My dear wife, Carrie and I have spent a few days in Chicago.  I now share with you an few images and some commentary to go along with them.

A photo out the hotel window.  We are less than a block from Michigan Avenue on the Lake side.

I got to have a sit down with Johnny Carson at the Museum of Broadcast Communications.  Johnny is a nice guy.

Carrie told a few stories to Carson as well.  She was glad he had Lewis Grizzard on…twice.

This is the actual camera that caught Nixon looking less than graceful in his debate with John F. Kennedy, a debate that went a ways in making Kennedy even more likable.

I let out a sigh of relief when I found Captain Furrillo and the Sarge.

A Chicago legend, I listened to Larry Lujack when I was in high school.  He was on 89 WLS The Rock of Chicago.  It was AM’s last vestige of rock and roll significance.  I loved it.  When the sun went down I could pick it up 300 miles away.  When the sun was coming up…it would fade away as I listened.  It was a friend you tuned into when you knew you could.  Animal Stories was a bit he did with partner Tommy Edwards.  It was the greatest thing I ever heard on the radio next to this guy…

Listening to Jack Buck call a football game on the radio was pure significance.  His voice made each play sound like a time you needed to straighten up and pay attention to.  Class.  Pure class.  He and Hank Stramm did Monday Night Football on radio and it was wonderful.

The Chicago River.

A cup of coffee before going to The Art Institute this morning.

The Art Institute of Chicago.

Remember the painting Cameron looked at and stared at and stared a little bit more at?  The Seurat.

My dear Carrie admiring a piece of work.

Carrie looking at Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks”.  This is my favorite piece of art in the the world.  I wrote about it many many posts ago.  It has been a friend to me. I keep a copy of it in my office.  We also have one at home.  I was 16 years old when this painting took me in.  Painted in 1942, I still get nervous before I walk in to gallery room 262 to see it.

Carrie and me by The Bean.

Speaking the Chicago rights…

Danny Johnson