Mulling things on my morning ramble
with Storm, the family’s mixed Lab.
With its usual warning blasts for the two road crossings in town, the freight train sped by as the meathead and I walked out of the trees along the old rail bed, now a short trail.
Vivid, beautiful and illegal graffiti art decorated multiple boxcars in broad sweeps of color. I am astonished by how many boxcars I see with graffiti art. Not just tagged, but full-blown graffiti art.
A major double rail line–a rail buff would know, but I think it is a Chicago to Vincennes, Ind. line–goes along the east side of the town pond.
I guess it should not be so surprising. Boxcars last a long time. That’s many years for street artists to get in and do their art.
In a perverse way, I admire that effort just because of the challenges.
Railroad detectives are a tough breed, a sort of law to themselves. Much the same way the Chicago cops doing side jobs as security at old Comiskey Park used to be. There was little need for judicial system. They handled it their way.
Maybe the art caught my eye because I am working on a story about the Chicago River and I photographed some beautiful graffiti art at one of the North Side discharges.
Good art is always on the edge. Graffiti crosses over into the illegal.
But the beauty holds.
