The sunny summer solstice in Seattle

makes me think of sunny bike rides in 1980s Chicago.

The memory is vivid but so brief that it’s hard to place it firmly in a timeline: it was a bike ride, alone, in Evanston, Illinois, on a sunny summer weekday, on a street that ran between the two halves of a golf course. This summer-bike-ride snapshot brings an upwelling sense of freedom, expansion, and an open-ended relaxation, as if the day would last as long as I wanted—that long-ago day in the mid-1980s or this day, today. 

In the 80s I was in college full time, but on summer break. I loved riding my bike around the north side of Chicago and the North Shore, meandering, letting my handlebars lead me. On a weekday, streets were quiet and seemed to lie there and sunbathe. I had a few favorite places to lock up and get a milkshake: Potbelly Subs on Lincoln, JK Sweets in Evanston, Haagen-Dazs in Lake Forest if I rode that far.

College in the 80s, with my major in creative writing, was full time (and non-residential). In order to have an apartment instead of living at home for my final two years, I worked almost full time during the summer and part time throughout the school year. I was a proofreader at a law firm.

My girlfriend and I lived together on Sheridan Road in East Rogers Park, right across the street from Loyola University. But we went to school a long subway ride away at Columbia College, in the South Loop. Burnt out from having night writing classes that often ran longer than the expected four hours—beyond 10 PM—and then having to get up for work, plus of course do loads of writing, I didn’t see the networking opportunities at school that might have helped me create a life as a writer. I just wanted to be done with school. When I did graduate, it was a tremendous loss that I wasn’t prepared for. All that structure and all that at-school socializing just vanished.

I wasn’t the only one who didn’t keep in touch. I think most of my classmates worked and got at least a little burnt out. It was a college for nontraditional students, and some of us were well into adulthood. I look back and think we writing-people could have formed a scene, with readings and zine-making. Some people participated in the then-new poetry slams at the Green Mill, in Uptown, but I didn’t. I read my work at a few school-sponsored readings and then let go of all that and just worked. 

Again, I know I wasn’t the only one. I had a great experience at Columbia College. I was in some ways a nontraditional student and the place was perfect for me. I only wish I had known how to, or had been coached to by a college counselor or teacher, to stay in touch with my classmates and some of my helpful teachers. I was very social and it could have been so easy; I just thought, either someone is a close friend and you talk all the time, or they’re a stranger and there’s no basis to keep in touch. That wasn’t the case at all, I now know.

Anyway, in the summer between my final two years of school, in contrast to the stress and burnout, my summer bike rides felt like I’d been scooped up into a ride in a hot air balloon. So free.

That’s what I thought of when I wandered out of the house today, on the solstice, into bright warm sunshine and a pristine blue sky that has lasted all day, and will go on until tonight’s sunset at 9:11 PM.

Columbia College Chicago is in bad financial straits these days, and has had a labor problem. Colleges in the US are closing, I read, at a rate of one per week, and the thought of it makes me so sad. I hope my old school can solve its problems.