THE COLD

We moved to Chicago from New Castle, Indiana when I was eleven and a half years old. I add in the "half" because at that age it makes a difference. My sister was just past seven. You might think that we would have suffered culture shock, but we accepted the newness as part of life.

Our interim home was a hotel on the corner of North and State streets, right across from the beginning of Lincoln Park. It was March when we came into the city so we got to see spring and summer unfold in Lincoln Park that year. It was 1949 and I remember most of it scene by scene. The Lincoln statue, the Lincoln Park Lagoon, and my favorite -- Bushman -- at the Lincoln Park Zoo. We went to school, we walked the beaches. In the fall, just before Thanksgiving, we moved north to the Western and Foster area, went to school, found a church, made mistakes, got confirmed, all the normal stuff.

Accepting. That is the word that comes to me when I think of how we managed in this big city atmosphere that was probably VERY different from small town New Castle. I went to college, got married, moved east. EAST is different. It took twenty five years to adjust and even now I think of myself as a New Castle/Chicago girl.

And how often during these years did I have a cold. "Have" a cold. "Get" a cold. Pretty much the same in Indiana as in Connecticut. But in Chicago, you get THE cold. I don't know how that differs from the common cold except that you are the one who has it. "I have 'the' cold." It was as if there was ONE cold going around and it was being shared by everyone. Whoever had "a" cold, had "the" cold. But the information stopped there. Nothing about how to treat "the" cold. It was just "the" cold.

Well, folks, now I have "the" cold. Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. Itchy eyes. Runny nose. Post nasal RUN. Tickle cough. Reflex gag. Heavy chest. Can't sleep. THE cold....