OK, Archer Ave and Western… where we left off. Lindy’s Chili used to be right there; good stuff. Burger King… think it’s still there, where one of my friends had his first job. I believe there used to be a Long John Silver’s; loved that joint as a kid. McKinley Park… our midnight basketball playing days. OK, let’s keep going north.
As we get to 35th, there was a liquor store. We used to wait outside and try to get somebody to buy us some. This was before I scored a fake ID, before I got someone to believe I was old enough to purchase myself. You see, that stretch of Western Ave from 35th to about Cermak, was a blessed stretch for me. This was my route home from my friend’s house on 38th and California; this was a route I drove many times when maybe I shouldn’t have been. This is why it’s blessed; I made it… That damn bridge just before 31st… brutal stretch for cars, with all the holes. Of course, there’s the animal shelter at about 28th or so, right next to the factories where I learned to drive. Yes, this animal shelter is where my wife and I adopted the 3rd member of our family right after we got back from our honeymoon. I didn’t want to go, because I knew… I knew we weren’t just going “to look”… and I knew, when we saw the one dog that wasn’t barking their ass off, trying to burst out of the crate, just sitting there, looking up at us with those sad puppy eyes, that we were done… and we were. Tabitha became Maxie, and we had our pooch. That was quite a long time after all my drives down that stretch of Western…
On the corner of Blue Island and Western was an adult store/peep show; I may or may not have been a few times. That joint is long gone; Flappers for anybody who recalls. I already spoke about some of the memories between Blue Island and 18th… my hood basically. There was Don’s Grill on 18th place; still there btw. Yeah, I remember walking in there one hot summer night with “some stuff” in my sock, hoping the cops didn’t figure it out. On Roosevelt, there’s the gas station you had to be weary of back in the day; don’t get caught slacking there at night. There was the old Italian bakery where we used to get Ricotta pizza slices back in the day, which the old guy used a big pair of scissors to cut for us. There were parties around that stretch… many of them back in the day, close to where my friend’s father used to live. The liquor store between Taylor and Polk where I bought from many times. There was the one time, when I went on a ride with my friend’s step brother, as he was going out to conduct some business for the evening, when I thought I was dead, surrounded by about 20 guys; no worries, he knew them… haha. Yeah, and of course, way back in the day, the flower store on Harrison and Western, where my dad used to stop to buy flowers for my mom… I couldn’t even remember everything that happened between Blue Island and Harrison if I wanted to. There is legit no limit of memories… I’m just happy I’m alive to try to remember them all.
OK, we made it to the Eisenhower expressway. Didn’t really have a big need to go north of there on Western for a while, until I did. Yeah, we’re not even technically north yet, but we’re getting there.
Leave a Reply