Professor of Sherlockology and Advanced Snape Studies

My two sisters and I drove down to the Chicago area last weekend, where we joined up with our brother in an Air B&B and spent the weekend visiting relatives, friends, and the old haunts of our childhood.

I grew up in Park Ridge on the northwest side of the city of Chicago. We had a lot of fun recounting stories. It was an idyllic place to grow up, albeit sheltered and non-diverse. Park Ridge has a beautiful city center, and many of the places we remember are still there. I loved seeing the public library, where I learned to love reading, and the Pickwick Theater, a gorgeous Art Nouveau building that is on the National Register of historic places, which still regularly shows movies today.

The area has had a lot of rain, and the lawns were startling green, and forsythia bushes and magnolia trees were blooming all over the city. We had a lot of fun driving around, enjoying the beautiful architecture and rediscovering the homes of our friends.

Park Ridge was a dry town while we were growing up, but now restaurants can serve alcohol, and there is a very thriving restaurant scene in the buildings overlooking the railroad tracks, where trains run to and from downtown Chicago. We met with several old friends. An old high school classmate of mine spied me through a restaurant window at one point and ran out into the street to hug me. We had coffee with my brother's former prom date, and had breakfast with another high school friend of my sister's and dinner with a third.

We met my uncle Tom and his wife Charlotte for lunch in his senior apartment, and we also met with my Aunt Susie, who is in a different senior community very close to where we were staying.

We spent an afternoon driving around Evanston, the city where our parents were raised. There, we saw the homes of our grandparents and great-grandparents, and stopped by Lighthouse Beach, where we swam in Lake Michigan as children.

We ended the trip with an evening at one of my cousins' homes, where we enjoyed a potluck dinner together. We spent the evening telling stories and laughing, and passing around old photographs and a high school yearbook.

It was wonderful to visit the old hometown.

Image description: Bottom: a one-story home with an open front porch. Behind the house: Peg and her three siblings smile at the camera. Behind them, another family grouping smiles at the camera. Behind them, top: upper left tower of Pickwick Theater, center: lighthouse, upper right: the sign for Sugar Bowl restaurant.

Homecoming



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