Lily White Chicago. Where's Jake and Elwood?

One afternoon, on our recent trip to Chicago, I drove around the Northern suburbs. Winnetka, Lake Forest, Highland Park. The houses are amazing. The Towns are clean and neat with modern, stone, English looking train stations. Lots of hybrids and luxury suv's. The Jewish were driving German cars (yep, I have a problem with that one too). The flowers were blooming. My 2 1/2 year old was napping. Everything should have been right with the world. There was one problem.

Where's 21 year old Sha'nay'nay and her 4 babies? Where's the PWT with the confederate flag in the truck window? Where are the "undesirables". The panhandlers. The homeless sleeping on the street. The ones that make you cringe when you see them. The ones who are living paycheck to paycheck. One natural disaster away from living in a shelter. The ones who give us a reality check every time we see them.

POOF!

I had my Oprah light bulb moment. (Appropriate since we were in Chicago.) I get it. I now understand why so many Northern Suburbanites vote Democrat and can't understand why cynical Southerner smirks at the idea that"public schools are great".

The only way they see Sha'nay'nay and Joe Bob and Bubba and homeless vet and the one legged beggar is if Sha'nay'nay and the white supremacists take a wrong turn off the Edens Expressway. Rarely, if ever, do they see the fraud, waste and abuse of the welfare system. Their kids go to a great public school where the other kids don't "ax" them a question.

I had entered a new dimension. The Lily White Suburbs. Highland Park, IL - 91.2% white, 1.87% black. There could have been African Americans there. I didn't see any for most of that week. But they could have lived there.

There were multi-million dollar homes on every corner. What do these people do? Forget drug dealing, these folks must be running guns? Financial Markets? Lawyers? Doctors? Certainly not working the night shift at the local factory.

The closest thing to thugs were some over 50 hippies getting on the train to ride to the Ravinia Festival concert featuring Willie Nelson. The Bandanna gave them away.

Don't get me wrong. We had a great time. My brother-in-law has a great big Greek family. They are fun and inviting and we enjoy being around them. We even picked up a few Greek words while we were there. I can say shoes and watermelon in Greek.

AND... we will go back again. In the Summer. When it's nice and pretty. Forget the Chicago winters. I will take the Gulf Coast heat and humidity any day of the week. At least we can find a shade tree, a pool and an adult beverage to cool off.

We also learned a few new things and isn't that what family vacations are all about.

I learned that I am glad that I have seen the South in so many ways. I am glad that as a child, my Dad took me to Lindy West's house to buy tamales. The first time I set foot in an African American's home. I saw a plaque that had a photo of MLK, Jr., JFK and a Black Jesus. Black Jesus. Well, if we think he's white I guess Lindy can think he's black.

I am glad that my husband told me some of the stories of his 6 years of surgery residency in a charity hospital. I realized that, regardless of skin color, some people are just going to be pathetic and trashy and there is nothing you can do about it.

I have learned that sometimes you just have to shake your head, laugh, get up, put on your big girl panties and deal with it.

Now Sha'nay'nay, you go get Bubba, get your ass back in the car and lets get back to the South before you start asking the waitress at the Cracker Barrel for a Soda.