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A spot for summer
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A spot for summer

by Dave HoekstraApril 8, 2010

 

Sunday, August 9, 2009

 

Everybody has a spot.

This summer my spot became Lake Park Beach in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago. It is a neighborhood beach where African-Americans, Jamaicans, Hispanics, whites, gays and straights all mingle in a coarse sand along Lake Michigan.

A mound of jagged rocks define the north end of the small beach while the city skyline curves like a boomerang on the south end. I’ve been told the young lifeguards don’t like folks climbing those rocks. I like taking risks.

I was tired and needed to retreat. My day began at 5:30 a.m. as I scurried to WGN-AM radio studios in the Tribune Tower to talk about my minor league baseball book with the wonderfully empathetic journalist Rick Kogan. Next up was the Iowa Cubs-Las Vegas ’51s minor league baseball game at Wrigley Field where a bunch of young men were playing for their spots in 95 degree heat.

I wanted to cool off. I took the short drive up from Wrigley to Edgewater. I have lived in the city for nearly 30 years and have spent little time at the Lake Michigan beaches. I either get out of town, swim at a WPA-era quarry in Naperville or bike to the Humboldt Park lagoon.

But in just a few visits this summer, the Edgewater spot took on meaning. There were one or two picnics. There was a wish made.

I realized that in 1950 my parents spent their first night as husband and wife just west of this spot in the since-razed Edgewater Beach Hotel. The hotel was billed as the “Site of America’s Most Successful Meetings.” When my mother opened the door to her hotel room she found a surprise from my father—a bouquet of a dozen red roses. A couple Sundays ago there was as much wonder as watching children misbehave on the beach as there was today when I saw the pretty blond lifeguard wreck her deal by wearing light blue Crocs.

I went to my spot for clarity and purpose. Kogan and I were talking about the kind of underbelly writing we do. He called them “The Quiet Stories.” I liked that. Sometimes I think I go to minor league baseball games alone and visit beaches by myself because I am my own Quiet Story. Sometimes that’s sad.

Just as I arrived at my spot the skies darkened. People began leaving and the beach became very serene. The lake waves whispered secrets to my soul. I sat on a white rock—not part of the forbidden mound—and thought about my spot in the world. I try to inch it forward with dignity, love and understanding. All you can do is try.

There was a flash of lightning and bit more thunder. I was one of the last people on the beach. The lifeguard with the Crocs asked me to leave my spot. She was clearing the beach because of the lightning. I understood.

The storms will pass.
My spot for this summer will always remain.

About The Author
Dave Hoekstra
Dave Hoekstra is a Chicago author-documentarian. He was a columnist-critic at the Chicago Sun-Times from 1985 through 2014, where he won a 2013 Studs Terkel Community Media Award. He has written books about heartland supper clubs, minor league baseball, soul food and the civil rights movement and driving his camper van across America.

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