How Broad Are Those Shoulders?

I’m a daily communicant at my local Starbucks. It’s not only the coffee, but the friendly baristas, and especially the newspapers that get me there. Every morning, I read the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the two Chicago papers.

And of course I take notes in my 5 x 3 inch memo book: quotes from articles; books I should read; news items that might make their way into my writing or onto my blog.

Or, as in the case of a recent editorial in the Chicago Sun-Times (12.31.17)—"8 New Year's wishes for Chicago and Illinois"—a Letter to the Editor. For among those wishes—including “more money for schools” and “fix the broken property tax system”—I didn’t see one that I and many others dearly wish for: affordable housing.

And so I sent this to the Sun-Times on January 3:

To the editor:

Re: "8 New Year's wishes for Chicago and Illinois," may I suggest a 9th? And, given its urgency, maybe make it #1? Affordable housing. For without decent and affordable places for people of all ages, races, and finances to live, Chicago will lose what makes it worth living in: its unique diversity.

Carol LaChapelle

Short, to the point, no whiney tone, and so I was pleased to see it published on the paper’s website on January 7.

Now shortly after I sent it, I got to wondering how I became someone who so values diversity. How I want to, even need to, live in neighborhoods where I encounter it daily: on my walks and train rides; at both the Jewel and the Mexican market; at my favorite bar and in my parish church; and at Starbucks.

How did I—raised in an all-white, lower middle-class suburb in the ‘50s, and where I lived until my early 20’s—make the transition from that small homogenous community to one so large and diverse? And how, over time, did I come to prefer the latter?

Seems to me, from this vantage point, that coming of age in the ‘60s had a lot to do with it. I went to a commuter college on Rush Street, hung out after night classes with a guy I met there, and then later married a Vietnam vet who would move us to New York, to the Upper West Side, in 1968.

And while I didn’t especially like living there at the time, the pace, the pulse, and the variety of people I encountered in New York unalterably changed me, made me choose urban living, starting with when I separated from my husband and returned to Chicago in the ‘70s.

And as I’ve aged, it’s only gotten easier to live in the city: I don’t have to own a car to get around; all the walking I do keeps me in pretty good physical shape; all the daily stimulation on those walks, including the people I talk to at Starbucks and the bar and the Mexican market, keeps me in pretty good mental shape.

But the part of aging that’s definitely gotten harder in this place is being able to afford to live here, even as I’ve kept moving farther north and west within the city. Over the past 20 years, I’ve been gentrified out of more Chicago neighborhoods than I can count on one hand.

Hence that letter to the editor. Because if this City of Broad Shoulders can no longer accommodate the poor and the rich, the old and the young, and the rich mix of races throughout then it may no longer be a place worth living.

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Come and explore how "place," among other factors, might figure in your own experience of aging:

The Purpose of Aging, Aging with Purpose: 

A Journal Writing Workshop

Thursday, February 15, 2018, 6 – 8 pm

7430 N. Ridge Blvd, Chicago

For more information re: fee and registration, please contact me at madmoon55@hotmail.com or 773.981.2282.