Cities-Downer’s Grove

The ‘burbs.  The ‘burbs of Chicago no less.  A nice little community trisected by eight lane interstate width roads.  Accents?  Imagine George Wendt doing “Da Bears” and you’re not far from wrong.  It is easy to identify the native Chicagoans when they speak.  A kind of Midwestern burr with a touch of NYC.  Milwaukee accents are just a bit thicker.  But really nice folks.  Interested in me being from “Canader”  Some wonderment that I would come all this way to teach, then I remind them that Ottawa is only a two-hour flight from here.  Perhaps it is the American Insularity Gene kicking up a fuss. 

I’ll wait to critique the food when I’m in downtown Chicago at our office in The Loop. (On Wacker Drive, no less)  Downer’s Grove is essentially a bedroom community where people live here and work elsewhere.

It has also been raining like Noah’s Wet Dream.  Some underpasses were flooded this morning, so some students were delayed as traffic essentially ground to a halt when some of the freeways were clogged with dead cars and soaking wet occupants. 

Downstate?  No one knows, no one cares.  Downstate might as well be the Moon.  But that’s the Chicago way: Canada is more approachable than Springfield or any other downstate place.