My parents bought a condo in Chicago when I graduated high school. I had originally intended to go to college in Evanston (Northwestern University), which was nearby, but it was pricey, and after my mom and I had some dumb argument, she said she wouldn’t pay for it. The new plan was that I would go to University of Illinois in Champaign beginning in September, so in the meantime I camped out in their den. We were on the corner of Lake Shore Drive and Sheridan Road, right off Lake Michigan, and it was ridiculously cold and windy most of the year. One of the things I liked to do that summer was to take a bus down to Water Tower Place, a fancy mall on Michigan Avenue complete with a glass elevator. My parents gave up our cars when we moved to the city, so we always took PT or cabs. I didn’t appreciate at the time how nice it was to be free from the burden of vehicle ownership.
One weekend my HS friend K visited, and we went to the mall, had dinner, and got stuck in the glass elevator for a couple hours. Everyone was staring at us, but at least back then no one was taking a video on their phone to make us famous. The WTP people rescued us, and somehow they got their lawyers to show up at 9pm on a Saturday night to shove releases of liability at us the second we stepped out. We signed them without reading because we were 18. Then again, we weren’t hurt.
As we wandered out of the mall, two guys started to walk with us to talk about our adventure. I don’t remember why, but I ended up giving one of them my phone number and we went on a few dates before I left for college. He was an actor around age 25 and took me to see Julia and Julia, which was an excellent movie. Whoops! False memory. That was a film from 1987. Idk what we saw, but I do remember him telling me that college was silly and I should stay in Chicago and have his baby instead. I may have been dumb enough to sign a waiver without reading it, but thank goodness I wasn’t dumb enough to do that.
Turns out that I left college after only one semester anyway and moved back to the den because I couldn’t handle all the drug use and crazy behavior in student housing. I got a job at an insurance company and didn’t finish my degree until after we moved to California in the 1980s. Before I moved away from the Windy City for good, I spent many weekend afternoons at Water Tower Place, seeing movies alone and browsing in the shops.
I always took the escalator however.
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Written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday (tower).
I am so grateful I have never been stuck in an elevator. All I can think of is: What if I have to pee?
ReplyDeleteGood point!
ReplyDeleteBtw, the movie was just called Julia (1977)
Elevators creep me out. Ditto parking garages. I never use either if I can avoid it.
ReplyDeleteI graduated from U of I Champaign. I met a lot of homesick Chicago kids. Sunday evening the train would disgorge thousands of them (it seemed to me) returning. I loved it. So many international people and different cultures (like Chicago). At that time if there was drug use, I didn't notice, but I did see a lot of drunks, I'd never experienced that--wasn't a smoker or drinker. The male to female ratio was wonderful. 4 guys for every girl. You never had to be left out, except by choice. And the women had to be top 10% of their high school class. Very smart ladies. Guys were mostly engineers it seemed to me, although I married an architect. The 70s were very different than late 50s, early 60s. The campuses became a mess during VietNam war years. Probably didn't recover. We even had pretty clothes and jeans were for service projects or riding horses. Norma from Columbus, OH.
ReplyDelete