The Northwestern University Alumni Association just sent me a request to submit a brief article for the "NU Loyal Newsletter."
In response I sent this one. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did putting the memory to pen.
The effort also led me to locating a legacy video I had completely forgotten about recording for posterity Actor Bill Murray leading in the singing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th Inning Stretch of a post-season Cubs game I had attended the year after the Cubs won the World Series. If I recall correctly it was the last time the Cubs won a post-season game at Wrigley Field.
THE DAY THAT THE Windy City GOT RENAMED THE Windy CitY
It was a blustery fall day as the wind whipped off of Lake Michigan and made its presence known in the city on its shore, Chicago. Myself and a contingent of Alaskan youth were well prepared for the weather as we had worn our parkas in a show of solidarity to promote the state we hailed from at the National 4-H Convention being held at the historic Conrad Hilton Hotel there on Michigan Avenue.
I had been given an assignment to prepare a human interest story about the attending Alaskans for inclusion in the convention newsletter to be distributed the next morning. With its completion I took it down to the hotel's basement where the editor, an actual Chicago newsman, accepted the piece. As he reviewed it I received an unexpected complement as he suggested I might want to consider journalism as a career.
Included in the story I made mention of that day's wind by coming up with a phrase describing Chicago as "The Windy City."Coming from Alaska and knowing little about Chicago I had never heard the term previously and assumed it to be original.
Imagine my surprise several years later when as a college student I had come to Evanston, a community bordering on Chicago, and saw a sentence in a Chicago newspaper article referring to Chicago as "The Windy City." My first thought was that the newspaperman I had met in the Conrad Hilton Hotel basement must have liked my article even more than I had thought and had gone on to perpetuate my term for Chicago as "The Windy City.”
And that is how "The Windy City" got renamed "The Windy City."
And for an added treat, here is Bill Murray, World's Number One Cub's Fan, Leading us in "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th Inning Stretch at Chicago's Wrigley Field:
Link to Bill Murray Leading in Singing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at Wrigley Field:
In response I sent this one. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did putting the memory to pen.
The effort also led me to locating a legacy video I had completely forgotten about recording for posterity Actor Bill Murray leading in the singing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th Inning Stretch of a post-season Cubs game I had attended the year after the Cubs won the World Series. If I recall correctly it was the last time the Cubs won a post-season game at Wrigley Field.
THE DAY THAT THE Windy City GOT RENAMED THE Windy CitY
It was a blustery fall day as the wind whipped off of Lake Michigan and made its presence known in the city on its shore, Chicago. Myself and a contingent of Alaskan youth were well prepared for the weather as we had worn our parkas in a show of solidarity to promote the state we hailed from at the National 4-H Convention being held at the historic Conrad Hilton Hotel there on Michigan Avenue.
I had been given an assignment to prepare a human interest story about the attending Alaskans for inclusion in the convention newsletter to be distributed the next morning. With its completion I took it down to the hotel's basement where the editor, an actual Chicago newsman, accepted the piece. As he reviewed it I received an unexpected complement as he suggested I might want to consider journalism as a career.
Included in the story I made mention of that day's wind by coming up with a phrase describing Chicago as "The Windy City."Coming from Alaska and knowing little about Chicago I had never heard the term previously and assumed it to be original.
Imagine my surprise several years later when as a college student I had come to Evanston, a community bordering on Chicago, and saw a sentence in a Chicago newspaper article referring to Chicago as "The Windy City." My first thought was that the newspaperman I had met in the Conrad Hilton Hotel basement must have liked my article even more than I had thought and had gone on to perpetuate my term for Chicago as "The Windy City.”
And that is how "The Windy City" got renamed "The Windy City."
And for an added treat, here is Bill Murray, World's Number One Cub's Fan, Leading us in "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the 7th Inning Stretch at Chicago's Wrigley Field:
Link to Bill Murray Leading in Singing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at Wrigley Field:
