By Adrian Foster
Things have changed in Streeterville since Capt. Streeter’s creation. Enjoy another one of Adrian Foster’s Streeterville meanderings.
When you have a physical handicap, people in my neighborhood imagine you may need a kind word or perhaps a hug. Folks routinely stop me when I’m crossing the street to admire my spiffy walker. As cars draw menacingly close honking madly, they detail stories about relatives who have used similar devices, and who have since died. “But they loved their walkers,” they insist.
I quite like the street people I encounter each day in Lake Shore Park There’s the large lady who arrives with bundles of clothes and parcels every morning rain or shine. She sets up a base on a low wall outside the MCA and spends each day watching the passersby. She talks to herself sometimes but I’m okay with that because I sometimes do as well.
There’s also the chap who stretches out on a bench in the bus shelter on Pearson to enjoy a long nap in the sunshine. He couldn’t look any more comfortable than he might at the Ritz.
This week a youngish man dressed for camping with an enormous backpack headed towards me smiling broadly. He sat down, said “It gets better!” and enfolded me in a giant bear hug. Overcome with emotion he leaned in to deliver another embrace. “Enough,” I said sternly. Undeterred, he turned to my companion “No,” she said. “Fist bump.” They exchanged fist bumps, and he walked away talking to himself.
The Streeters in the neighborhood he founded, highlighted today by our Streeterville correspondent.
