As I am typing this, I've been sitting shotgun in our van for 4 hours, with 2 more to go. Hubs is driving, the girls are watching the Hannah Montana movie (thank God for DVDs in the car), and the 80-lb Hound is snoozing on the floor, squeezed between our DVD storage case, a princess book, a snack bag, a Nintendo, and a Leapster carrying case.
We are traveling from Cleveland back to the Chicago burbs, a trip that we will be making again in just two weeks. We make it a lot, actually. I hate the drive, the Chicago traffic, the tolls, the Indiana turnpike, and the slow speed limits in Ohio. I hate the dirty travel plaza bathrooms and the fact that whenever I am hungry we can only spot Hardees, with a McDonald's nowhere to be found.
However, I love the two destinations equally. I love Chicago because it’s, well, Chicago. As big cities go, I think it has the best of everything. It’s big, but not ridiculous big. It’s urban and chic, but still Midwestern. Ten years ago, young and naive and acting out of character, I moved to the City of Big Shoulders on my own. Somehow I managed to make a life for myself. I was in awe of the place then, and am still in awe of it now.
But Cleveland? Cleveland will always be home. I get ragged on by my fellow Chicagoans for being from Cleveland. All in good humor, of course. It doesn’t bother me, because to be from Cleveland, especially if you are a sports fan, means you come with a tough exterior, or in other words, you are not a wuss.
Sure, the river caught on fire. Yeah, I’ve heard all the jokes. But frankly, that was eons ago and as a kid I never even knew that happened. I mean, what is the big deal...don’t all rivers catch on fire at some point? Sure, Cleveland is known to some (usually those whom I consider ignorant ethnocentric out-of-towners) as the Mistake on the Lake. Just because something rhymes doesn’t make it true.
But what really sums up the town is its sports teams, or more importantly, the people who back them year after year, loss after loss. So the Indians haven’t won a World Series since 1948. I know, it's pathetic. I may not have witnessed a Cleveland World Series champ, but guess who actually went to a World Series game back in ’94? Me. Cleveland is small enough that cool things like that can actually happen to normal people like me. How many people can say they have ever been to a World Series game? Not everyone. (No, the Indians did not win that World Series, but yes, they did win the game I attended, and that's what counts. I’ll take it where I can get it.)
The best thing about that World Series? The entire town, and I mean THE ENTIRE TOWN, was into it. Downtown, East Side, West Side, all the southern parts. Everyone. Nine out of 10 cars had Indians flags flying for the entire month of October. Everyone was wearing blue and red. Every office building and store had Go Tribe banners. You couldn’t escape it. We were in this TOGETHER.
At the time, I thought this unity was a given, that this is how it should be when the hometown team makes it big. I was rudely awakened 11 years later, when fully ensconced in the Chicago burbs with my new fam, the Chicago White Sox won the World Series. Sure, Hubs threw parties (to which I wore my Indians jersey). Sure, we had fun. But it wasn't the same for me. There is no cohesiveness in a town that has two baseball teams like Chicago does. If you were a Chicago Cubs fan, you weren't rooting for the Sox, something that I couldn't wrap my head around. Forget about Cubs vs Sox, how about being a Chicago fan, even if just for October? Couldn't the city come together for that? The White Sox are rivals of my beloved Indians, so I was a little crushed the day after the Sox won the Series. Not because they actually won (dammit), but because I was in the children’s section of the library with Poonch when I overheard another mom say, oh, who won the World Series last night? I’m a Cubs fan so we didn’t watch it. Chicago was in the World Series and she couldn’t share her Cubs love with the Sox. Pathetic. Maybe even more pathetic than not winning a WS since '48. (OK, not really.)
That would never happen in Cleveland. I was depressed for the rest of the day. I realized my kids would never know what it feels like to be so together, so united, so devoted, no matter what.
So yeah, I love Chicago.
But as for Cleveland, it ROCKS.
Baseball's regular season is coming to an end soon. (Unfortunately, any hope of a season came to an end for the Indians as early as June. Sob.) The nights are developing a chill to the air and it's getting dark earlier. In sports lingo, this mean one thing...football season is gearing up. Cleveland has no chance this year. Again. Yet I still exclaim,
GO BROWNS!