Chicago

The Liberian consulate is a small counter in a rug and flooring shop down on 75’th street in Chicago. The shops all have rolling bars to cover the windows and doors—the few shops that exist in the 2200 block. It’s a mostly empty block in a sinking neighborhood.

The consular officer was friendly and helpful—he’d just driven off, but came back when he heard he had a visitor. He’d gone to a mission school in Cape Palmas, and we talked a little about mission schools and family. He was slow and careful as he made out the visa inserts and filled out the details of the forms, and we talked of various other things off and on through the process. I’d forgotten the rhythms of Liberian life.

He suggested that I take Lake Shore Drive, since it was easily reached from the south end. Most of my experience on that road has been from about McCormick place north, and I hated it. That afternoon the road was almost empty, and the view was gorgeous. The lake was blue shading to turquoise backed by towers wrapped in thin mist.

Of course I forgot that the Congress was also known as 290, and missed my turn; and wound up getting a phone call just as I was heading into the S-curve. No, I didn’t answer it. (By then there was a lot of traffic….) I turned around well north of the loop, and got off at a familiar-sounding street to try to wind my way back south. Familiar, but at the north end of the loop, it turned out. Pedestrian traffic was so heavy it took 12 minutes to go around the block.

I’d not approached Fermilab from 88 in so many years that nothing looked familiar. I navigated on fading memory of street names—and my memory for names is deeply unreliable. I guessed right (for a change that day).