A Helping of Helen, Chicago Style....

My cousin sent this email to me. I liked it, and thought this might be a good opportunity to learn how to download pictures and stuff from email. I am not sharing all the pictures. If you are interested, email me and I will forward his email to you. The pictures are all of a local amusement park I am way, way to young to remember. It closed down two years before I was even born. (But since all of my cousins are LOTS and LOTS older than me, they remember it well, thus the picture circulation...)

Now, it would have been so easy to just post the list. That would have been what, 45 minutes to figure out how to download pictures then copy and paste text and I'm done. But that would have been so unlike me. You know how I love parentheses. That is why I feel the need to add comments to all these generic lists. It is to share the joy of parentheses with you, my dear friends. Think of it as a hug from me to you.

You Might Be From Chicago If:

You know where Aladdin's Castle was
1. The 'living room' is called the 'front room'. (Yes, I totally do this. I have been known to say of a friend's house that her front room is in the back of the house.)
2. You don't pronounce the 's' at the end of Illinois . And, you become irate at people who do. (Who pronounces the "s"? Huh? This one makes no sense. You all learned your states. You know how to pronounce them.)
3. You measure distance in minutes (especially 'from the city'). And you swear everything is pretty much 1/2 hour away.(That's only because it is...or would be if it wasn't for the traffic..)
4. You have no problem spelling or pronouncing ' Des Plaines '. (Pronounce the "s" at the end. Des Plains is how it is pronounced.)
5. You go to visit friends, or family, down south and laugh when they complain about the traffic. (Breaking for sheep crossing hardly constitutes traffic, sorry Sherri. Geese maybe, since they honk at you.)





You know this was not the Greyhound bus station

6. You understand that no person from Chicago can be a Cub fan AND a White Sox fan. (I try. I'll post on the Baseball Family Feud later. It's a riot...literally!)
7. It's 'Kitty corner' not 'Katty corner'. (Okay, who says "katty corner"? )
8. You know the difference between The Loop and Downtown (The loop is downtown. It is the area encompassed by trains..well here Wikipedia explains it well enough if you don't want to let it suffice that it is all about the trains. )
9. You eat your pizza in squares, not triangles, and you never refer to it as 'pie'. (The major chains do triangles, the local places do squares. Why would anyone order Dominoes when they can have Giordanos, Superossa, Vinces, or Dinos delivered? And that is just within a mile radius of my house. OK. Giordanos is more like three miles. The distance just seems shorter for Giordanos.)
10. You own celery salt.(Actually, I don't. I hope they don't deport me out of the Chicago Metropolitan Area for that.)
11. You understand that the primary is the official local election. (In Chicago, it's Democrat all the way. Once the Democratic Primary is over, the rest is just niceties. Or even badities. The point is, it's a done deal.)
12. You have drunk green beer on St. Paddy's Day. (Ooops! I have not. Green beer? Eeeew..)
13. Stores don't have sacks, they have bags. (Sacks? Is that what rednecks call them?)
14. You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition. Example: 'Where's my coat at?' or 'Can I go with?' (Well....I have caught myself ending sentences in posts with prepositions, and tried to fix it. I guess I must do that in my speech then, huh? )
15. Your idea of a great tenderloin is when the meat is twice as big as the bun, 'everything' is on it and a slice of dill pickle is on the side. (Now that I am on Atkins, let's just skip the bun altogether.)





You know 'The Bobs' was not plural for Bob

16. You carry jumper cables in your car. (Of course. I don't know how to use them. Still, you stand at the side of the road holding them when you're stuck, and someone stops by. I left that last preposition in the previous sentence just for you.)
17. You drink 'pop'. (Mom always said soda. I say soda pop to make myself clear in all circumstances with all English (American) speaking people.)
18. You understand that I-290, I-90, I-94, and I-294 are all different roads. (They are).
19. You know the names of the interstates: Stevenson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Dan Ryan, and the Edens. (Yep)
20. You call the interstates 'expressways'. (Of course. You mean everyone doesn't? Do you go around calling the expressways interstates? Why?)
21. You refer to anything South of I-80 as 'Southern or Central Illinois '. (Sorry Sherri. Southern Illinois starts early up here.)
22. You refer to Lake Michigan as 'The Lake '. (Of course. What other lake would we be talking about?)
23. You refer to Chicago as 'The City'. (We're in Illinois. Like Illinois even HAS another city....)
24. 'The Super Bowl' refers to one specific game in January 1986. (This is the one. Rappin' old school style. I forgot about this one. Perhaps I do like rap music.)
25. You have two favorite football teams: The Bears, and anyone who beats the Packers. (Can I get an AMEN!?)
26. You buy the 'Trib', not the 'Tribune' or the 'Times', not the 'Sun Times'. (We get both. But we do call the Trib "the Trib")
27. You know that despite being on the lake, there is no such place as the Waterfront. (Waterfront? Is that what they call it on the ocean shore? Because here, the lake's the lake...)
28. You think 45 degrees is great weather to wash your car. (It's above freezing! What do you want us to do, drive around in dirty cars for a few months?)
29. You picnic or ride your bike in the 'forest preserve'..(Uh huh, Uh huh...If you people comment about "real" forests near you, I'll pull a JML on every one of you! )
30. You cried when Bozo was canceled on WGN. (I couldn't even watch....Chicago without Bozo is like....Amityville without a horror? Boston without a masacre? San Diego without a zoo..... I prefered Cookie anyway. Okay, I miss Bozo. Hang on a second while I get a tissue. Allergies....)




You know this was 'The Silver Flash', not the 'L'

31. You know what goes on a Chicago style hot dog. (Don't ask me. I like what I like. I refuse to pretend otherwise just to prove I am a good Chicagoan. Which interestingly enough, makes me the ULTIMATE Chicagoan...)
32. You know what Chicago Style Pizza REALLY is. (See Chicago hot dog, number 31. In spades!)
33. You know why they call Chicago 'The Windy City '. (Technically, it's the politicians. Actually, we do get alot of wind from the lake effect....)
34. You understand what 'lake-effect' means. ( It has to do with wind on the water. Go ahead and click here if you want technical mumbo jumbo to tell you more.)
35. You know the difference between Amtrak and Metra, and know which station they end up at. (Amtrak is Union Station. Metra is the Metra Station. Not exactly Rocket Science or Nuclear Psychology...)
37. You have ridden the 'L'. (Yep)
38. You think your next door neighbor is a cousin to Tony Soprano (Distant cousin....very distant.....)
39. You can distinguish between the following area codes: 847, 630, 773, 708, 312, & 815. (Northern Suburbs, Western Suburbs, Chicago residential, Southern suburbs, Downtown Chicago business, and close to Chicago suburbs but not quite)
40. You have, at some time in your life, used your furniture...or a friend's body, to guard your parking spot in winter. (An old beat up chair that we kept just for the purpose of saving a space in front of our own house)
41. You respond to the question 'Where are you from?' with a 'side'. Example: 'WestSide,' 'SouthSide' or 'NorthSide'. (My answer is Northwest Side, but you get the idea...)
42. You know the phone number to 'Empire Carpet'! (I thought it was a national franchise. That really makes a comment I left for Katdish really random. COOL! )
43. You know what a 'garache key' is! (hint: you use it to open a garache door. The small one.)







The name of the amusement park was Riverview. My mom still uses the phrase "Like a ride at Riverview!" when we push her wheelchair a little too fast (rock on, mom). Here in Chicago, Riverview the amusement park has been closed for 42 years, but Riverview the legend still lives on.