by Kris Bryant that Peter brought home from a game. I saw signs for Masses in English and Spanish and sensed wall lovers and wall haters. I rubbed lotion on my bronze son, and doubled up on my sunburned daughter. I felt the spirits of golden age movie stars, past presidents and a legendary architect and his sprites around the property of the Biltmore Hotel.
Back home in Chicagoland, I was once again greeted by a blue flat landscape interrupted only by some of the tallest buildings in the country starkly standing in defiance of nature. I saw the cold waters of Lake Michigan and a river waiting for its green dye. I drove by the remnants of a prairie that used to cover the state, through traffic and beside the trains trying to beat it. I sat down at my cube for a second, then rushed around with the rest of the hardworking people in my office. I thought about deep dish pizza, hot dogs, Fannie May, Rahm, and an Irish tradition that brings the divides of a big city together.
All the way to the northeast, Philadelphia was filled with historic markers, cheese steaks, and angry Eagles fans. I saw Abraham Lincoln presiding over the Union League's elite members and diverse city sidewalks slick from the melting snow. I looked up at William Penn who was staring down at Benjamin Franklin's parkway. I ran up the Rocky steps and saluted the statue that protects them. I danced to Neil Diamond and his band, I put on my robe at the Ritz and had a Bellini. I walked into Saint Augustine on Fourth Street and watched one of my favorite couples saying 'I do' in front of a congregation that characterized the city's branded brotherly love.
It was in Philly, my last stop of the week, that my friends, Dan and Kerry, brought together people from Seattle to South Bend, Amarillo to Austin, Denver to Detroit, and the Big Apple to the Big Shoulders; they brought together bankers and branders, cattlemen and car men, skiers and the doctors that take care of their knees, high tech companies and their instruments of obstruction, an Army ranger and an Air Force man, darling little cousins and their daring 94 year old Aunt Eleanor, proud parents, a little sister who's world was her big sister, and an eloquent and authentic best man who brought everyone together.
During the blessing before the meal, the priest described the elaborate banquet at the perfectly themed Union Club as a reflection of the heavenly one we await. And as I reflect on my week that took me on eight flights, through five states, and back and forth between three time zones, the priests comments reinforce how much we need people like Dan and Kerry and events like their wedding to bridge the sometimes polarizing credos we carry, from coast to coast, from left to right to those of us that stay firmly in the center.
Dan and Kerry - I wish you a lifetime of happiness filled with all that I experienced this weekend: great music and electric dance floors, steaks for dinner and dessert, champagne and the bourbon after, schooners, skiers, stages, love, laughter, and family and friends that will always be there for you.
Lo.
