Record Store Day

Every April since 2007 one Saturday is set aside just to celebrate record stores and music sold on vinyl records. They call it "Record Store Day" - imagine that!

Before the age of CD's and digital downloads, every month, every week, every day would have been Record Store Day.  Sure, there were cassettes and those awful 8-tracks because spinning vinyl in your car wasn't a option.  But there was something about the anticipation of searching out the newest albums, standing bent over the front of long, waist-high wooden cases of creative album covers, sorted alphabetically and by genre, fingering through each album to find new music or that classic disc for your collection.

Where I lived, there was a favorite spot in a neighboring town where we went to buy new albums.  It was a small, bright store really in business to sell audio equipment - stereos, speakers, turntables and all the related accessories - however the store also had several long cases filled with vinyl records.   Many of the teenagers who visited the store knew and greeted the store's owner by name. Grabbing the newest release before it sold out meant the trip was successful but there were always plenty of other albums to flip through if you arrived there too late.

Last Saturday we headed into Chicago to celebrate Record Store Day and we planned our route to visit five different locations around the city.  These days my husband does the searching, mostly for more obscure titles and filling in the gaps of his collection.  I go along for the interesting locations, the people we meet and, lets face it, the fantastic options for a great breakfast and lunch.

The weather was beautiful.  It was a great day to be in the city and we hopped around from neighborhood to neighborhood celebrating record stores and music with a lot of other folks.

At a pop-up location in a sweet little brick building in Logan Square, we waited in a line that extended from the front counter to the rear wall and back towards the front again in a large loop. At a popular store in Lincoln Square, a five-piece rock band was tucked into the back of the store, playing tribute to David Bowie by covering only Bowie songs.  At a store in Wicker Park, if you made a purchase, you could spin a wheel to win free stuff - it was all stuff the store probably needed to get rid of anyway, but it was still fun and I didn't see anyone pass up the opportunity.

Go To The Ballpark

If you ever feel the need to restore your faith in humanity, go to the ballpark.   My husband and I went to Wrigley Field yesterday afternoon for an afternoon of baseball Northside Chicago style. The day started out rainy and gray but by the time the first pitch was thrown, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful afternoon for a baseball game.

As the ballpark filled and time grew closer to hearing the familiar words "Play Ball" shouted into a microphone by two very excited young boys in blue t-shirts, I began to notice a wonderful phenomenon happening all around me.   Fans and ushers alike offered to help couples and friends and families take pictures to commemorate their day at the game.  It was evident that the usher responsible for getting handicapped fans and visitors settled into their section to the right and left of our seats behind home plate loved his job.   This man smiled and laughed and rearranged seating to make sure each visitor would have the best experience possible and half-way through the game, he returned to check on his new friends, offering thumbs up as a sign that they were comfortable and enjoying the afternoon.


Strangers passed money along rows from buyers to vendors and passed back to purchasing fans bags of peanuts, bottles of water and cups of beer.  High fives were shared for a home run.  Cheers went up for a fan in the upper deck who caught a foul ball with his bare hands.

There was a capacity crowd at the ballpark yesterday. By and large, there was also a capacity of good will, kind gestures and mutual joy in sharing not only the love of the game, but a few hours of sunshine and hopefulness and release from the world outside the friendly confines.  Oh, and by the way . . . the Cubs won.

Sunrise over Chicago

When the alarm clock went off at 3:30 in the morning to rouse us out of bed in the dark, the temptation to roll over and curl back under the covers was very enticing.   The plan was to be downtown Chicago in Grant Park by 5:30 am to participate in the annual Bike The Drive event where they close down famous Lake Shore Drive to automobiles and open it instead to 20,000 people on bicycles.

We pedaled onto Lake Shore Drive at about 5:40 am - ten minutes late of our goal - but in plenty of time to witness the sun rising over Navy Pier and that fantastic lake which fills me with awe time and time again.  This particular morning was certainly no exception.    On any other day of the week, we would be, along with countless others, speeding past this sight in our car - maybe we'd catch a glimpse of the sight and say, "Oh, the sun is coming up" but more important attention would be paid to the traffic and to the maneuvering of our own vehicle along that shoreline strip of pavement.   This time, however, we could stop, wonder, photograph and enjoy the sight.

The old saying, "Red sky at morning, sailor take warning" held true and this was our only view of the sun that day.  By the time we made our ride up to the northern-most stop of the trip, the sky had clouded over and by the time we returned back south to Grant Park, we were damp from the rain.   In spite of the turn in the weather, or maybe because of it, we felt fortunate and blessed for the experience of that sunrise.