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WHITING, Ind.---Surely there is no place like this place.
While the name of the Purple Steer restaurant suggests a 1968 acid trip from Haight-Ashbury, the 24-hour diner is in fact at the working class corner of Indianapolis Boulevard and Calumet Avenue in Whiting. On the west corner the Purple Steer faces the Robertsdale Inn, a ramshackle tropical drink roadhouse. The north side looks out over Oasis Discount Liquors.
This is Caribbean escapism for the Calumet Region, one of the grittiest sections of America.
On the clearest of days the skies can be gray.
The countryside is dotted with "Tank Farms," a series of mundane white septic tanks that stretch out for acres. Vapors spin out of the B.P. refinery smokestacks like candles on a foresaken birthday cake.
Last year photographer Gary Cialdella delivered a fine coffee table book “The Calumet Region: An American Place {$39,95, University of Illinois Press, Brauer Museum of Art, Valpariso University, www.press.uillinois.com] that features 118 pages of landscapes and scenes from the region. Cialdella, a 63-year-old native of Blue Island, focused on the heavy industry along the Lake Michigan shoreline from the old South Works in South Chicago to Gary.
You can feel the sweat drip off his muscular photos. Cialdella adroitly balances the use and misuse of land. He began making the black and white photographs in 1986. The Purple Steer --where nothing is purple--should hang Cialdella’s art on its walls.

Downtown Gary, Ind. Photos courtesy of Gary Cialdella

Cialdella is fascinated with sense of place.
“I’m interested in social landscape as a setting, a place,” Cialdella said last week over breakfast at the Steer. “I like to draw attention to where people live and work. The symbolism that is all around them: advertising, industrial setting, homes. As a photographer, a personal investment is what needs to be. There’s always something unique about an environment. I try to find that uniqueness.”
As I saw the Caribbean landscape around the dreary intersection I thought of the rural writer Wendell Berry, who in “Poetry and Place” wrote, “ To preserve our places and be at home with them, it is necessary to fill them with imagination.”

Cialdella has lived in the Calumet Region his entire life, only stretching as far away as Chicago and his current residence of Kalamazoo, Mich. He has made pictures in New Orleans and has spent the last four years photographing the immigrant Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. No matter how hard life gets, some people never leave their place, whether it be New Orleans, Haiti or the Calumet Region.
Connection to place is entrenched either spiritually or economically.
“Its a puzzle,” he said. “But people still buy and sell homes in this area. They’re relocating to Whiting and Hammond. Right across from the (B.P. refinery) in Whiting I saw people putting up new homes.
“For example, after Katrina I photographed in New Orleans. I was back last spring documenting people coming back to the Lower 9th Ward. There was very little going on. A couple new houses were being built and Brad Pitt’s foundation was doing a couple modern shotgun places. Adjacent to the Inner Harbor Canal I saw a white house down the road. There were no houses between it and me. No houses beyond it.”
Cialdella sat in his car and stared in the distance. He noticed the singular profile of a man.

“He was edging his lawn,” Cialdella continued. “There was no house next to him. No house behind him. No house across the street from him. I made a photograph from the distance to see this landscape around him. I was so moved by that. It practically brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t believe the attention someone had put into this place that had been devastated. And they were back.”
Cialdella introduced himself to the man. “And he was thanking me for taking interest,” he said. “He was probably 70 years old. I wished a lot of good luck. There’s something rooted in human beings. People who live in these older neighborhoods and stay there have a stronger sense of that. Maybe its an older immigrant thing. But I know that in the Hammond area, Whiting and Chicago, Mexican-Americans are now the main population. And they’re taking root. And they’re reviving some of these neighborhoods.”

Cialdella is a passionate documentarian and knew the work of late Chicagoan Archie Lieberman who chronicled rural life near Galena in his 1974 opus “Farm Boy.” Lieberman always pointed out that he “made” pictures. “Its an important distinction,” Cialdella said. “Making suggests a process. ‘Taking’ suggests theft. There’s some of that in all photography of course, but when you’re making a picture you bring yourself to it.
Gary Cialdella sees that place with his heart.

Labels: Calumet Region, Gary, Indiana, Photography

The Chicken Buses of Guatemala are tripped out-pimped up-lowdown moving pieces of folk art.
I love them.
The buses are retired coach and school buses. Most of the ones I rode out of Antigua were built by the Blue Bird Corporation in Fort Valley, Ga. The Blue Bird emblem was still entrenched like a sheriff's badge near the front door of the Chicken Buses I rode. The school bus company started in 1927 as the Blue Bird Body Company in Richmond, Ind. under Christian principles. An original sign from company founders reading “God is our Refuge & Strength” still hangs the corporate headquarters in Georgia.

Perhaps the Chicken Buses are blessed.
Each all-steel bus is custom designed and painted in bright red, yellow and evergreen. Gobs of shiny chrome are attached to the front. Most of the buses have names like interpid explorer’s ships. Our first bus was “The Cubanita” (the little Cuban girl or woman). “The Princescita” rolls back and forth between La Barrona and Guatemala City. I saw the beautiful “Orellana.”
Many of the buses play loud mixes of cumbia and ranchera music, a perfect soundtrack for hair pin turns down the mountains of Antigua. Flavored with a bold and somewhat touristy New Orleans landscape, Antigua is nestled between three volcanos.

During passenger stops rural vendors come on board the Chicken Bus to sell fruit, juice in a plastic bag, plantain chips (my favorite) and water. I heard fried chicken is also sold on the bus, but I did not see it. One vendor carried a stack of newspapers on her head. There's an idea for the Chicago newspaper community.

A few men boarded the buses with machetes and leather whips. At one stop the bus driver requested that the cowboy deposit his machete at the front of the bus. I squirmed a lot. I am 6'2" and most of the Guatemalans are around five-feet tall. And most of the buses were built for kids. I did not bring an iPod and hardly had space to read a book or a magazine. I gazed out the window at the blue countryside, a pastiche of modest farms and roadside huts.

“We are in at least 60 countries,” said Ron Smith, Blue Bird Director of Marketing. “We sell them through dealers to school districts. The school districts use them between 10 and 15 years. The buses are really well made to meet federal safety standards in North America. They have a lot of life left in them. So a dealer or school district sells them to a broker who takes them to Third World countries. We see a lot of them in Latin America.” Smith said 225,000 miles is a good lifetime run for a Blue Bird bus in North America.



Smith studied the Chicken Bus photos I took. He even put one on his screen saver. He estimated the buses were built in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. “I can tell from the chasiss that it was prior to our models of the last 10 years or so,” he said. “They’ve been out there a while. But they’re built to transport students. Its a cage within a cage. It is beautiful to see how the owners and drivers take wonderful care of them.”

Locals say the vehicles are called Chicken Buses because people are crammed into them like chickens in a coop. Others claim they are Chicken Buses because riders transport live animals on the buses.

The website Antiguadailyphoto.com suggests that “Chicken bus is the derogatory term used in many guides to refer to the rural public transportation buses in Guatemala and in many parts of Latin America.” I do not use Chicken Bus in negative tones.
As the only “gringos” on the crowded buses, I found Guatemalan riders to be courteous, warm and engaging. Local women let their babies ride in the welcoming laps of my girl friend and her sister. I must have spent a dozen hours on Chicken Buses in Guatemala and not once did someone blow snot in my face. I can’t say that about my rides on the CTA.

Labels: folk art, Guatemala

A bunch of palm trees are not as interesting as one palm tree.
A singular palm tree became my respite during a New Year’s Eve vacation to Guatemala. I was with Adriana and her sister. I have never traveled with two women--at least in the physical sense. They are younger than me. At times it seemed I was in a reality show.

I was in La Barrona, (pop. 900), where no one spoke conversational English. I recalled a few phrases from high school before I flunked out of Spanish II.
On our first day at La Baronna (sandbar), Adriana and I came upon a large sandbar with the slope of a crescent moon. Adriana was in La Barrona a few years ago when she volunteered for a sea turtle conservation effort. She said the sandbar was new. I headed for the palm tree perched above the sandbar. The palm tree was in an estuary steps from the Pacific Ocean. Herons as thin as bamboo shoots abounded along a riverway. I saw pelicans and Great Egrets. Maybe Kingfishers, I'm not sure.

The palm tree reminded me of those minimalist Corona beer commercials. No one was within miles. I figured the one coconut in the palm tree would fall down and knock me in the head. I had no iPod or cell phone. Just a book of Raymond Carver short stories, a notebook and some back issues of “Baseball America.”

I love the timeless possibility of an ocean horizon more than the momentary adventure of the crashing sea. A few times during our week in La Barrona I made my way to the palm tree I called my own. There were no other footprints in the sand besides mine from previous visits. Some visitors to my secret spot saw sea debris lodged in the sandbar. I only saw the ocean and virgin sunsets.

The world spins on dreams. I thought a lot about this under the palm tree. Adriana has a fast-talking upbeat friend name Douglas who took an eight hour Chicken Bus ride to reconnect with her. He is a fisherman who wants to spend three years working in Houston, Tx. to better his family.
Just about every night I was at the beach I spotted a man walking the beach looking for turtle eggs. He was always a different man, but similar in that he was always alone. Every man I saw carried a machete by his side. The foreword silhouettes of these wandering Guatemalan men under a full moon will be etched in my mind. Three-quarters of Guatemala--the most populous country in Central America---lives under the poverty level. But these men have the freedom of the ocean.

We took the Chicken Bus to La Baronna from Antigua. The buses are so named because people cram into them like chickens. They are reclaimed coach and school buses from the United States. During one connection on the way to La Barrona, I used the bathroom at a gutted out gas station.
When I came out of the loo I saw Adriana sitting on a curb between the two gas station pumps. Her backpack was at her right side. Her sunglasses sparkled in the piercing sun. She looked beautiful. She was waiting for her favorite bus, the Princess, whose spinning wheels takes you to La Barrona. She is always waiting for the next adventure, which is what I love about her. I thought about that, too, under my palm tree, alone and looking at the fortuity of the ocean.

Labels: Guatemala

During the holiday season it is better to swing from the vines than sit in a tree.

This is why I was amped up over a monkey serving tray I found last week in an antique store in Lincoln, Ill. during a detour on a road trip to St. Louis.
I thought of two things: how the green and brown motif would make a great accessory for my home tiki bar (see PHOTO gallery).
I also thought of my friend Bob and a New Year’s Day we spent at Sunset Junque on the Blue Star Highway near South Haven, Mich. That’s when I scored a four-foot long bamboo monkey with a baby monkey in tow. Bob and his companion Cleo loved it.
I may have loved the monkey serving tray even more.
Then my girl friend Adriana saw it.
You would have thought I brought home a live monkey with a tray of pineapple cheese dip. She told me the monkey looked like it was on crack.
That’s not in the holiday spirit.

So the monkey serving tray spent less than a week in my house, even though Adriana and I don’t live together. I knew Bob would appreciate it. His eye for weird collectibles is as crooked as mine.
When I was married in the mid-1980s I collected wooden frogs with instruments that I found in antique stores during fall foilage trips to Galena. I assembled a band of five erect frogs, playing the drums, fife stand-up bass, etc. My wife hated them. I was vindicated when a major newspaper conducted a survey of the world’s worst antiques. My marching frogs finished in the top three.
The monkey serving tray has that potential.

I’m just fascinated by thinking about whomever thinks up these things. Really, who would buy them except for me? Bob smiled a lot when he opened his present, but he seemed bewildered as to what to do with it. Since the monkey serving tray was only in my possesion for a short amount of time, I never noticed the holes in the back that suggested it was a piece of fine art meant to be hung on a wall.
But I told Bob I want to see my monkey serving tray in play at his next party: filled with bananas.

Happy and healthy holidays to all, no matter your point of view.

Labels: Collectibles

I picked up this picture on Thanksgiving Eve at the Carriagetown Antique Center near downtown Flint, Mich.
I don't have any family in Flint, although I have come to appreciate the gritty city as an Orphan of Americana.

I have looked at this picture every night. I paid $10 and it already is worth $100 of deep thought.
Who are these guys?
I can tell they are from the Flint Athletic Club 1939-40. The small print on the Flint-Stone explains they were in the Buick "78" League. They're clearly not 78 years old although I presume they all worked at the Buick factory in Flint.

I've had fun imagining their personalities. The guy in the middle was the funmeister/prankster. The bowler on his left was the serious member of the team. I bet he was always first to show up at bowling night. The guy sitting on the far right was the chick magnet, and the gentleman with glasses always kept score. The bowler on the top left was the scary iconoclast. I know that because he is wearing a tie that is different than his mates.

These guys are so striking because their jobs could be mundane. I don't think they were executives. Those guys are on the golf course. The bowling league was a conduit for self expression these men couldn't attain in the workplace.

The automobile industry in Flint was co-founded at the turn of the 20th Century by J. Dallas Dort of the Durant-Dort Carriage Company near the Carriagetown Antique Center (get it?). Dort believed a city's development was tied into the health and welfare of its workers. In 1915 Charles Mott, a GM Vice President, picked up the ball by creating an industrial committeee with Walter Chrysler as its chairman.
The commitee called itself the Industrial Fellowship League (IFL). Recreational and educational activities were offered to Flint workers through the IFL.
Bowling abounded.

I've told my journalistic colleagues that one way to bring back newspapers is to run bowling scores in the sports section. Bowling is all about foresight and neighborhood.

I'm serious. These guys were.

Labels: bowling, Flint Michigan

Making Ukranian Village brighter.


Now that the sun has emerged in Chicago my Obama Chia Pet is finally sprouting some hair.
I first saw the Obama Chia several months ago at a downtown CVS. I figured I'd get it at some later date but then there was a big hullabaloo about the meaningless planters being politically incorrect. They were pulled off the shelves along with a George Washington Chia Pet, an innocent bystander.

I was hellbent on getting an Obama Chia Pet.
I perused the Internet but it was more fun to try and find one in person. The clerks at north side drug stores were pretty testy. One woman even suggested it was "illegal" to sell the Obama Chia Pet. This is when I began thinking it would be easier to buy a handgun in Chicago than an Obama Chia Pet. I didn't get this static when I bought my Hillary Clinton Nutcracker.

South side people were more accomodating.
The Hyde Park Walgreens where the President used to buy NicoDerm went out of their way to help me. A store manager even told me that Obama's daughters loved the Chia Pet that depicts their father. The President reportedly didn't mind either. He was the first Chia based on a living person. Now that the Beatles are licensing everything, I propose Beatles Chias. Strawberry Chias forever!

After checking extra stock in the basement a Walgreen's clerk apologized for not having any more Obamas. Or George Washingtons. I wanted one of those, too. Then a nice woman in line--she was African-American--told me about a CVS down the street that had a few Obama Chia Pets.
This was the fifth CVS store I visited in Chicago.

A friendly clerk there sold me two Obama Chia Pets, I presume before they were cloistered in Chia Pet Jail. I kept one and gave the other to my girl friend. She is a Chicago Public School teacher. The Obama Chia Pet is now a garden project for her elementary school class. They love it.

Things are bleak in Chicago these days. We're losing conventions, we flamed out on our Olympic bid and now Chicago Olympic booster Oprah is leaving town.
We need to lighten up.

Labels: Chia Pets

There's a symposium on meat in Chicago this weekend.
I won't be able to attend--my rascal nephew Jude is in town for his 7th birthday,
But I will be there in spirit.
My father worked for Swift & Co. at the Union Stockyards on Chicago's South Side. He began as a messenger boy in 1937 and moved up to purchasing agent at the Swift offices in the Loop before retiring in 1981.

The symposium at Kendall College covers all kinds of stuff. There's panelists on cattle production from the cow-calf producer to the feedlot operator and beef processing and marketing as practiced in the past.
The sponsoring Greater Midwest Foodways [www.greatermidwestfoodways.com] should have a segment devoted to journalist Upton Sinclair's landmark novel "The Jungle."
Published in 1906, the book revealed the corruption and filth of the American meatpacking industry. Sinclair lived in a hotel near the Chicago Stockyards as he gathered material for his work. “We had very strict government inspections,” my Dad told me. “There was a government office at every plant. If they saw contamination, they pulled the switch. At the height of World War II they ran round the clock. About 50,000 people worked there.”

All that remains today of the Stockyards is the old stone gate at 42nd and Exchange. The gate is a national historic landmark. I have taken my father back to the now-desolate gate. The limestone head at the highest point of the 30-foot-high arch is of “Sherman,” the first national Grand Champion steer at the Stockyards.

Legend has it that Gutavus Swift, founder of Swift & Co. rode around the stockyards on a low-slung pony. His feet dangled to the ground. This way he could kick open the pen gates, which meant he didn't have to hire an extra worker to open the gates. In 1965 the Chicago Historical Society Guild commemorated the 100th birthday of the stockyards. At a spring luncheon Bill Ogilvie told the Chicago Sun-Times, "My father told the story that when J. Ogden Armour, son of the founder of Armour & Co. was asked what is hobby was, Mr. Armour replied, 'Making money.' When pressed for his second choice of a hobby, the answer was the same, as it was to the third."

My favorite story/life lesson from my father is his recollection of the foreboding goat on the livestock ramps that led sheep to slaughter. This strategy avoided deploying men with whips and other potentially gruesome tactics. Union leaders nicknamed the goat “Judas.”
My dad’s advice: “Don’t be like the sheep."

Here's a rare photo of the Hammond (Ind.) Stockyards Baseball Team (circa 1890-1900). The Hammond Stockyards burned down in 1901. [Courtesy of the Hammond Public Library.]

Labels: Chicago food, Chicago history