Points of Reference

Warning:  Slight length alert.

Mount Crumpit.  It’s what we call the first half mile of 126th Street off Highway 92 in Andalusia, Illinois.  It’s a joke, as many things are between the Malin boys, referencing the steepness of a short stretch of road rising above the Mississippi River to Snowstar, the former home of winter tomfoolery.  The crux of Mount Crumpit rises three hundred feet or so in one potholed grade, and then a slighter incline for another mile or so.  While Snowstar’s a pittance in western scale, it was sufficient to while away many winter hours, tearing ligaments, concussing ourselves, and otherwise having fun on the snowy slopes of the Mississippi River valley.   

One of the funniest things ever was, after a twenty-minute drive from home in a constant drizzle one day, just hoping the weather would be different at Snowstar, I said “maybe there will be snow at the higher elevations” as we turned off Highway 92 and started up Mount Crumpit.  Through some miracle of meteorology and comedic timing, the rain turned to snow in the ten seconds it took the Jeep to make its way to the top.  It’s our inside joke about optimism now when the odds are clearly not in our favor. 

So when Colin and me stormed up some unnamed hill on ATVs in the desert sunshine of Tonto National Forest while on Spring Break, and started getting pelted by hail halfway up, we surged upward.  Recalling our conquering of Mount Crumpit in the rain turned snow, we laughed hysterically at the top.  If you ever need frozen precipitation with no more than a couple hundred feet of elevation change, or optimism completely unhinged from reality, we’re the guys to call.

I’m also, apparently, the guy to call as a professional reference.  In the five days off on my two family fun (and some work) fests over the last two weeks, five people have called or e-mailed to ask if I’d be a reference.  The standard answer is “sure thing”.  Unless your name might be Hamerlinck, Ickes, Ridolfi or Wellner.  Wait.  Slight revision.  If someone called about Brian Wellner, I’d say “super nice guy”.  Whatever the question, that would be the answer.  Super nice guy. 

Here’s a tip.  Face to face reference checks beat phone reference checks every time.  Here’s another tip.  Don’t be a jerk, or say anything negative in a phone reference check.  Put the person they are checking on in the best possible light.  Always.  Every time.  Who knows?  Its theoretically possible we learn from mistakes and get better (that’s my personal hope, at least) so don’t dredge up some obscure remembrance about when someone did something slightly different than how you would have done it.  Be positive because … well, it could be snowing at the higher elevations. 

Thus went the journey from SFO to ORD to Madison to Davenport to ORD to SFO.  The redeye into ORD provided a few morning hours to while away on the way up to Madison, so I took the psychologically scenic route through Vernon Hills and Grayslake, stopping along the way to thank people and see what’s changed.   The Vernon Hills office where I spent my first eleven years in the profession is decades empty, with the new city hall next door designed by the architects I recommended as my last act looking spiffy.  I regaled the new guys with a few stories of how zealous Vernon Hills was about expansion back in the day (a fun Tribune editorial, here) and double-checked that they’re still a no property tax, triple AAA bond-rated city.  Cool.  All that growth and fiscal impact modeling worked.  

Up to Grayslake where I find the high school that didn’t take kindly to my grammar terrorism (or was it the fireworks sales, comedic vandalism and - hey this testosterone is awesome – teenage stupidity) is completely unrecognizable, swelled well beyond the building that hosted a graduation without me.  More importantly, the charter school at Prairie Crossing is completely recognizable; the very model of eco-sensibility Vicky, Miriam and me imagined.  That it incubates young radicals and sends some of them off to the high school which was really quite happy hosting a graduation without me is a bit of perfect karma.  Go get em, PCCS grads.

362 Behm Drive.  If I’m driving past the high school, it’s just three burnouts, one blown stop sign and two - how many times did I powerslide through these ditches  - “S” curves to 362 Behm Drive.  The Utter household; Grand Central Station for the only gang that mattered.  I drive past and wonder why can I remember Curt / Dave / Marty / Linda / Vince / Val’s address but not my own.  I know where the ol’ homestead is, of course, but couldn’t tell you the address if my cleaned up life depended on it.  Through the original section of town and “The Manor”, it's funny how out of my league fancy the houses of some of the girls I had crushes on seemed then, and don’t seem, at all, now.  Mainly because after grad school I went from crush to deciding who I would marry in one date, and she was so far out of anyone’s league in Grayslake that swinging for the fences was the only option.    

Still smiling past Dennis’ house on the way up to Route 173, I wonder if it’s weird that I didn’t go past where I lived in high school.  It was a little out of the way and I tell myself that I need to make up some time to make the Madison meeting.  But, when I was in Davenport, I didn’t stop in City Hall either, and the reason’s the same.  Been there.  Did that.  Prefer to remember it how I remember it, not necessarily how it was or is. 

That’s neither pejorative nor regretful. 

Which is the essence of lunch conversations with some Iowa friends.  Yes, I’ve seen the riverfront.  Yes, I know Davenport didn't secure the sports complex and now Bettendorf is moving forward with one instead.  Yes, I know they killed the website.  Yes, the family separation is difficult.  Yes, Seaside is splendid.  Yes, I wish everyone here well. 

These days, the tagline includes “low skill, high enthusiasm alpinist”.  Life’s funny, and then it ends.  If it ends someday - really ends, not just changing the zip code in which the desk photos make me smile - with a fatal imbalance between skill and enthusiasm, by all means, have fun at my expense. 

I sure have.