Chicago-Indiana-Michigan, episode 9. In which I tussle with TSA (again).

Like many visitors to Chicago, I fall easily into many of the same tourist traps.  Chicago is full of them, but you will never feel trapped, I assure you.  I have photographs from the observation floor of the tower formerly known as Sears, cloudy day and sunny day.  I have photographed the television-famed Buckingham Fountain with and without friends and family, with and without snow.  I have meandered the halls of the Art Institute, stopping every time to gawk near and far at my favorite pointilated painting (Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte).  I have enjoyed countless Chicago dogs with electric green relish, tomato, and sport peppers (and I'm not even a sports fan).  I have enjoyed many a deep dish cheesy pie (the original Gino's East on Superior still my favorite).  Cubs (complete with Harry Caray stretch), White Sox (original Comiskey Park), Shedd Aquarium, Museum of Science & Industry, the "bean" at Millennium Park... nearly everything in my Top 10 Chicago tourist guide (even before I discovered Eyewitness Top 10 travel guides)!  I've enjoyed being trapped by Chicago many times and I look forward to many more.  I also look forward to a return fleamarketing journey to the Randolph Street Market which was every bit as fleamarketable and overwhelming as I had originally hoped.

I'm not sure what TSA has against me.

First it's the unopened bottle of peanut butter sauce from the Times Square Hershey's Store and now I'm trying to transport weapons apparently.

Still shopping the outdoor market, Mari and I came across a Chicago-friendly vendor with a wide variety of household and collectible items including some great vintage patio furniture. Four of these wooden pins stood on a display shelf among some books and other decorative items, but these made a beeline straight to my gaze.  Had to have them.  I picked up the tallest (he spoke to me first) right away and you know how I feel about touching.  Remembering our decorating rule of odd numbers, we selected the "best" three or the three that coordinated best with each other and made our offer.  I think these were the first items purchased that Sunday morning (even before the redundant Super8).

I also think we had a pretty darn good bargain until we found our way back at O'Hare a few days later trying to travel "light" with only one already-checked bag (full of freebie books and other ALA vendor giveaways) when I was stopped at Security and questioned by an over-zealous security agent about the vintage wooden weapons I was attempting to carry aboard. Five more-stressful-than-they-should-have-been minutes and another checked bag fee later, I was traveling significantly lighter, my rollerboard bag containing questionable fleamarketed decorative goods now ensconced safely in the plane's underbelly.

Back at Randolph Street (and now on a tall shelf in our living room) the trio of richly patinaed wooden pins found a new home with a couple of wandering collectors just as we were beginning our singularly splendid fresh fleamarket experience.  Making our way indoors after about two hours perusing the tented vendors in the school parking lot, Mari and I were thrilled to find a slightly cooler venue in the school hallways and auditorium along with an interesting variety of vintage and antique collectibles.  As you may have surmised over the past few months, I collect a few odd things.

I collect a few odd things.

Before I continue my treatise on how collecting helps us make connections across cultures and even across time and space, allow me to present one of the newest old members of my Peanuts collection.  Yes, Peanuts.  Among the varied carols I hear (with sincerest thanks to one of my favorite poets, Walt Whitman, and one of my favorite poems) are those of collectors, especially collectors of all things Snoopy.  There's also quite an extended Snoopy collection, formerly housed in my classroom now squeezed into my library office.  It started long ago with my yellow Snoopy dog house lunchbox which has survived since third and fourth grade to find a home among our current kitchen kitsch.  When colleagues or students have (often) asked why I have so much "Snoopy stuff" I sigh my exasperated (because isn't it just obvious?!) sigh and respond my simple yet elegant refrain.

Snoopy makes me happy!

When I think of Snoopy I invariably imagine him taking off into one of his emphatically joyful dance trances. The 1970s pictured pin I found inside the school auditorium at Randolph Street was only a dollar and its ribbed 3-D dance interpretation perfectly encapsulates my feelings about Snoopy and my feelings about collecting.  Did I mention it was all of one dollar?!  I've attempted to photograph the pin in the various free-spirited stages of Snoopy's joy, but it's not quite the same without the 3-D effect.

Snoopy's happy dance notwithstanding, the collectibles inside the auditorium and particularly those displayed at tables up on stage were characteristically of the preciou$ variety.  Fun to browse, but not quite ready for a bubble-wrapped migration (with obligatory TSA detour) to Texas.

Mari shares a favorite find fleamarketed indoors at Randolph Street next time and we make a (BBQ) pit stop on the way home to Texas.