Third chapter from the end

To love your neighbors in Chicago

Coat Of Many Colors

Traveling Man

My Blue Tears

If I Lose My Mind

The Mystery Of The Mystery

Dolly Parton

Today, four people have been murdered in Chicago. It is not uncommon. I find a web site that shows the murdered victim's name, sometimes a picture, race, location and murder weapon for every murder in Chicago day by day. It's a gloomy reading. I probably do not have to be so scared. The murdered are usually young boys with dark skin color, but there are exceptions.

I have not read enough about Chicago when I get here. What I know is that the city has been violent for many years. Famous gangsters like Al Capone lived and worked here once. The city is also famous for its blues music and for its exciting architecture.

Without checking it out properly I have chosen an air bnb room quite way out west of the city center. The area is a snap more downhill than where I stayed in New Orleans. The taxi driver who takes me there seems to feel so sorry for me that he does not even want to a tip.

The house where I will stay looks a bit better than the others on the street on the outside. Inside it is wonderfully nice. The young men who run this lodge have invested in comfort, ecology and modernity. My room is incredibly comfortable and quiet. I take every opportunity to pay tribute to air bnb. Not only these guys, but most hosts and hostesses, are so ambitious and pleasant.

One of the guys, who is also a university teacher, asks me if I can take a picture of him with a sign that he just texted. He has been upset by the hatred that follows the traces of right-wing populism, and on the sign he tells everyone who he loves, his black neighbors, his Hbtq friends, his paperless students and his muslim colleagues. Even if it's a bit cold outside tonight, it feels very warm in the heart in here.

I walk to a liquor store a block away. It resembles those I've seen in movies with heroes like Clint Eastwood. It has some kind of safety glass between the customers and the staff. This liquor store does not remind me about the one in Denver with the cute old lady and her cat. The men behind the glass look both a bit amused and a bit disappointed when I have only bought two 18 centiliters bottles of red wine. I hurry back to my room for an evening meal consisting of two glasses of red wine, two bread rolls and two cheese pieces.

The morning after, I'll get to Chicago downtown without knowing how. Should I walk or will I try to find a bus? It's eight miles, so I'll probably try to find a bus. In the front door I meet a young couple who stayed overnight at the same Air bnb. They have a car and offer me a ride into the city center.

Right-wing populism is a popular topic now a few weeks after Donald Trump was elected president.

The young couple is in Chicago to find an apartment and move here from the more republican Denver, says they have not met any single person who has admitted that they voted on Trump. The young woman even talks that they may seek political asylum in Sweden if Trump carries out the policy he has threatened. She is born in Russia and is not sure to be able to come back to the US once she has returned home to meet her parents as she has planned at the beginning of next year.

It feels a little odd that they drop me off right at the Trump Tower, which is not owned by the crooked president elect anymore.

I'm looking for a breakfast place. One block from the Trump Tower I find a Starbucks. I'm ashamed when I step in because Neil Young has pushed a campaign against serving genetically modified coffee. But I'm hungry and really long for coffee. Many others do the same, which leads me to end up at the same table as an elderly woman in elegant clothes. Like me, she eats cranberry scones and drinks black coffee and orange juice. We are starting to talk about the weather and the wind. She hears I speak a little broken American and ask if I'm from Ireland. I hear she is talking a little broken American and asks if she is from Iraq. We laugh together and try to sort out our real origin.

The woman, named Binaji, is from Turkish Kurdistan, but has lived in Chicago for 18 years. She tells me that she was a professor of mathematics in Ankara, but felt alone as a woman and unwelcome as a kurd. That's why she said yes directly when she received an offer from the University of Chicago. Here she has felt welcome at work, but in she has a limited number of friends, mostly some other Kurds in exile.

Is that why you harass older men in cafes? I'm kidding. It was stupid. First she looks sad. Then she laughs. She spends a lot of time at cafes talking to people, she says. It sounds nice, I think, but wondering how she gets together her professorship by hanging on Starbucks a lot of time.

The explanation is that Binaji has gone down to half time and is retired half time, so it goes very well together. I wonder what she is going to do when she retires full time. She does not really know. Spending full time at Starbucks will be too boring. She has thought a lot about this, but did not come up with any good answer.

I tell her that I like hanging in bars and cafes chatting with people, but in the forests where I live there is far between that kind of meeting points. That may be a reason to sell the farm and move to a city.

Once again Donald Trump creeps into the discussion. Binaji wants to spend a lot of time fighting the American contempt against politicians and trying to prevent Trump from being re-elected. She also wants to work on finding facts to show that the president is lying and initiating a process that can get him impeached. She is an American citizen, so she hopes she can work on this without people being suspicious of her origin. I'm a little doubtful if it works in this country with so much ignorance, but keep quiet about that. It would be good if she would only convince ten people who voted for Trump that he is an idiot who makes everyone in the United States looking like fools.

Beside that, Binaji wants to work with people, trying to help Chicago's young homeless to a more decent life by teaching them in mathematics.

It seems very helpful, but you should not do anything for yourself?

Yes Binaji will. Her ambition is to spend at least two hours a day on exercise to minimize the bodily decline of old age. She also wants to use her mathematical skills for brain gymnastics to reduce the risk of dementia.

Without knowing how old I am, she thinks that I seem to be well trained for my age. She wondered how I did. I tell her that I've worked in the forests a long time of my life. There I have worked out the heart, the brain and the rest of the body.

Binaji becomes very interested in my forest and asks if she could visit it if she is going to Sweden on vacation. Could she be able to do any useful in the forest? I tell her how fun it is to thin and clear the forest and she becomes even more interested.  

Could we become friends on Facebook so that I can get in touch with you and become a forest volunteer by you or someone else if I come to Sweden, she wonder. Yes, of course. We'll fix it right away.

I take the chance asking her about some activity tips here in Chicago. She wondered what I'm interested in. A bit cocky I answer: everything and a little bit more. Then I take a step back saying that I have an allergy towards religion and shopping so churches and department stores are no attractions for me.

Good, Binaji thinks and recommends a qualified tour of the theme of Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect who worked in Chicago a great deal of his life. She asks if I heard about him. Yes, I've heard pop duo Simon & Garfunkel sing about him on a 1960s record.

Before I go to Frank Lloyd Wright's guide, I have to ask Binaji. If I'm not wrong, most Kurds are muslims. How does she get the religion together with mathematics?

She tells me that all kurds are not really Muslims. Binaji herself is also completely against all religions. She definitely cannot get together religion and mathematics. We agree that the likelihood that there is a god is very small.

I part from my new friend and go away to get around with the tour starting at 1 PM. When I come to ticket boot it realize that the ticket costs 150 dollars. I ask if there are tickets for seniors, something that had been unthinkable two years ago, when I always denied that I'm retired. I would rather pay than admit my real age. Now I am told that senior tickets cost 130 dollars. No, not even that is OK for an economical Swedish senior.

Instead, I walk around downtown. I am disturbed by the level of noise everywhere. Here in Chicago it's worse than anywhere I've been before. I'm not sure what it's all about, but a clear noise source is L trains that shine on their gray steel posts that shadow the sun a bit over the ground. The sluggish train is known from films such as Blues Brothers. They are similar in, for example, New York and Berlin, but here they make more noise. Police cars and ambulances sound a lot more than those at home.

I'm going to the Navy Pier in Lake Michigan. Here are no L trains so there is less noise, but there is music everywhere. The idea of ​​Navy Pier is to attract people to shops, restaurants and a small amusement park. Here I would like to see the view from the big Ferris wheel, but do not dare. Not because I'm terrified of heights but because I do not like to travel without being able to drive myself. I want control. It's bad enough that I travelled so much with buses and trains on this trip. It's probably an age sign that I have easier to accept that someone else is driving.

I move on to Millenium Park, where I am staying long by the mirror arch, which stimulates all visitors to new types of selfies. I visit the Museum of Contemporary Art, where I'm undecided. I think some artwork are brilliant and other just like the Emperor's new clothes.

Then I end up at the Mexican restaurant Frontera Grill, where President Obama had a lot of meals before becoming president. It has been rated as the world's third best simple restaurant and truly lives up to its reputation. I eat different varieties of Peruvian fish dish ceviche as both appetizer and main course. Had there been a ceviche ice cream I had chosen it as dessert. Now I refrain from dessert and take a beer instead.

Then it's time to go back to the suburb. I am looking forward to trying to take an L train. But I have understood from my hosts that it's a bit difficult to buy tickets and I feel suddenly tired so I'm taking a taxi instead. The taxi driver has his roots in the Middle East, but like Binaji he is quick to tell me that he is completely secular. He is almost as quick to tell that he is very angry about Donald Trump and wondering what people in Europe think of having chosen such a president in the United States. He seems happy when I say we are scared of such a madman in the White House,

I note that he drives a Japanese hybrid car and asks why he is not driving an American vehicle. He says he wants to leave a better world to his grandchildren, and then it is important to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In addition, it is cheaper to drive fuel-efficiently, so it's profitable for his little taxi business to choose a climate-smart car. In his eyes, the American car industry is at least five years after European and Japanese in terms of technological development, and he strongly doubts Donald Trump's ability to help make American industry great again. In order to cope with the competition, it is important to know the outside world not only to lie and boast, he says sounding very convinced.

Now we have reached my air bnb.

He also feels sorry for me who is staying in such a bad suburb and does not want any tips. He still gets it.

The next day when I wake up and get out of bed, the whole room spins like a carousel above my head. When I get up to go to the toilet, I fall on the wall.

It's the old crystal disease, which has hit me again. I am used to know that the symptoms of the disease and the balance problems are related to something in the ear canal. In the last two years I have had about two days a month with this problem.

It has been more than two weeks since my last dizziness attack across the river in Memphis, so I am disturbed but not surprised.

My doctor in Sweden sent me to a physiotherapist who taught me different movements that could fix the crystals in the ear canal.

Sometimes it works and sometimes not. Whether the exercises work or not, the dizziness usually lasts half a day, but today it's spinning all day and I stay indoors, except for a short walk to the nearest grocery store to buy some bread and a beer to get rid of the worst hunger and thirst.

Throughout the day and all night I am in my room and playing with my computer. This is not the way that I have thought about visiting Chicago.

Damn crystals! Damn body! Damn old age!

When I wake up the next morning, my dizziness is almost gone. It will not stop me today. There is much left to see in Chicago, but I think there is even more to see and do in Detroit and I have already booked a train ticket there and accommodation there. The train goes after lunch, so I decide to take my suitcase to the nearby L train station to experience these trains from inside and Chicago from above.

At the station I realize that the only way to buy a ticket is a vending machine, which is not really not easy to use. I press and hit the buttons, but I cannot buy any ticket. Then a young man comes to me and offers to let me in to the tracks for two dollars cash. Although it may not be the way it is thought that it should work, I accept the offer. When I pick up my two dollar bills, the young guy sees that I have a heavy bundle of 20-dollar bills in my wallet. He then proposes another business deal. For $ 20, I can get three plastic cards that can be charged with money and then use as a ticket in public transport. I happen to know that these cards cost five dollars a piece, so the offer does not seem to be favorable. Somewhere, I feel that the cards are stolen and I tell the guy I am leaving Chicago in a few hours so I really do not need three cards. He says they can be sold back at Union Station before I leave. The guy is stubborn and I see a train approaching, so I throw a 20 dollar banknote to him. He looks very grateful and says that thanks to this deal, his family can have food today.

My conscience does not really bother me. Even if the cards would be stolen, I am not earning anything on this deal. But, of course, it would be a bit of a drag to be sentenced after a long life without committing more serious crimes than speeding, which in itself is serious enough.

On the train towards the center, I wonder what to do with the three cards. I'm not so keen to redeem them if they are registered as stolen. Then I may not come to Detroit today.

I get off the L-train at Clinton Street and carry my suitcase south to Union Station. After a few minutes I see an aged woman begging on a street corner. She is very thin and really wrinkled. Without thinking, I give her the tickets and tell her that she can redeem them at Union Station for a total of $ 15. She looks happy.

I hope no one questions her when she will redeem the cards. And should they discover that the cards are stolen, I hope they believe in the story that she got them by a tourist. Will the police believe in that?

My suspicion is that the detectives will not care about three stolen cards worth 15 dollars. Probably they have more difficult crimes to handle. It is likely that more murders have been committed in Chicago tonight, and it must be higher prioritized than stolen traffic cards.

From Kurt Andersson’s Facebook 

Tom Ford, Memphis

Now the Blues Siblings have a new drummer. She is a beautiful lady called Julie Clinton. Me and the other guys in the band knew her before, but I did not know that she is very competent drummer. We all look forward to be a new Blues family and I am sure we all will appreciate our cooperation with the record.

Mia Turner, New Orleans

Hi Kurt! I understand that you are going to Detroit. Just an advice: As you are interested in music do not miss the Tamla Motown museum. What they did in this small house is so impressing. Have you seen the movie “8 mile” with Eminem? It is really worth seeing. It gives you a picture of Detroit that you might miss as a tourist.

Mary Jackson, Dallas

I am planning a trip to Europe 10 days over Christmas and New Years Eve. Is there anyone out there who could take care of my lovely little cat while I am away.

Angela Williams, San Francisco

Kurt! My friend the music editor says that Neil Young now is back in town. If you like he could try to arrange a meeting between Neil and you. Interested?

Burt Anderson, Portland

Kurt! Having met me recently and with your experience of travelling, do you think it would be possible for an old man like me to visit Sweden once again? I get so inspired when I read about your trip on Facebook, so I would really like to go to Sweden a last time in my life.

Lucas Owens, Frisco

Hi! When we met a couple of days ago you did not tell me about the attempted robbery in Seattle. I really hope nothing more happens to you during your trip, but in case you will have some problem with the law feel free to contact me at once and I can help you with some legal advice. It is interesting to follow your trip backwards. Have a great trip and be careful in Detroit.

Facts about Chicago

• Chicago is located in the state of Illinois on Lake Michigan's western shore. The Chicago River runs through the city center and is crossed by many iron bridges.

• The city had 2,719 million inhabitants in 2013.

• The University of Chicago has approximately 15,000 students. The University of Illinois at Chicago has nearly 30,000 students.

• Chicago's center is characterized by many skyscrapers such as John Hancock Center, Willis Tower, Tribune Tower and Trump Tower. The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright has created many houses in the city. Many tourists make trips to view the city's architecture.

• In Chicago there are many subcontractors to the automotive industry. The city is also a leader in biotechnology.

• Chicago has long been known for its extensive crime. By 2016, 746 people were murdered in Chicago. Most of the victims are young black men.

Read more at www.cityofchicago.org

Trump Tower in Chicago