I’m from Chicago—Wanna See My Bullet Hole?

Our oldest daughter and a friend recently went to Chicago.  They saw a White Sox Game, took in a Jimmy Buffet concert, ambled in and out of attractions on the lake front, rode a tour boat and a water taxi, and used the El.  They were there for a weekend and came home without any bullet holes in them.

I mention that because Forbes magazine recently ran an article that began, “Chicago has a reputation as one of America's most violent cities. 2016 was the worst year for homicides in nearly two decades in the Windy City with 762 murders, 3,550 shooting incidents and 4,331 shooting victims. On average, 12 people are shot in Chicago every single day and it experienced more murders than New York and Los Angeles combined last year.” (https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2017/06/21/is-chicago-really-americas-most-dangerous-city-infographic/#7e7831e650da.)

But, according to that same article, in terms of shooting victims per 100,000 residents, more than a dozen U.S. cities are more lethal than Chicago.

So, what about that “reputation as one of America's most violent cities”?

I wondered about that myself, as a kid growing up in Chicago.  From books and movies and radio programs I had learned that Al Capone and bunches of gangsters roamed the city with machine guns, slaughtering at will.  But that ended before I was born, and at its worst it affected very few people.  I never heard any adults tell of the horrible old days that they lived through, but the reputation was there.

It was a reputation that I had fun with when I enlisted in the air force.   The military was going through a big buildup in the early months of the Korean War.  Because of that buildup, I was transferred from base to base three times in my first year, and when I wasn’t being moved around, new guys were coming into whatever outfit I was in at the time.

When you met someone, a ritual took place:  You would introduce yourself and say where you were from.  Very early I began saying, after I gave my name, “I’m from Chicago—wanna see my bullet hole?”  That remark always got a smile, such was Chicago’s reputation.

And it drew a smile from a man I met just last week; such is Chicago’s reputation today.

But—let’s have the disclaimer first:  People are being gunned down in Chicago.  That is truly unfortunate, but no matter where you go or what you do, much of life is a crapshoot.  And this post is not travel advice but merely a little help with sorting out what you get from the media about violence in Chicago.

Chicago is a city of sides, and most shootings occur on the South Side.  The media mention that, usually without making a big deal about it, so the impression that’s given is that Chicago as a whole is a generic term for death by gunshot.

The South Side is the city’s largest side.  In the screwy way that the city grew, the South Side expanded and expanded and expanded, curving east around Lake Michigan, bumping into the Indiana state line, and adding on to the south.  If someone hadn’t put the brakes on, St. Louis and Memphis would have become suburbs.

It’s a shame that the South Side gets such a bad rap.  There are wealthy neighborhoods down there, nice places to live, along with major universities, important hospitals, beautiful parks, and the longest stretch of lake front in the city.  But there are also pockets of people who are trigger happy.

Violence has spilled over these days to the West Side.  I honestly don’t remember there being a West Side when I was growing up.  There had to be, but maybe it was under the radar back then.

I grew up on the Northwest Side, the peaceful Northwest Side.  My parents allowed me a staggering amount of freedom (maybe they were hoping that when I went out one night I might not come back).  I could, and did, go anywhere in the city with only one restriction:  Don’t go to the South Side.

That was in the 1930s and ‘40s, and I suspect that a lot of people follow that stricture these days:  Stay away from the South Side.

That’s not always easy to do.  If you want to go to the University of Chicago, you have to go to the South Side.  If you want to see the White Sox play, that’s on the South Side.  One of the city’s famous St. Patrick’s Day parades is held deep in the South Side.

But when someone is shot in Chicago it happens at one spot, and the pavement isn’t slathered  with blood wherever you look.

I didn’t caution my daughter and her friend about safety.  They’ve traveled a lot and have surely picked up some street smarts.  And I didn’t want to get one of those looks from my daughter that said, Dad, really!

They went, and they had a good time.

And they brought back chocolates!

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