Month: September 2017

Having a good transit system is important for a thriving city. It’s especially important for a large city like Chicago. Chicago has the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority). The CTA is marking it’s 70th year of operation this Sunday, October 1, 2017. The CTA started operations on October 1, 1947. It came about because the State of Illinois passed an act that created the CTA. This consolidated numerous systems that were operating independently and competing with each other (and were largely inefficient) into a centralized system that would run the elevated trains and buses.

Today, the CTA is the second largest mass transit system in the U.S. It services an average of 1.6 million riders on an average weekday; and runs about 1,888 buses on 130 routes and 1,301 miles. Buses make about 18,843 trips a day and have 10,813 bus stops. On the rapid transit system,CTA’s 1,492 rail cars operate eight routes and 224.1 miles of track. CTA trains make about 2,276 trips each day and serve 145 stations.

The Chicago “L” celebrated it’s own anniversary on June 16, 2017. The “L” (elevated trains) have been in operation for 125 years! Chicago’s first elevated railway was built by the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad Company on June 6, 1892. It was known as the “Alley L” and ran from Congress to 39th Street just east of State Street.

To thank customers for a great 70 years, CTA is having a celebration in Daley Plaza on Sunday October 1, 2017. There will be live music by local artists who perform on CTA subway platforms and vintage bus and train rides around the Loop.

I didn’t think they were. I thought they were a thing of the past….a part of Chicago history. Well, they are a part of Chicago history, but I saw one still in operation yesterday! I was on a METRA train approaching Union Station and I saw a rail car that said Pullman Federal on it. It looked to be in excellent condition and was operating as the last car attached to an AMTRAK train. At first I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, so it took me awhile to reach for my iphone camera. Luckily I was able to take the photo below while passing the car. The sun was very bright, so it’s hard to read, but trust me it said Pullman Federal!

Today I did some research and found out that what I saw was a restored privately owned Pullman Federal rail car. It was built by the Pullman Company and was one of the first all steel business cars. The Federal car started service on February 3, 1911 and it’s the oldest private car certified for Amtrak operations. It was used by presidents Taft and Wilson for their travels from 1911-1916. The Federal car was sold to DL&W RR in 1933. It was acquired by AAPRCO (American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners) in 1992. It underwent extensive restoration and started operating again in October 2002.

The interior has a formal dining room with a 1911 mahogany dining set. There are two bedrooms with brass beds and a full service kitchen (as well as some modern day conveniences such as TV and DVD player)! Awesome!!

This year Streetwise Magazine is celebrating it’s 25th year of helping homeless Chicagoans (or those at risk of being homeless) earn money on their own and become self-sufficient. It is a weekly magazine that sells for $2.00. It costs the individual Streetwise vendor $ .90 to buy one magazine; and they make $1.10 in profit. I try to buy the magazine every week and pay $5.00 for one magazine. It’s a good feeling to know this extra amount is going to the individual vendor so they can reinvest it in their business by buying more magazines or keep it for living expenses.

Streetwise was started in 1992 as a social service organization that empowers the entrepreneurial spirit by offering self-employment as well as supportive social services and resources to assist in meeting basic needs and getting out of crisis. Participants go through a one month training period and become a badged vendor upon completion. They learn customer service skills, financial skills and time management. And the S.T.E.P. Program provides continuous job readiness training and support to ensure participants’ success in the workforce. Since 1992 more than 12,000 people have been employed as Streetwise vendors.

The best part is that it’s not only for a good cause…..it’s also a great magazine with articles about Chicago events, restaurants, sports, books and city life in general. So, if you haven’t read Streetwise yet, get a copy and if you read Streetwise only once in awhile, buy one every week! You won’t regret it.

As this Summer comes to a close (this Friday is the first day of Fall). I started thinking about another Summer that happened 50 years ago. It was called the “Summer of Love”. Some of you may have lived through it at the time, and others, like me only learned about it from popular culture. It happened in 1967 and was kind of overshadowed by Woodstock a couple of years later. About 100,000 young people known as hippies or flower children poured into the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco. They generally opposed the Vietnam War and were into art, music and poetry. They rejected materialism and capitalism and other trappings of modern society. They were into communal living and folk and rock music. Many music festivals were held in the area, such as the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival and the Monterey Pop Festival with artists like The Who, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. The Mamas and Papas song lyrics…”if you’re going to San Francisco be sure to where some flowers in your hair” were written for the Summer of Love. I think the young people were rebelling (mostly in a peaceful way) and trying to find themselves at the same time. I was only five years old at the time, but I always wished I had been a part of that generation.

At the end of the Summer some locals actually held what they called a hippie funeral because they wanted to signal this was the end of it, that people should stay where they live and not come back because it’s over. Still, much in society resonated from the events of the Summer of Love. They fueled the antiwar and environmental movements, but more than anything I think they taught us it’s okay to pursue personal freedom and be more open minded.

Courting is a term we don’t hear too much anymore. The term we commonly use now is dating. When I was growing up we called it dating. I only know the term courting from old TV shows or books and I thought it was just an “old fashioned” way of saying “dating”. Still, my perception was that there were slight differences between dating and courting. So, since I was curious, I googled it. After reading the definitions of both terms the primary difference between the two seems to be intent.

Courting is done with the intent of marriage or commitment to a monogamous romantic relationship. It includes ongoing activities to gain the trust of the person being courted, as well as trying to gain the trust of the person’s family, friends and community. The person courting is doing two things simultaneously. They are trying to market themselves to the person being courted and family and friends. And in the process they are also learning more about the person being courted, i.e. her personality, likes and dislikes, etc. I think courting is a positive thing for a relationship, mainly because it’s done over a longer period of time. So, you get to know the person well before commitment/marriage. It also shows a sense of true interest and devotion to the individual, since they’re willing to put forth all that effort!

I guess courting is probably similar to “serious dating” vs. “casual dating”.

Mindfulness is maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and surrounding environment. It involves acceptance of our thoughts and feelings without judging them as they occur in the present moment. Mindfulness has its origins in Buddhist meditation, but a popular secular version of mindfulness is Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).

There are many benefits of practicing Mindfulness. It’s good for our bodies, because it boosts our immune system. It’s good for our minds, because it increases positive emotions and reduces negative emotions and stress. It helps our brains with learning, memory, emotion regulation and empathy and it helps us focus by enabling us to tune out distractions and improve memory and attention skills.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) is learning to control our reaction to stress. This occurs because between stimulus and response there’s a space, in that space lies our power to choose our response, and in our response lies our growth and our freedom. It means there is a moment of choice before we react to stress and pain. Most of us are unaware of this space between stimulus and response because we use habitual patterns of reacting to stimulus. The MBSR technique helps people to become aware of negative habitual reactions and choose positive ways to react.

I believe it would be beneficial to practice some degree of mindfulness, because it can help you improve focus, get along better with others, and give you confidence, thereby reducing stress. Most people suffer some stress in their lives. These mindfulness techniques may make you feel more in control and therefore more confident. Practice acceptance by accepting the way you currently feel.  Take a three minute breathing space. Stop what you’re doing and concentrate on your breaths and sensations at the moment. Tune into distractions around you. By paying attention to the sounds around you instead of ignoring them you can become aware of the effect they’re having on you and control your reactions. Take breaks. Taking regular breaks during the day can boost productivity and creativity. Find a time to unplug. Staying connected to the internet and email all day (in and outside of work) could make us distracted, impatient and forgetful. Taking even short breaks from technology can lower stress and boost productivity.

Practicing mindfulness helps you learn a lot about yourself. By practicing it just a few days I’ve learned what stimuli make me happy and which make me sad and why. This has allowed me to learn to control my reactions. It has also helped me to tune into other people and their needs and greatly improved my ability to focus. The most important benefit for me has been not just trying to emulate the positive qualities I see in others, but being able to accept myself for who I am and really liking myself.

 

I’ve heard people say, “have a blessed day” many times without really knowing what it meant. I guess to me it was just another way of saying, “have a nice day.”

Then there’s another word that we don’t hear too often…”serendipity.” The dictionary definition of serendipity is the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

I believe I experienced both of these the other day. As I was getting off the train on Wednesday I ran into a friend of mine from grade school. We hadn’t seen each other in over 40 years, but amazingly she recognized me and I recognized her (after she said her name). She then talked about her memories of being at my house as a little girl and now nice my mother was. I was very surprised she remembered so many details about my mother and I started to cry, because at that moment I felt my mother’s presence more than I have in a long time.; since my mother died over 30 years ago.

Also on Wednesday I was facing what I thought was a hopeless situation about the care of my elderly aunt, when by chance I received a phone call from someone that advised me of the right thing to do and how to do it to solve the problem.

These two serendipitous events made for a very blessed day and I thank the two people I encountered that made it possible…..Thank you so much for allowing me to experience the serendipity of a blessed day!

About a month ago I decided that I needed to get with the new technology and not be afraid of it. Sure, I used email and read newspapers online and played a few games before, but not much else. That’s when I started this blog and joined Twitter. Twitter was something totally new to me and kind of intimidating. I never wanted to go on Twitter in the past because I thought you would constantly be receiving tweets and have to answer them immediately. I found out it’s not like that at all. You can initiate and respond to tweets anytime you want to; or not respond at all. It’s entirely at your discretion. You can choose the groups and individuals you want to follow and indicate whether you want to receive notifications or not.

Twitter helps me stay on top of all the breaking news, because all the major news channels and newspapers tweet current news as it happens (as does the president and mayor). It also puts me in contact with people that have many diverse viewpoints, that I probably wouldn’t meet in real life; but on Twitter we can connect and share ideas freely. I have met wonderful people on Twitter and they are very nice. However, my favorite thing on Twitter is not the people, but the pets (namely dogs). I love seeing photos of dogs on the WeRateDogs @dog_rates hashtag. Below is a photo of Rosie as a puppy that I posted on Twitter.

So, if you’re not on Twitter I would say to give it a try…it’s a lot of fun!

I’m looking forward to enjoying Labor Day with my family. The weather should be beautiful and it’ll be nice to have a long weekend. But there’s more to Labor Day than family, food and last true days of Summer. I knew Labor Day had something to do with labor, but I didn’t really know the actual history behind the Labor Day holiday, and I didn’t know it figured prominently in Chicago history.

I just read the other day that Labor Day was designated a Federal holiday in 1894 by President Cleveland as a result of the Pullman Railcar Workers Strike. The strike, like so many others at the time, was to fight for reasonable pay and an 8 hour workday. This particular strike affected not only Pullman porters and other workers in the Town of Pullman in Chicago, but approximately 250,000 Pullman workers in cities across the nation. So, the Labor Day Holiday is also a day to remember (and honor) American workers and their rights.

Thank you