Down by the River by Ray S

     Sometime during the latter half of the 19th century the designer of New York’s Central Park took on the project to plan a bucolic suburban community west of the city of Chicago.  Riverside was appropriately named due to the proximity of the Des Plaines River.

     It is a quaint town replete with streets that meander like the river—so much so that visitors always lost their way in this would be enchanted forest.

     Civic buildings patterned in the Medieval/Gothic revival mode.  Added to the mix was the requisite Alpine chalet and Victorian gingerbread styles.  All in all quite a charming big city get away for a weekend in the country (with apologies to what’s his name).

     Growing up in this never never land in the 1930’s was in retrospect a  fabulous experience, but at age 10 I took it all for granted and always managed to find the trail of bread crumbs home after school.

    I recall a winter’s late afternoon with the gas street lamps casting a golden glow on the snow.  I trudged home but pausing to make a snow angel, in hopes some unsuspecting good Samaritan would find me and offer to save me from a death of frost bite.

     At a bend of the river there is a great depression and sledding hill called the Swan Pond where everyone gathered when the snow was good to go coasting down the hills. And when it was good and cold so the river froze there was ice skating.

     Ultimately the little town grew to be a full blown bedroom community for office workers and professionals commuting daily to the Loop on the CB&Q.

     Along with Chicago’s Century of Progress, there lacked sufficient progress to prevent that city’s use of the Des Plaines as a waste disposal.  Often barely a trickle, and source of malodorous bouquet, sometimes when we ventured to the river’s edge we found many curiosities to wonder about.  Why were there always those white balloons washed up on the shore?

     Under the railroad trestle there was a colony of men camping. These were the flotsam and jetsam of the depression called hobos.  We stood at a distance and stared and they didn’t object to our quiet intrusions.  The only time you might have occasion to converse with one of these men is when they came around to the back door to collect some food the housewives would leave on the steps.  Remember, this was the NRA.

     Mother either didn’t know or trusted all was safe as her progeny dawdled about the shores of the river, the Hobo camp, and scampered across the railroad bridge if a train wasn’t imminent.

     So goes the remembrance of Down By The River.

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