Ramble with Storm: The power of place (Montrose vs 39th)

Mulling things on my morning ramble

with Storm, the family’s mixed Lab.

odd the things that float through my skull on a quiet morning.

On Saturday, the three boys wanted to do one of the weekly Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments at Elite Sports Cards on Montrose.

In one of those coincidences in life, owner John Merkel has helped me with historical baseball or collecting questions over the years.

As much as I love my boys, my interest in watching a Yu-Gi-Oh! tournament is less than zero. So I dropped them and went fishing.

Ray Hinton had called me on Friday and said the lakers were in at 39th, so I drove down there.

The Chatham construction worker caught one on his first cast Saturday and texted me, but by the time I got there around noon, it was dead. Nothing was going.

I fished for a couple hours, switching between Cleos, Frenzies and Wiggle Warts. Hinton showed up for the end. A few others were there.

But I ended up taking some photos of downtown, as seen from the South Side.

Originally, my favorite view of downtown Chicago was from the south rocks at Montrose Harbor. Part of that has to do with personal history.

Montrose is where I learned to do Chicago fishing, by reading the late John Spehn in the Chicago Sun-Times.

But more and more, I appreciate the views at 31st Street Harbor and 39th.

There’s a eastward bubble at 39th that gives a wonderful clean shot downtown.

As we walked this morning around the town pond, I decided that view from 39th has surpassed the south rocks at Montrose as my favorite.

Stunningly quiet morning.

No wildlife: no doves, no rabbits, no herons, no kingfishers, no Canada geese, no ducks, not even any muskrats splashing off.

I suspect that had more to do with my timing. I got involved in writing and suddenly noticed it was light and 7 a.m. already, so it was later than usual when we rambled off.

Finally, back in town, the meathead ran two gray squirrels up baring maple trees.