Just Before Noon Today

Generally, I find myself tied to a desk in the north suburbs of Chicago. Today, I happened to find myself at the Chicago Bar Association for some training. At 11:50 AM, we were let out for lunch. Having missed the 1986 Chicago Bear post-Superbowl XX celebration, I walked over to LaSalle Street to see what a tickertape parade looks like.

Well, at 7 minutes to 12, I managed to get about 7 feet from the street. I was in front of the WGN minicam on the street between the Bank of America building and the Rookery. It was crowded, but not overly so.

The parade started about 25 minutes late. The buses went by and everyone screamed. Seeing Mayor Daley smiling ear-to-ear in his Sox hat was interesting. Jerry Reisndorf, sitting with a little girl on his lap mostly emotionless even more so. I watched in silence and headed back to training.

The confetti in the air was amazing. The rest brought no emotion from me. What I WAS struck by was the lack of street vendors hawking White Sox chazarai. I saw two vendors all day. Perhaps the bulk of them were up closer to the rally. But the absence of 5,000 t-shirts for sale surprised me.

If this is the last time in my life that we get to see a tickertape parade in Chicago (the one before the Bears was 1970 for the crew- of Apollo 13, I believe), at least I saw it.