Often, when I was a child and my grandfather was driving me somewhere, he would say, "Dodge, look around you." I was, of course, reading at the time despite getting carsick because of it. I didn't want to look around. "All of this will be different when you're older. I remember the way it was when I was young, and it's all different. None of this was here back then." He would wave his hand at office buildings and parking garages and even strip malls and full-sized malls. I'd look up from my book briefly and then go back to it because this train of thought didn't really appeal to me.
Hell, I was a child. I had no idea that this kind of thing would be one of the biggest subjects I think about as an adult.
Gramps was right. Everything is different now. I have my memories of what it was like decades ago when he first started telling me this truth, but my curiosity went back further. I wanted to see what everything looked like when he was a child.
We'll get to that in a moment. This truth did not truly hit me until the demise of Kiddeland. Ask anyone my age who lived in Elmhurst at the time, and they will remember the splendor of Kiddieland. And one day Gramps told me that they were tearing down Kiddieland. It almost hit me as hard as the death of my childhood dog, Brandy. I still miss that place to this very day even though I wouldn't be able to enjoy it as an adult. Maybe that's where my obsession with the past began.
There are other things, like the Oakbrook Terrace Tower. It sticks out like a sore thumb because it's in the suburbs of Chicago, where a skyscraper clearly does not belong. But there it is. I used to (used to, heh-heh, I *still* do) call it the biggest erection in the suburbs because it just doesn't belong. But that thing did not exist when I was a kid. If memory serves, and I can't guarantee it does, I believe it stands where Kiddieland used to be. That's how drastically things change within one's own lifetime.
Another example. I live across the street from the Prairie Path, which is a gravel path that extends from Bellwood (I think) to Elgin (I think). That's all that remains of a railroad track that used to be built upon it. How fucking crazy is that? I'll up the ante: Gramps said he worked on building that railroad when he was a teenager. While doing that, a spark lifted up off the track and hit his eyes, explaining why he needed glasses for most of his life. I don't know how true that was. He sometimes had a habit of stretching said truth. But it sounds pretty accurate. And then, within his lifetime, someone thought to tear that railroad down. Fucking crazy.
Oddly enough, there was one time that Gramps refused to believe something was going to change. I remember when my father and his first wife had me for the weekend. I think my cousin, Erik, might have been there, too. Dad was taking us bowling at the place that wasn't too far from where Kiddieland used to be. The place was closed, and the owner was there. Previous owner, I should say. He told Dad that he'd sold the place, and it was going to be torn down. I told Gramps this, and he thought I was fucking with him. "They'll never tear that place down. They make too much money."
Sure enough, they tore it down. There's a senior living facility there now.
Fields of verdant beauty that I used to see everywhere are now gone. Replaced by office buildings. Parking garages. Strip malls. Full-sized malls. Because we obviously need more of that shit, right?
Gramps was right. If' I'd moved away from Elmhurst as a teenager and moved back as a middle-aged man, I would recognize very little of it. Hell, the library where I spent most of my childhood life is not even there anymore. (Keep in mind, though, that I helped move that library to its new location, as I worked there for almost ten years between 1996 and 2006.)
Not too long ago I thought about when I was a kid and my grandmother would bring me with her shopping. She'd stick me in the seat in the cart and push me around. I could have sworn we went to the place where the Jewel/Osco is located on the south side of town, but it was called something else. Curiosity grabbed me by the throat, and I asked her about what it was called before. She couldn't remember. One time while my aunt, my mom's sister, came to visit, and I actually asked her about it, and she couldn't remember either. I thought it might have been called F&M, but they had no recollection. It fucking drove me crazy.
And then a few years ago I discovered this. I'm certain this will bore 99% of all of you, but I can't tell you how metaphorically erect I got when I found this. It's a database of historical images of Elmhurst. It actually gave me the chance to see my home town over all the years it has existed. It gave me the chance to see the Elmhurst my grandfather remembered from when he was a kid.
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| HOLY SHIT! |
See that? The station is still there, but where the train and those tracks are? That's the Prairie Path now. I have never seen anything like this until I saw this picture and others similar to it. Not only that, but I went to Sandburg Junior High, which was named after Carl Sandburg, who lived in Elmhurst once upon a time.
It used to be Elmhurst Junior High, but on the day they changed the name? There he is at the christening. I'd always thought he'd died before that happened. But never mind that. The EHM has pictures of when that school was a mere pasture with no houses built near it.
It's weird seeing horse drawn carts marching down Park and York near where I used to live at 210 E. Park (apt. C), back when I lived with my stepfather. It's even weirder to see that most of the stores back then were for farm supplies, and Elmhurst used to be mostly farmland. Except for the area around downtown, which was where the people who built Chicago used to live.
I could go on and on about this forever and bore the mortal shit out of you. I'm hoping someone reading this finds tonight's GF interesting. Perhaps someone who used to live in Elmhurst.
Oh! I was right. The store was called F&M, but it wasn't where I thought it was. It was actually on St. Charles near 83 where Kohl's is right now. Although I will say the Jewel/Osco where I thought it had been, the store I shop at now, used to be where the Ace Hardware is now. History's fucking weird. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
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| Yes, that was a Ferris Bueller reference. |
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