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"IN MEMORY OF MARY LOGSDON" - IN NOTE SECTION OF CHECK

AUGUST 20, 2006 -  "WHEN THE MOUNTAIN WAS HIGH, I DIDN'T FAULTER, WHEN THE VALLEY WAS LOW, I DIDN'T WEEP..."

The shoreline of Lake Michigan stayed off of our left shoulders as we continued the journey south toward Chicago and our meeting up with my niece Kelly Jo. She works for Double Tree as a business planner and is a recent transfer from Louisiana.  We passed through two very impressive small towns that hug the shoreline along the route south. Both Racine and Kenosha, Wisconsin have some outstanding neighborhoods and beautiful homes.

Bob and I were deteremined to purchase a shirt from an Illinois and hopefully Chicago Harley dealer, so we stopped to find out where we were going. We called a dealer that was close but no one answered the telephone, so we aimed in another direction.  While on our way to the other  dealer, we passed the earlier one that we had tried to contact. It turns out that the phone system was out of order but the place was jumping. I spent a lot of time talking about the trip. There seemed to be a lot of disbelieving faces when I explained the route and the time it has taken.

Ms GPS got us to Kelly Jo's house without using any of the (GOD, I hate these things) Toll Roads. It bothers me to  even type the words Toll and Roads. Kelly lives in a very quiet neighborhood that boasts a quiet little Biker Bar, where everyone knows your name, well, Kelly's name, anyway. Hey, come on, she's only been here two weeks, give her time, then EVERY biker bar in Chicago will know her name.

Now that Uncle Rashid has pissed off yet another of his nieces, I guess my Christmas list is getting shorter. The truth is that the area where Kelly lives IS quiet. It is an island in a very bustling city. It is fun hearing her stories about Shawn (of the dead) and other characters. Like Eda, our hostess from last night, Kelly is a wonderful hostess. She actually did take Bob and I to a Biker Bar where we had to show our tattoo's and teeth to gain entry.

Before going there, we went to  a nice little place that sat us out on the patio. Earlier in the day I had contacted my cousin Tom and his wife Cathy about meeting at "Frisco's" and they thought it was a good idea. I also had left a message with Katy and Giovanni Puma, who are good friends as well. They never showed up, but Tom did.  Cathy was home taking charge of packing and getting things arranged for a son who is leaving for THE UNIVERSITY OF MEEEEEEEECHIGAN…

The waiter came out with a piece of paper in his hand and we expected to hear what the specials were.  Instead we got this:
"Good Evening. Let me tell you what we don't have, then I will tell you what we do have. We don't have any of the Calamari - broiled, boiled, fried or raw. We don't have any of the "MEATSA PIZZA", we don't have the blah blah blah, we are out of the blah blah blah, We sure could have used another dozen blah blah, The Blanched artichoke hearts are gone, the beans are gone, the pears are gone, we're out of the blah blah and the blah blah, and as far as a Caesar Salad goes, don't even THINK of it. By this time we were wondering just what we had done to ourselves by coming to this place. The litany of missing entrees was monumental. We decided to look at the blank piece of paper he called a menu to see if there were any other things we didn't want to eat. He went on to other tables and repeated the litany item for item. I stood up and suggested that this would be a GRRREEAAT location to open a restaurant.

Later, he came back and allowed that they had run out of salads, milk, two of the three kinds of beer, and a piece of white bread that I was going to ask for. We finally did settle on pizzas, 10 inch personal pizzas. I heard the waiter mumble as he walked away, "boy, I hope we still have pizzas".  We did end up with pizzas and they were good. We had a good time with Tom and I am sure that we were misconstrued as being the loudest table within earshot.  I have just one thing to those who thought that: "That's Nice…….." There was no obtainable signal for doing the web page this evening, so this will be posted as soon as possible, just not tonight, August 20, 2006.