Bravo, Chicago

We just had a big snowstorm, an authentic blizzard, the sort of storm I used to read about in stories with my junior high school classes, the kinds of storms in the mid-west prairies where you had to tie a rope from the house to the barn, or you wouldn't find your way back.

The photo above is of a view from my daughter's 18th floor window. What you are seeing in the background is Lake Michigan.

Below is a photo my daughter took from the same window. This one below was taken while it was still snowing. You can't see anything -- that gives you an idea of how thick the snow was! So thick that you couldn't see anything!

In Chicago, they had over two feet of snow!

The wind and waves from Lake Michigan throw off crystals that make Lake Shore Drive slippery and dangerous. The City had to close down very trafficked Lake Shore Drive for a couple of days so that the crews could plow it. See below:

Each stranded car must have a story to tell.  Many people had to stay in their cars overnight right where they were.  People from nearby homes went out and gave food to the people in cars. The city had what they called warming buses come. Stranded people could go inside the buses and get warm. Chicago is truly a wonderful city.

Someone my daughter works with told a true story from his childhood. There were fifteen houses on his block, and 78 children! Those were the days! And when there was a big storm, the children would go out and shovel the whole public street so cars could get through!

From my apartment windows in Fairfield, I see a huge field where many people walk their dogs. Beyond that is a street with houses. The morning I was writing this, I could see one man in a riding snow-plow clear his driveway and sidewalk. I could see another man two houses away who was shoveling his driveway and sidewalk with a hand-shovel. He paused often. In Fairfield, we had a little less snow than Chicago, yet in some drifts, there were three or more feet of snow. No wonder the man with the shovel had to rest often

Then later I saw the man who had the plow shoveling by hand some of the places that his plow couldn't really get to.

I imagined that the man who was shoveling by hand was thinking and mentally saying to the neighbor with a snow-plow: "Why don't you do my driveway and sidewalk with your plow, and I'd do all the places on your property and mine that need hand-shoveling?" I, too, was wondering why the snow-plow man wasn't thinking the same thing.

I could see the scene from a distance so clearly. The man with the snow plow was focused on his property and probably didn't even notice the man two houses away from him.

And yet, in Chicago, a big city, there was unbounded kindness to complete strangers. People came out of their warm houses and apartments to give food to the people who were stranded. It makes me want to hug the people in Chicago who thought  of what they could do to make life a little easier for someone else and then went ahead and did it. Bravo, Chicago!