I remember Chicago (Detroit: sales, insurance, neighborhood)

[linicx]

I remember Chicago, Have you ever been on Navy Pier and seen the skyline during an electrical storm? How about the sailboats at sun up on a summer Sunday morning? Have you been on Lower Wacker or visited Chinatown or been in the merchandise Mart? Who among us remembers Maxewll Street?

Illegals were a minnor problem 40 years ago; they stayed in the shadows. . There is a difference today. It's numbers. It's agression. Its a 60 years do-nothing congress problem that is nearly out of control.

Couple this with declining education standards, declining wages and you got a mess. Fourty years ago GM was one of the larges employers in the country. They paid the highest wages, offered medical care, paid holidays and pensions. Today Walmart is the largest employer. They produce record quarterly sales on part time help that gets no health beneifts, minimumm wage and no stock options.

Hospitals in rural areas are recreating the old HMO of the 80s that put poorly rrained doctors in neighborhood clinics. The only difference today is the expensive facade and outrageous cost of an office call. Most of the doctors aren't any better - if as good. Many of the university hospitals are cutting costs by importing foreign doctors instead of investing in education for US doctors. All the insurance in the world for the rest of us is not going to anythig except create a bigger, greedier healh care system staffed by poorly trained doctors. The only winners are the hospitals who process unnecessary tests and the pharmacists. who get rewarded for dispencing branded prescriptions.

[At1WithNature]

yesteryear is a sweet memory but one must adapt to the ever changing stimuli around us. today's world is very complicated but that's why the simplest things bring about so much joy. it's the little things that count.

[Anthera]

The trouble with nostalgia is one tends to only remember the good. Forty years ago Chicago was still reeling from the aftermath of the 1968 Democratic Convention, GM was a large employer, but the Detroit riots accelerated white flight out of that city. MLK and RFK were assinated. Health care was cheaper, but of much poorer quality. Every era has its good and bad.

[slim04]

Dentists....why back in MY day, we didn't have dentists...after the teeth rotted in our festering gums, we hacked them out with a *****x and we LIKED it! We LOVED it!

I'm oooooold! And I'm not happy! And I don't like things now compared to the way they used to be. All this progress -- phooey! In my day, we didn't have these cash machines that would give you money when you needed it. There was only one bank in each state -- it was open only one hour a year. And you'd get in line, seventeen miles long, and the line became an angry mob of people -- fornicators and thieves, mutant children and circus freaks -- and you waited for years and by the time you got to the teller, you were senile and arthritic and you couldn't remember your own name. You were born, got in line, and ya died! And that's the way it was and we liked it!

Yeah, I’m a grumpy old man and I don’t like things compared to the way they used to be. Nowadays they got a thing called the winter Olympics with all their modern and safe equipment- who needs it? Progress- flibody flabody floobody flaboslash. In my day, we didn’t have these fancy new skis. In my day we’d find an avalanche, pull out the corpses, strap ‘em to our ferr and go flyin down the mountain, yellin ‘look at me, I’m ridin dead people!’. Whoopee! It was a thing of beauty I tell ya. Nowadays if you win an event, they give you a gold metal. Phooey! In my day, if you won they have you a rotten piece of stinkin wood. If you got the bronze, they’d slam steel spikes through your feet. And you’d scream ‘but I won’t lose again’. Course you won’t, you won’t walk again, hee hee hee! Oh it was beautiful. In my day, we’d compete. One vent was ‘freeze your lips through the freezing metal pole’. Whoever pryed their moth off the pole first won. The winner would look like a bleeding lipless idiot holdin a stinkin piece of wood with spikes through his feet sayin ‘look at me, I’m a freak, and I love it!’. Oh it was glorious. Where did it all go wrong? Why God why? Why God all mighty Jehovah answer me, why? Why? Why?

[via chicago]

How quickly people forget how VERY close Chicago was to becoming a rustbelt city 20-30 years ago.

Chicago is healthier and more vibrant now than it has ever been. People actually WANT to live in the city/downtown today. That wasnt even something that crossed people's minds 15 years ago.

I don't even understand the point the OP is trying to make..its just a jumble of random nostalgia seen through rose colored glasses.

[linicx]

Hey Via Chicago..

Where does it state in the TOS that I cannot express an opinion or wear glasses with #2 rose tint lenses?

[via chicago]

Originally Posted by linicx

Hey Via Chicago..

Where does it state in the TOS that I cannot express an opinion or wear glasses with #2 rose tint lenses?

you can say anything you want. dosent mean i cant disagree with it.

[linicx]

Originally Posted by via chicago

you can say anything you want. dosent mean i cant disagree with it.

I would fight for your right to express your opinion in public - even if I don't agress with you.

Peace bro...

[lakecountylifer]

I can understand the OP who feels a longing for the benefits of yester-year. My take is thank god I don't have to work hard in a GM plant and I have a great job for a fortune 500 company & great healthcare---all without union dues! My career so far has actually exceeded my expecations.....

See, what this teaches you is that if you don't adapt you'll be left behind. I fully expect that if I still think it's 2008 in the year 2038 I'll be left behind at the train station. I know that I better keep up rather than be left behind. I'm not being critical I'm just stating my philosophy.

Linicx I read your profile and I truely hope for the best for you and your family. You sound like a nice guy.

[linicx]

I hope that many years from now when you have grandchildren in your lap you can look back and remember events or places that you enjoyed. It does not mean you are out of touch with the present, it simply means you enjoyed life. I worked and played in Chicago a long time and I liked it despie personal problems. Cnicago has always been a living city. It changes and adapts as demanded. I suspect it has changed a great deal in forty years. I was there when Maxwell Street closed, when I could buy a Communist newspaper, when Timothy O'leary was a big deal and when Malcome X emerged. It does not mean I do not have problems today. I have plenty. I am not out of touch. I talk to medical experts everyday trying to make my spouse more comfortable and try to sustain life one more day.

Stop and smell the roses during life's journey. Someday you'll be glad you did.