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Chessquest
Goddesschess Sixth Anniversary Celebration
Trips to New York and the Oriental Institute Museum in Chicago
September 23 - October 3, 2005Part 2
The Trip to the Oriental Institute Museum (Chicago) October 2, 2005
New York Trip 1
New York Trip 3
New York Trip 4
All too soon it was Sunday, and time for Georgia and Michelle to leave. We all crowded into a taxi to the airport. After saying goodbye to Georgia and Michelle, with hugs and tears all around, Don and Jan hunted for and eventually found the correct stop for the shuttle bus that took them to the railway station spur, where they caught a southbound train to Chicago. Their destination was the Oriental Institute Museum. The weather was perfect - warm, dry, sunny, and a slight breeze off Lake Michigan. Arrival in Chicago was 9:35 a.m.
The plan was to take a Metra train to a stop near the Oriental Institute Museum (OIM) . As is often the case however, plans on paper seldom work in real life. After stopping at a McDonalds a few blocks from Union Station for a much-appreciated breakfast, Don and Jan strolled along Michigan Avenue, looking in shop windows, shopped for postcards at a lovely souvenir shop, and Jan successfully managed a talkative Don away from fake Vietnam Veteran beggars who were strategically located every half block or so. When they got to the designated coordinates, there was nothing that looked like an entrance to an underground Metra station. (Jan: I know it must be around here somewhere! Don: It's not here, Jan, this is Amsterdam all over again! Jan: No, Don, I'm sure - come on - ). Jan approached a young woman and asked for directions. Success! That silver-colored hood jutting out from the sidewalk across the street from where the pair stood actually covered a staircase down to the underground station. They'd walked past it at least three times, thinking it was the entrance to a lower-level parking lot. In the station the pair figured out how to use the automated ticket dispensers, only to discover that they had just missed the train they needed to get to the OIM, and the next one wouldn't be for an hour. So much for schedules. Jan asked for and got directions to the OIM by bus. In a brilliant move, however, Jan and Don opted for a taxi ride along the beautiful shoreline of Lake Michigan, and they took in some sights as they were whisked past the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium and Soldiers Field.
(Photos, right: first, building across the street from the OIM. Notice the checkerboard pattern on the roofline above the stained-glass window. The checkerboard pattern is often seen on ecclesiastical as well as academic buildings; second, cathedral-like building that Don and Jan passed on the way to the haunted Metra station).
Twenty dollars plus tip later, the pair were deposited on the corner of East 58th Street in a seemingly deserted urban college campus (no signs of life for blocks in any direction), outside a nondescript brick building. This is IT? But a sign (like the kind you see on lawns outside churches) right in front of the couple said THIS IS THE ORIENTAL INSTITUTE MUSEUM AND WE HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? Arm in arm, the duo entered through massive double-doors, paid their admission fees and spent several happy hours nose to nose with exhibits in the Mesopotamian Gallery, the Egyptian Gallery and the Persian Gallery.
The OIM is intimate in scale but has hundreds of exhibits packed into its space. Jan and Don scribbled notes on a Gallery Guide and scraps of paper Jan fished out of her purse as they circled through the open exhibits twice. They eavesdropped on a lecture by a Docent in the Mesopotamian Gallery (their whispered comments to each other attracted some attention; seems we knew more than the Docent about certain artifacts and aspects of - well, never mind). Finally, with exhausted legs and weary eyes and many scribbled notes later, Jan parked herself on a stone bench in the Persian Gallery and refused to move another inch. She massaged her aching legs and swollen ankles while Don struck up yet another long and congenial conversation with complete strangers.
After leaving the museum, the pair had more than two hours to get back to Union Station to catch the 5:08. Don talked practically non-stop as Jan tried to figure out where they were on the map she had printed out at home on how to get to the Metra station from the OIM. After several minutes of making occasional grunting noises to Don to signify she was listening, the pair stopped before a cathedral-like building and Don snapped a picture. Jan bet Don that he would not be able to stop talking for five minutes. Don lost the bet after only 1 minute 28 seconds.
Jan successfully navigated the duo to what was supposed to be a Metra station to catch the local back to downtown Chicago. The Metra station was a shocking horror! A smelly, dank underground passage with train-tracks built above, it contained a glass-encased map showing the Metra stops, riveted into a mildewy, water-soaked concrete block wall, with decrepit-looking ticket machines lining the litter-filled passage to wooden steps leading to the tracks above. A train schedule next to the map indicated that the next train is at 4:00 p.m. It is now 2:45 p.m. Oh oh - and euuuuuwwwww - what IS that smell? Jan tried not to look too closely in the dank corners.
The wooden platform running down the center of tracks on either side looks like it hasn't seen any recent human occupation. Up a flight of about thirty wooden stairs (already bowing in the middle and looking like they will split asunder any second), the remains of several years' worth of moldy leaves piled in the corners, spiders running merrily to and fro, Jan and Don look for signs of recent habitation in the Metra station. They found a newspaper on a rotting wood bench bearing a date from two days before. In the hazy distance to the north they could see towers and spires of buildings in the Loop; to the east, through a tree line across the 100-foot wide stretch of train tracks in front of them, a stretch of parkland and further beyond, an occasional glimpse of cars and buses signaled a road with traffic - signs of civilization in an otherwise totally dead area! No people to be seen anywhere. Where are all the students? The air seemed stagnant, dead; even Don seems subdued by the eerie atmosphere.
Suddenly a hawk swooped in mid-air before Jan's horrified eyes and caught a starling. Okay, she says, time for a new plan! At 3:10 p.m. the pair abandoned the haunted Metra station and, a few blocks away, found a bus stop where they figured buses would be headed in the right direction. After a short wait, the couple boarded a bus after a surly looking bus driver grunted what seemed to be affirmative answers to their inquiries about getting to Union Station. The challenge now is to come up with EXACT CHANGE to pay their fares. Don is no help, he has only Canadian coins in his pockets. Jan rustled through her purse and the pockets of her jeans and after what seems an excessive amount of nickels, dimes and quarters deposited into the maw of the FARE EXTRACTOR, the bus driver nodded okay, you've paid enough. (Does he get commission for tourists???)
The ride back downtown passed quickly. Don and Jan got a glimpse of some re-gentrifying and not quite there yet neighborhoods. The bus is packed with locals. It's a relief to see real people! After some bickering on where, exactly, to get off, the couple departed the bus and after some further bickering about which direction to go, they successfully navigated their way back to the McDonalds where they had eaten breakfast earlier in the day, just a few blocks away from Union Station! Lo and behold! Some of the same servers are still on shift!
There was time to get a late lunch for our hungry pair. Going into the restaurant, the weather is fine - warm, sunny, a slight breeze from the west, a beautiful autumn day. Twenty minutes later when Don and Jan walked out of McDonalds - WHOA! TORNADO CITY! Overhead were dark, roiling clouds, filled with thunder and lightning, spitting rain and the occasional bit of hail, and roaring winds from the west that took every ounce of effort the couple had to make headway against. As they looked to the west Don and Jan saw speeding toward them a solid black-green wall of raging nature! Jan, who has not run anywhere for anything in at least 25 years and is not ashamed to admit to anyone who will listen that she is terribly out of shape, looked at Don and yelled above the wind "run"! He grabbed her hand and, pulling her along, they ran as fast as Jan's tired legs could go, for the three blocks to Union Station, right into the face of the storm. As thunder boomed, lightning flashed and the wind howled around them, Jan yelled to Don don't worry, tornadoes don't hit this close to the lake (well, there's always a first time..). As the pair ran over a bridge across the Chicago River they closed in on and then passed a young man with multiple earrings in his right ear, who was frantically screaming into a cell phone "Ma, a tornado is coming!"
At last, Jan and Don are safely underground at a packed Union Station. The tornado-spawning storm that circled the entire Midwest that day blew out of Chicago as fast as it blew in; by the time the train pulled out of Union Station headed north at 5:08 p.m. (right on time), the skies above were already clear. The weather was once again warm and calm, although tell-tale traces of torrential rainfall showed itself here and there in rain-washed streets and large puddles. Later that evening Jan made some supper and she and Don ate out on the deck as they watched the last vestiges of sunlight fade below the horizon in the west. In the morning, Don headed to the airport to fly back home.
