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Writer's pictureThe Dreamweaver

Then This Happened | The Dreamweaver


I had just arrived at Chicago's O'Hare Airport and my uncle Art picked me up in a convertible and we drove into the city.


He decided to take a detour through the old neighborhood and as we drove down California heading northbound we passed the Dolnick Center and then, continuing on, I noticed that all the shops and storefronts between Granville and Devon were either boarded up or burned down.


We talked about how cities go through these cyclical changes and that surely one day the old neighborhood would rise from the ashes and become thriving again.


Suddenly, he pulled the car into the alley beside where Tel Aviv Kosher Pizza used to be and backed out, turning the car around and parking in the lot where the Fotomat drive-up kiosk once stood saying he wanted to pop into the Jewel (which was now on the corner of California and Devon where Citibank was for years) and pick up a few things and some flowers to take to his mother, bubbe Dora's house.


Approaching the Jewel I was shocked to see what had become of the neighborhood and the street scene in front of me was an urban jungle, hustle and bustle, blaring horns and sirens; mostly black, brown and claret-colored faces rushing and pushing and scrambling to get to who-knows where.


Just as we were walking into the supermarket, my mother called and I told Art I would wait for him here in the entranceway and he proceeded to grab a shopping cart and disappeared into the massive crowd of shoppers.


As I was talking to mother, I inadvertently placed my right hand on the plastic push bar of a young woman's shopping cart and was thumbing through a stack of salmon-colored papers the size of lottery tickets that were attached to a plastic clip on the push bar.


I soon realized that I had caught the attention of the young woman who by now was staring at me incessantly with somewhat of a cautiously annoyed look.


I told my mother I had to go and hung up the call as I saw the young woman had just also hung up from a call.


Removing my hand from her shopping cart, I apologized saying I didn't realize what I was doing, that I was talking to my mother and my hand had unconsciously reached out and grabbed the first and nearest thing around.


She grinned jeeringly and told me not to go anywhere.


I asked her if she had just called the police and she said that she had called her mother who was shopping just feet away.


I began pleading with the young woman trying to convince her that I meant no offense by placing my hand on her shopping cart, that I was merely talking to my mother and was waiting for my uncle who was shopping nearby.


As the young woman's mother and other family members approached coming to the young woman's aid, she obviously had a sudden change of heart and believed my story and rather than accusing me of some sort of harassment, she introduced me to her family as her former college teacher who she hadn't seen in years.


I was both relieved and taken aback by the young woman's sudden change of heart and her ability to quickly and cleverly de-escalate the situation.


Her mother said it was nice to meet me and told her daughter that she should invite me to the party hall down the street where they were having a family gettogether.


The young woman told her mother she thought that was a great idea and then turned to me and asked me if I'd like to join her at her family's party.


I said I could stop in for a quick drink and would go and tell my uncle to pick me up there.


I asked exactly where it was and she told me the party was at the old Dolnick Center just a few blocks down on California.


I couldn't believe it. "That was the community center my great-grandfather founded in the 1950s," I told the young woman. It was named in memory of his friend, physician and Zionist leader Dr. Max Dolnick.


We arrived at the Center, as we used to call it, and the place, though somewhat decrepit on the outside, was a stunningly modern venue that looked more like the lobby of a five-star hotel with crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings and red carpet lining the two staircases that led to the second floor auditorium that had been transformed into a lavish grand ballroom.


I couldn't believe my eyes and the young woman took me to the small storage room that was to the right of where the stage used to be where her younger family members, cousins I imaged, we are hanging out drinking and, to my dismay, smoking cigarettes and reefers.


After introducing me to her cousins, we walked downstairs where we saw the rock star Bono walking down the hall surrounded by his entourage.


The young woman said he was personal friend of one of her uncles and had come to do a special solo acoustic guitar performance later that afternoon.


I couldn't believe my eyes or what the young woman had just told me. Bono, one of my musical heroes, just walked feet in front of me and in the place where I spent much of my childhood.


I went on to tell the woman that I had attended the elementary school across the street and would come to the Center every day during lunch and again after school to wait for my mother to pick me up from the old Jewel supermarket that used to be on Granville where she worked as a check-out girl.


I told her I was here the day my younger brother was born and spoke to my mother on a phone in the office I pointed to which was now a cloakroom, just as it was used for during big events at the Center back in the day. My mother had called from the hospital just as I got the Center for lunch telling me my brother had been born a few hours earlier.


All the while, the young woman seemed enchanted by my stories and even more so by the odd circumstance of our meeting.


I took her hand and led her down the hall past all the rooms that were once used for Yiddish classes, meetings, coffee-ands and banquets. At the end of the corridor we turned left into a darkened passageway and stopped in front of a closed door that had a sign on it that read "Staff Only: Do Not Enter."


I pushed the door open and we walked inside.


"What is this place?" the young woman asked.


"It used to be the boiler room."


I walked around a bit noticing that most of the massive tubes and pipes and machinery were gone, replaced with smaller more technologically-advanced equipment used to control the building's heating, air conditioning and lighting. I also noticed a room I hadn't remembered ever seeing and looking in I noticed it was a completely furnished bedroom, complete with a double bed that was nicely made and a number of pieces of antique furniture. I imagined it was used for the caretaker.


I went on to tell the young woman that when I was a child, a man called A.J. was the building's janitor who stayed in the boiler room where he had a chair, hot plate and an old black and white TV. Against my great-grandfather's explicit instructions to not bring me back into the boiler room (he thought it too dangerous for a small child), A.J. would often sneak me in to watch Cubs games on his old TV set.


A.J., I told the woman, was the son-in-law of Elnora Wilson, who worked for my great-grandfather and who did everything from cleaning, cooking and looking after me when I came there after school.


"One day, I told the young woman," Elnora sat me down on a high stool in the kitchen to watch the Cubs game and she set a bowl in front of me with a block of vanilla ice cream in it that she poured Coke from a glass bottle over. "Here," Elnora said. "Your grandad likes these." "That was my first Coke float," I told my new friend.


I took her hand again, this time leading her out of the boiler room and up the few steps that led to another door leading outside to the south end of the building.


I was pleasantly surprised how beautiful the grass had grown over what I had remembered to have been an empty lot covered with weeds and strewn with discarded bottles and pop cans.


I turned to the young woman and asked her if she would ever consider marrying a much older man. She turned to me and said, "if he's the right man, I would."


Then I woke up.


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