CHICAGO — As I fly into my beautiful hometown for Thanksgiving, I'm again struck by the stunning topography of the city.
The sight of Chicago from the air is unlike any other. The glorious, gleaming skyscrapers, which were actually invented here, first come into view as a dramatic wedge at the side of the lake. But from there on, on all sides of the Loop, the city spreads out into a seemingly endless Midwestern plain spotted by small, neat houses, tree-lined streets and the rich conglomeration of our famous neighborhoods.
Even today in Chicago, for those of us who have been away for some years, those neighborhoods remain in our memories as the place we spiritually belong. In our neighborhoods, we Chicago families experienced the true spirit of Thanksgiving, a unity of gratitude that was neither Republican nor Democrat, neither left nor right, neither Protestant, Catholic or Jew. Our neighborhoods gave us the assurance that, on most things American, we were all together.
"We grew up knowing about the red, white and blue pennants hanging in front windows, signifying a son in the armed service," Chicago-born contributor John Hahn from the Northwest Side's Portage Park writes in the new book "The Old Chicago Neighborhood: Remembering Life in the 1940s." He notes, too, that "we also knew the significance of a Gold Star, memorializing a son who would never return from Europe or the Pacific."
The authors of the book, devout Chicagoans Neal Samors and Michael Williams, recalled that during the '40s, "Most families were close, both geographically and emotionally. Members of extended families, including parents, children and grandparents, often lived in the same buildings or within a few blocks of each other. As a rule, families ate dinner together, and children were expected to be at the supper table at a specified time every night.
"It was also the last decade to still have nostalgic links to the 19th century — an era of ice men, waffle vendors and value still counted by the penny."
Me? As I examine my home ground from this bird's-eye view, I think of my father, the respected proprietor of Geyer's Dairy on the far South Side, getting up at 3 in the morning to run the dairy routes. I think of how we would all gather around the piano at night, singing for the sheer fun of it, and I think, above all now, of big family Thanksgivings in our tiny bungalow. It was so simple — and yet so happy.
Now, I am not going to say that everything was perfect in the old neighborhoods. There was corruption, there was the Mafia, there was racial tension. Yet under the protective arms of what were true physical and moral communities, very different people came together with remarkably little of the vitriol, polarization and snarling that has become the daily stuff of American life.
Every adult pretty much protected every child (although they surely did not spoil them), and there was a wonderful and comforting sense that, hey, we're all in this together! There was even, surprisingly enough, an odd tolerance of "the other," whether from foreign countries or from other faiths, which thank God finally evolved into racial tolerance as well.
So why on this Thanksgiving — when we are supposedly a far more educated and evolved people than we were when I was growing up in Foster Park on the South Side of Chicago — do we see such cultural and political polarization in our nation today? Why are our political candidates so obsessed with either trivia or scandal? Why has power in each party devolved to its most extreme elements instead of staying in the rational middle? Why does the new report from the Pew Research Center say that America is more polarized now than at any time since its polling series began in 1987?
Part of the answer is the abysmal state of our civic culture. A report by the Alliance for Better Campaigns, a Washington-based public interest group, recently found that community issues account for less than one-half of 1 percent of local TV programming across the nation. How can Americans have strong neighborhood connections when the dominant cultural conveyor of information no longer informs them?
One of the best analyses I have seen recently comes from the Rev. Henry Brinton, pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Virginia. Writing in The Washington Post, he worried about changes "that could lead to the disappearance of churches that strive for balance in religious practice and belief, that seek moderation and a way to combine respect for tradition with an understanding of the need for innovation."
What we have lost, he says, is "the importance of meeting grounds — communities where people of diverse opinions and perspectives may gather, talk, debate and argue." Meanwhile, "new coalitions are forming across denominations — coalitions focused on abortion, biblical inerrancy, sexual issues and other shared concerns. The result is that congregations are becoming groups of like-minded individuals, instead of cross-sections of the religious community."
And so, as I look down over my wonderful hometown, I think back to the neighborhoods, where imperfect human beings were able to bond together on the big things without necessarily agreeing on the small ones. That is surely a spirit we need today, particularly if this nation is to remain a united one.
Universal Press Syndicate