At the Taste of Chicago the next day, the crowd was much milder. Unlike the 13 stages of music at Summerfest, the Taste had three. Seventy restaurants in the city showed up to serve their good food.
None of them had cheese curds.
The crowds were diverse, friendly and hungry for pizza. Yes, pizza: I couldn't believe the amount of pizza I saw consumed. Corn and ribs and ice cream and a hundred other choices were also served, but by far, the deep dish triumphed.
I didn't stay very long. I had to see Wynonna Judd perform in Grant Park for Country Music Fest just down the street. While I'm not a big fan of country music, I must admit, I liked watching the country crowd that waited for her. The diva ended up being 45 minutes late but a young family kept me entertained. A father knelt with his two sons kneeling about five feet in front of him. The father would toss his flimsy CTA card at them and into the wind. Haphazardly, the card skipped through the air randomly making the boys dive and clasp and laugh.
Another ten minutes had passed, and so I gathered my things and hopped on my bike. I think somewhere around Monroe and Lake Shore Drive , I faintly heard a “ Haw ya'll doin' out thar? ” I decided not to stick around.
On Sunday by noon , Halsted and Broadway were bursting at the curb, since the 35th annual Gay Pride Parade was underway. I stood at the corner of Belmont and Broadway on a bar stool that I brought from my apartment and watched the politicians and the media followed by the drag queens and the motorcycle chicks. Then came the gay clubs and bars and organizations for gay marriages and HIV research. All well-behaved, all having a good time.
The religious contingent showed up, cutting right through the crowd with a police escort raising banners of “Homosexuality is Sin,” “Stop Molesting Children” and quotes from the Bible, specifically Leviticus 20:13, calling homosexuality an abomination.
There were boos and screams from the crowd, lots of middle fingers, and lots of profanity. Some of the more popular phrases included “Fuck you,” “God bless you ” and “Fuck you.”
Then things got ugly .
The conservative group had no more than ten members and five banners, but they had a preacher and a megaphone. And he wouldn't stop. Scream after scream of “Shame on you” and “You're all going to hell” and “We need to protect Jesus' children.”
Then an odd thing happened, a miracle of sorts. I was still standing on my bar stool with my bird's eye view of the whole scene when I witnessed The Toss .
From the other side of the street someone threw what looked to be an Altoids box or an individually wrapped Reeses' peanut butter cup into the direction of the preachers. The interesting part is that when the object was tossed, a huge float about the size of a semi was crossing the street. In other words, there was no way the thrower could have seen where he or she was throwing the object.
I followed the unidentified flying object with its perfect rainbow arc, over the crowd, over the truck, and right into the preacher's megaphone. And as he removed the megaphone from his mouth, blood poured from his lips.
The megaphone sounded off and was never used again.
This is summer in the city – don't let it pass you by. Pretty soon you'll see the back-to-school sales and ads for hay rides in pumpkin patches. Get out and enjoy the festivals like you wanted to in May. There are still tons of fests left to attend and if not, walk down to the lakefront for a swim at the beach. You know where to get cheap swimming trunks – thanks, Old Navy.
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