John Hughes was the master at taking the mundane and making it spectacular. When you watch his movies, his characters and the setting of the stories he was trying to tell, you soon see it could have been anyone, anyplace in America. New York City is a place that most people have in their family tree. As peculiar as it sounds, it has never shown up in mine. As my brother and I have done family tree research with a fine tuned comb of knowledge and research apparatus (him to find names for his four boys and me because it is an escape) going back a couple of hundred years we have found cities like Boston, Philadelphia, DC and Baltimore but NOT one iota of NYC. Heck, I even had my father's uncle live down in Miami for a time. Virtually, every major city on the east coast shows up in our family bibles and chronicles but that big gapping hole in the form of a GIANT APPLE never has existed. New York state is even represented in the form of Syracuse on my father's dad's side but still no NYC. When you talk to most people they can eventually trace NYC back into their life story in one form or another. I grew up around families here in Alabama that could claim that. As a source of pride my brother and I stood out. For we had CHICAGO instead. We had the mundane, we had John Hughes' Illinois as OUR HERITAGE.
One day my father's dad, born and raised in Pleasant Hill, Illinois sat down and told me an amazing story about perseverance. You see, there was a city called Fort "Something or the Other" I forgot the name because now it does not exist in our modern times. The speculators that were looking to build this great city, Fort "Something or the Other" were competing with my ancestors for the next great city in Illinois. My grandfather's family chose to build up an old French and Indian settlement that was considered "swampy" full of insects and just plain STUNK! The settlers laughed at the team of investors and speculators that my family was a part of. They said you are wasting your time and you are foolish. As fate would have it, the settlement my relatives and some other families had faith in became CHIGAGO and the other project CEASED TO EXIST!
John Hughes' films most always were filmed and set in CHICAGO or Illinois. Even as a boy in elementary school my brother and I would watch films like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" with bursting pride. For we felt like John was telling our story. The settings were not fancy Park Avenue or anywhere in NYC. John was a master at making the unassuming MAGICAL. CHICAGO and ILLINOIS are just that, when compared to other places in the world. Suffice it to say, in the early 90's when the CHICAGO BULLS won all of their championships my brother and I again let everyone know it. It was especially gratifying that we had close friends who's family was from the NEW YORK CITY area. It was especially gratifying that our BULLS beat their KNICKS in the Eastern Conference finals so many times during that decade. And believe me WE LET THEM KNOW IT!
Flying to the West Coast in April of 2009 I was assigned to O'Hare as a layover. Two months prior my Illinois grandfather had been called home at 92 years old. As the captain told us we were over Illinois some tears welled up in my eyes as I looked down into the green foliage of some unknown community. As we landed and I touched Illinois soil in Chicago for the first time, it was sentimental. Yes, a year or two later I went through that same airport on the way back from Ukraine and even had a border line temper tantrum filled, snowed in layover visit last December on the way back from sunny LA in Midway. Even Chicago style hot dogs could not make that lonely filled evening of sitting up all night and watching old t.v. shows on You Tube better. Yes, alone in an empty airport with nothing to do but vent and wait on a flight back to Birmingham, AL. So unassuming and mundane. Almost, the type of plot and setting of a JOHN HUGHES MOVIE! SWEET HOME CHICAGO, BABY DON'T YA' WANNA GO? WHO NEEDS NEW YORK, WHEN GREATNESS IS ALREADY AT HAND?
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