My day trip to Gary: I really know how to vacate, don't i?

I just finished a three month shift working in downtown Chicago, and now I am heading back to my old job in the suburbs.
I started just before Christmas and finished up on Good Friday, which gives the gig more Biblical significance than it had - even if it did snow the last day.

While the below ain't necessarily so, since I have an advanced degree in self-pity, at my worst, here is how I feel about it:

A) I am being sent back to the minors.
B) The potential parents didn't take to me, so they are returning me to the orphanage.
C) I flunked out and have to move in with my folks. Again.

So I took a week off to readjust, but didn't really go anywhere - unless you count Gary, Indiana as a where.

That was mean, and you shouldn't pick on those who are lacking luck. And about the only luck you can find in Gary is at the casinos there amongst the steel mills, refineries and the crumbling buildings. Yes, Gary looks like what a hangover feels like.

I have lived in the Chicago area most of my life and had never visited this downtrodden town. But a buddy of mine took a photojournalism job there and offered to give me a drive-through. Even the paper where he works disassociated itself from Gary, taking the town's name out of its name for what the marketing department probably would say is branding it a "regional" paper.

But hey, we all need oil, gas, and steel, and it ain't pretty how it gets made, even if the view back to Chicago is grand and the dunes are just a stone's skip away. Which it to say, we should all kiss Gary's smelly ass for doing the the dirty work that keeps the Chicago area humming along.

We should help restore areas such as Marktown, where European immigrants built houses like back home. And we should try to find a way to talk about race, because Gary is one of the blackest cities in America and one of the poorest and consistently has one of the highest crime rates and way too much of it looks like the worst of New Orleans, but at least New Orleans can blame hurricanes. (Sorry - just got done writing editorials.)

Which reminds - I was in New Orleans for the first time in my life just about a year ago. It's been an odd year, a rough one by the standards of my bland life - so I guess a trip to Gary was a good metaphorical visit, bringing things to a sort of circle.

And I did get to see the crew in Crown Point working on a movie about John Dillinger starring Johnny Depp, the crowds deep hoping to catch a glimpse of the actor. Scenes like that amuse me, because making movies is a lot duller than making steel. But somehow taking a full day for a 2-minute segment that may not even make the final print is considered glamourous.

But what do I know about glamour? I mean, I only wear makeup when I have to. Or do laundry, for that matter.