After having gotten to know Dan and Ann Ruggaber so well over the course of my four years at Valparaiso University, spending week after week with them at Mass, going out and about with them, and even sharing time in their home, I had the pleasure of welcoming them to my own home and stomping grounds in the Village of Oak Park.
I've had a few friends from Valparaiso come spend time with me in Oak Park, especially in the past couple of years. I consider it a wonderful opportunity to show people I've gotten to know well during the extraordinary ValpU experience the place that did so much to form me as a person.
It also gives me fresh perspective on this place I call home, because as I show people around, it's like I'm looking at familiar spots with different eyes--especially when I'm riding around in someone else's car.
My time with the Ruggabers provided a unique juxtaposition of things I wanted to show them and things they wanted to see. One place they desired especially to see was Frank Lloyd Wright's Home and Studio on Chicago Avenue, which is certainly a big tourist draw in Oak Park.
This all got me thinking: What makes Oak Park special, based on my personal life experiences, and on the perceptions of others? This is an especially good time for me to think about such a question, because at the end of last November, I marked 20 years since my family and I moved to Oak Park. That fact alone speaks to how this place is special for me, as I can say I've lived in one place for so long, even lending it a degree of "sacredness". Indeed, my family home on Clarence Avenue here in Oak Park served as the vessel in which all those typical life experiences one has growing up took place. But these experiences extend beyond the walls of my family house to the other places and institutions in the village.
There's a lot of people, places, and things packed into 20 years+ and 4.5 square miles that speak to how Oak Park is special for me. I could surely write on and on about such things. Here, I write about as many as I can, hoping that to cover the biggest things regarding the highlights of my family house and Oak Park that have made this place so special for me:
I live in a nice home on Clarence Avenue. It's not a huge property, but not tiny--it's in the middle, so to speak. There's a pretty sizable backyard area, which has been changed from a grassy lawn, on which I played as a child, to a landscaped space in recent years. But there's still some grass out in front. All of it makes for nice space to walk around and take in the outdoors within the confines of my own property.
There are three main floors to the house. The main floor has a space where we can gather together, prepare food, eat, relax--especially in the back sunroom that was added on about a decade ago, and makes for a lovely addition to the house. The lower level is the basement, with space for utilities, recreation, and storage. The upper floor has the bedrooms. Owing to the nature of the house and the size of our family, I've had my own bedroom growing up, with my own bed and trappings. There's an attic above the upper floor, but we haven't used it much lately.
We live pretty close to our neighbors on the 1000 block of Clarence Avenue, with all the homes spaced close to each other. It's always nice during that one time of the summer when we block off the street to traffic and go out to have fun and even have dinner together in the middle of the street during a block party. (A bouncehouse is a standard feature of block parties.)
We're even close to people who live on the 1000 South Block of East Avenue, as our respective garages face the same alley, like the couple that rents a parking space next to our garage. We often run into each other as we pull the car out and head out of the alley to go somewhere. That garage makes for some good storage area, too, removed from the house.
My home is in southern Oak Park, in the area between the Interstate 290 and Roosevelt Road, the latter of which marks the southern boundary of the Village with the City of Berwyn. So while I have lived in Oak Park, I have frequented Berwyn and the services in that place.
Oak Park is a Village, its government composed of a village board of trustees, headed by a president, and then there's a village manager. They all meet to do their work at Village Hall at 123 Madison Street.
The Village's first settlers came headed west out of Chicago along an aboriginal route that is now Lake Street. The notable feature geographically speaking is the large ridge running through northern part of the village, which marks the location of a historical continental divide between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds. (It is historical because the Illinois and Michigan Canal bridged the divide in the 19th century.) There is a modest rise in the land in northern Oak Park. This ridge functioning like a hill, some considered Oak Park to be a holy place, "a city on a hill". And so up went the churches, and out went the alcohol.
There are sidewalks everywhere in Oak Park, which makes walking places very feasible, even those that are a far distance. But biking is pretty feasible, too, and can expedite any journey, especially to places on the other side of the Village, or even far beyond. On a day with warm enough temperatures lacking precipitation, I can enjoy just riding around.
There are a number of places I enjoy frequenting in southern Oak Park. I go over to the Maze Branch of the Oak Park Public Library about 5 times a week. This library is a branch from the main library in the downtown area, and it serves southern Oak Park, the realization of the vision of Mrs. Adele Maze. The Maze Branch Library fostered my enamorment for books and reading, which led to much of the knowledge I've gained in my life.
Maze is on the other side of the I-290. On my side are some facilities of the Park District of Oak Park. The Conservatory is a wonderful place, with lots of nice plants and flower, even some birds, including George, the talking double yellow-headed parrot. He's the reason I show up there every week.
Just to the east is Rehm Park, where I would go for recreation often during my childhood years. Right there is Rehm Pool, which is a good place to cool off on a warm or hot summer day.
Barrie Park is further east, and there's an interesting story there about how the soil had to be decontaminated and then the park reconstructed.
To get something sweet to eat, there's a couple of good locally-owned places: Hole-in-the-Wall, a small storefront at 901 1/2 South Oak Park Avenue, with frozen custard, soft-serve cones, and sundaes. Then there's Gina's, which serves many flavors of Italian ice. It is in Berwyn, but receives much Oak Park traffic.
Just beyond the south end of the alley that my family house's property touches is the place where I started my education in preschool, at Christ Lutheran Learning Center, part of the LCMS Christ Lutheran Church at East and Harvard. The neighborliness of Oak Park is certainly evident in that the preschool's director lives across the alley from us. How notable that the earliest and most advanced parts of my education were at Lutheran institutions.
A little way's east down Harvard Street, straddled between Ridgeland and Cuyler is Washington Irving Elementary School, which I attended from Kindergarten through 5th Grade. It was a good time, with all those moments that come with being an elementary school kid. It's nice to see some green space popping up where there was only blacktop before. (This is where I was as a 5th grader when the events of September 11, 2001 unfolded.)
In 2002, I was a member of the first group of students to make the transition to 6th grade at the middle schools. I went to the school just up Ridgeland Avenue named after the famous African-American chemical scientist Dr. Percy Lavon Julian. His daughter, Faith, still lives in the home where Percy and Anna Julian raised their family, on East and Chicago. It stands as a symbol to triumph over racism, as it had been fire-bombed twice.
Back to Julian Middle School, it was momentous when my fellow 6th graders and I showed up. Everyone in the village wondered how this would work out. A term I heard tossed around often was "guinea pigs". Well, we survived the experiment with flying colors, and it has been continuing successfully to this day.
And I underwent a lot of significant character development during my three years at Julian. I became more exposed to the sense of diversity that the village prides itself in. I had the pleasure of getting to know many Jewish people who lived in areas of the village further north. In 7th grade, I had the honor of attending my good friend's Bar Mitzvah at a temple in Oak Park just north of Harlem and Division. That was an experience like no other.
A little further north from Julian, and to the west, near the geographical center of Oak Park is Oak Park and River Forest High School, the final stage of my schooling in Oak Park. Oak Park has shared a public high school with its neighbor to the west since the 1870's, and has collaborated with River Forest in many ways. (To the west, that is, only north of the train tracks running through the center of the village; to the south of that point along Harlem is Forest Park.)
The area of Oak Park to the north of OPRFHS has many large, beautiful homes. Embedded among them is St. Giles Parish, one of four Roman Catholic parishes in Oak Park. My earliest memories of going to church were in its school's gymnasium, where a group of parishioners held Mass in a more family-friendly environment. This is where I had my First Communion.
I also attended CCD classes for many years with St. Giles Family Mass community, but there were held at Grace Episcopal Church in downtown Oak Park, which rings out its magnificent bells every Sunday morning in grand style. Grace Episcopal is across the street from Calvary Memorial Church, where I attended AWANA classes in elementary school, and later participated in its youth groups, in grades 7-12.
In the present day, I attend Mass at Ascension Parish on the south side of Oak Park, in the Romanesque structure with its large dome and depictions of the Ascension of Christ, as well as other Biblical and religious scenes and figures. (As of late, my home parish has gotten me wondering about what percentage of Roman Catholic parishes are not named for saints.) This is the Church where I had my Confirmation, another significant moment of character formation in my life. What's so nice is the short walk to Ascension from home.
Oak Park sits in the shadow of Chicago, being bordered by the city on its north and east sides. There are a number of major transportation corridors that head directly to downtown Chicago (about 7 miles away) and out to other places in the suburbs: As mentioned before, there's the I-290, which, in very good traffic, can allow us to get to downtown Chicago in a matter of 5 minutes; Schaumburg and Woodfield Mall are at its other terminus. Traveling along the I-290 is the CTA Blue Line, which I ride frequently to access the Loop and beyond in Chicago. Other commuters ride the Green Line along the Lake Street Corridor, whose terminus is just south of Harlem and Lake (once rumored to be the target of a Soviet bomb). There's Metra's Union Pacific West Line, too, which goes out to Geneva, and whose Oak Park station is in the downtown area. There are other major streets, too, that lead into Chicago: Roosevelt Road, Jackson Boulevard, Madison Street, Lake Street, Chicago Avenue, Division Street, and North Avenue. Many of these corridors provide a clear view in the direction of downtown, and one can easily see the majestic Sears Tower rising high.
Indeed, Oak Park is in the shadow of Chicago, and often times, people lump its existence into a comglomerate blob known simply as "Chicago". But I feel that while Oak Park's existence can't be defined without Chicago, I don't feel Chicago can be defined without Oak Park and all the other neighborhoods and suburbs that make up the elaborate quilt of Chicagoland.
Oak Park certainly contributes a very special piece to that fabric. Some notable people and things have connections to Oak Park: Dan Castelleneta (the voice of Homer Simpson, who grew up not far from where my Great Aunt lives), Percy Julian, Ray Kroc (who grew up in on Home Avenue just to the west of me), Ernest Hemingway (born and raised here before going off on his life's adventures), Frank Lloyd Wright (whose home and many other examples of his work are here), Edgar Rice Burroughs (who wrote the original Tarzan books here), Kool-Aid's inventor lived here, as did the creator of the Twinkie. Today, we have the pleasure of counting among our residents author Harriette Gillem Robinet, who writes historical fiction stories from American history with African-Americans as protagonists. (Some might claim that Papa was born in Cicero, to the southeast, of which Oak Park was a part before it became an independent township, just a few years after his birth.) And then there's Fenwick High School, a Dominican college preparatory school, which includes among its alumni, Pat Quinn, current Governor of Illinois, who owns a home just to the north of Oak Park the Chicago city neighborhood of Galewood.
Architecture is a big draw for tourists to Oak Park, with the many fines homes and buildings. They also come to the many business districts, with their shops and restaurants--and not just in downtown and the Avenue, but also in other areas, like the Arts District on Harrison Street.
There are issues with crime in Oak Park, some of it related to the neighboring Austin neighbor in Chicago. But generally, I haven't been very affected by it, and consider it a safe place to live, as would many. I feel comfortable going out and about.
We have a great sense of community here, as fostered by such things as the Farmers' Market, held in Pilgrim Congregational Church's parking lot on Saturdays from late May to late October. There's also the Wednesday Journal newspaper, which my brother and I used to deliver on East Avenue between I-290 and Roosevelt, before all carrier routes were outsourced to the USPS.
We have a great community here, and I've enjoyed growing up here. Even though its prevailing political ideology doesn't agree with mine, that really hasn't been enough to make me eager to leave. I don't really have any objections to living here with more than 50000 other people. There's been so much in this place that has allowed me to have an enjoyable childhood and be raised well.
So yes, it has been a great 20 years in Oak Park. May God Bless Oak Park. And may He bless my home, just as in the words of this song, which I first heard at George W. Bush's second inauguration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb9WllWHcgM
No comments:
Post a Comment