It Was A Father's Day Gift

The photo you've puzzled over is the bell on the bridge of this tour boat. The shot was taken from one of the seats behind the wheelhouse.The boat departs from Ogden Slip in Streeterville.

Ogden and Streeter share naming rights here. They were very, very different kinds of guys in their respective days.William Ogden was the first mayor of Chicago,from 1837 to 1838. He designed the first swing bridge over the Chicago River and was a promoter of and investor in the I&M Canal. Later, he was president of the Union Pacific Railroad. Wonder what he did in his free time...

Streeterville is named for George Streeter, who beached his boat on a sandbar in the late 1880's during a storm and there it stayed; he and his wife made this their new home. The Streeters encouraged dumping in this area and, after several years, the debris built up and became solid land. George claimed this 'new land' as an independent territory in respect to an 1821 government survey that declared Chicago, and Illinois, property lines terminated at the shoreline. Under his homesteading rights as a Civil War Veteran, he declared the new land to be the District of Lake Michigan. Eventually, the Streeters were tossed, but the name remains. Some of the priciest real estate in Chicago was created 125 years ago by a scam artist!

If you're looking for an unusual bit of entertainment, try the Architectural Tour. You'll board across the channel from the construction site of the Chicago Spire. It will be the world's 3rd tallest building when completed in 2012. The penthouse is still available if you have an extra $40 million in your change drawer.The tour will take you out into the basin inside the locks, then putter along west on the main channel, head north to what else, Northerly Island. You'll reverse directions and head down the south branch to around Congress before returning to Ogden Slip. The guide we had was extremely glib and entertaining. The information and history she recounted was nothing short of captivating. The views will leave you gaping. There's all sorts of things to learn, some you may already know and many you surely won't. It's a great tourist trip, whether you're a local or an out of towner. The day we went, the mix was about 1/3 locals, 2/3 visitors.The tour was a Father's Day gift. Cool, no?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Petey and I scored yesterday, placing our pennies on #48 Jimmy Johnson. The payback was a heartwarming +750, as Petey took full advantage of an arbitrage opportunity to claim a great price!

The Gambler's Mentor

We were talking about Pete when the bell rang yesterday. Pete took a look at NASCAR when he tired of becoming routinely angst ridden by the incessant droning of the baseball season. Pete and I began to regularly chat about the upcoming race each Friday. I was impressed with his eagerness to learn about what clearly was his new passion, NASCAR racing. That assumption turned out to be correct, but it was the tip of the iceberg.

My bud Petey, you see, was digesting our Friday morning chats to facilitate his Sunday morning wagers on the races...and he was winning! When Pete invited me to throw a few bucks his way along with the race discussion, I briefly hesitated, then jumped in. Our first dual wager was for the staggering sum of five bucks, split between us. The "us" part is what became the most interesting part. At the end of our first year of wagering, I had to write a check to my partner for about twenty bucks, our net losses for the year. While none of us likes the idea of losing, I had enjoyed a lot of entertainment for twenty dollars.

The beginning of our second season is where things began to get interesting. We started to win a little, very little, and the third leg of what would become a three partner betting machine came to the party; a new partner with no racing knowledge in his past and who would reveal some eccentric and aggressive betting habits. My new partner was Pete's octagenarian father, Tony.


Take a look around your life, there may be someone near you with high mileage who can give you a unique and cherished ride. That was the gift I received from Tony. There's little happy slices of life that came from meeting him. He was, by his son's recount, a bit of a scoundrel bettor. Unable to work with the computer to place bets, he'd call his granddaughter in Florida and give her log-on instructions and have her place his wagers. Tony bet intuitively, a message for those of us who try to do everything by the numbers, and picked winners. He also seemed to become a true racing fan, teaching us the "goose 'em, goose 'em" phrase when he wanted his driver to lay a little paint on someone to make room to pass. He also used a couple of phrases that aren't PC enough for me to share with you. Though becoming frail, Tony came out to the track with us on a summer afternoon to watch qualifying. It was one of my best days, watching him light up as the cars thundered by.

We've been betting on NASCAR and college football for six years; our partnership was cut back to just Petey and I a year or so ago. The bets are always just a few dollars; this is recreation, not addiction. We have built up a nice cushion in our bankroll and we have shared a lot of excitement.

The biggest winner I had in six years was getting to know Tony. The Gambler's Mentor.

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Picks on the Bricks at Indy this weekend: #48 a former winner (whom I can't stand) and #12, an Indiana native who won the big one in February.

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Photo Day 4, last hint. The place is in Streeterville. The rest of the story is revealed on Monday.