Working at the intersection of the Daley Center and the Thompson Center, I get to see a lot of protests and picketing on the streets. Usually, the groups are amateurs, with hastily put together posters and horribly rhymed chants. Yesterday, though, my co-intern and I saw a big group clad in purple t-shirts. But something was different. The local Fox News station was there, and some policemen kept an eye on things. I mentioned how organized the group seemed to be, and then I saw the "SEIU" logos on their shirts. No wonder. Unions have their bone-headed moments, but when I saw the One Voice, One Vote logo, and the group shouting their demands in unison, I admit -- my heart skipped just a little.
I've noticed that you always get a good perspective on things when you chat with support staff or peripheral parties. A court reporter and I struck up a conversation today while waiting for a damages hearing to start. He'd been doing the work for 30 years, so he obviously had a lot of stories to share. He was one of those people who would be a great subject for a profile article. Chatty, yet authentic; takes liberties with small embellishments, but is faithful to the substantive story. He talked about how the job too often revealed the absurdities of life. In a patent case between two bicycle companies, he mused about how six-figure salaries depended on successfully litigating a case on this tiny screw in the Y-bar of a bicycle. Talk about banking on a screw. He declined to share the rest of their jokes, but you can imagine what they might have been. In another instance, he mentioned that he met Mr. Vitner of Vitner Chips, in a case that centered around Mr. Vitner's $2 million yacht. He apparently pays his captain a yearly salary to stay on the yacht year-round, steering it to various ports and generally caring for it. How cool would that be for a living. Unless you get sea sick. Then it wouldn't be so charming a livelihood, I guess. And then I think about how teachers get paid so little to teach the likes of us, and how they never get paid the worth of inspiring little kids to become great kids. Ah well.
It's amazing how you never notice the things that are right in front of your face. Today, I was walking out of my building and noticed this Poseidon-looking sign on the building across the street from us. It's like I'd never seen it before. I just stared at it in a type of trance, and wondered what other things I've been failing to notice.
I love walking down the street with the sun shining down on my face, and the silhouettes of the trees flitting behind my closed eyes like grainy film scenes. Sometimes I wish I had the courage to rely solely on my four senses and keep walking, but the fear of hitting a tree or a pole keeps me peeking every few seconds. Ah.
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