Day 10: Chicago, IL

Image of the day: My friend Patrick and I after more than 12 years without seeing one another.

Trip meter at start of day: 1,006.0 mi
Gas: None bought today

When I returned to my childhood hometown of Chicago, I got back in contact with a few family friends so that we could meet for the first time in years. Today, I met with all of those family friends. I had lunch with my godfather, and later that night we had dinner with Claire's godparents. But the big surprise came in the afternoon, when we met with our old neighbors, the McDermotts.

Honestly, I have very little memory of the McDermott family from my childhood, and the two daughters, Jackie and Jennifer, who are starting college and high school, respectively, have almost no recollection of me. In these situations, I suppose it's best to go into a re-introduction stage, so I offered some general college advice, talked about my life in Moldova, and so on and so forth. The real surprise from meeting with the McDermotts, however, was the two friends that Jackie brought with her; one of them was the younger sister of one of my best elementary school friends. I got Patrick's number from her, sent him a text message, and arranged to meet for drinks later that night. (Before anyone comments that a text message isn't the best way to contact someone after 12 years, I'll mention that Pat is mostly deaf. Although he can understand people and speak very clearly face-to-face because of a cochlear implant and his ability to read lips, a phone call from me wouldn't have worked at all.)

After dinner with Claire's godparents, I sent Pat another text message, and he and his girlfriend picked me up in her car in Lincoln Park. We went to a bar on Halsted Street, and talked for more than an hour, switching from stories from our childhood to details of our lives now, and then back to childhood. When there was a lull in the conversation, I would turn to Pat and say, "Zach Muhrer!" or the name of another one of our old classmates, and Pat would tell me what he knew about him.

While talking about one of our classmates, Pat said, "You know, he's got the job, the apartment, the girlfriend," counting off on his fingers in the same way one reads off a lengthy set of chores. He finished his sentence with funny hand gestures that resembled both hand puppets talking to one another and happy little birds; as if to say that having those things were both what defined happiness at our age and, at the same time, the most cliché arrangement you could ask for. I reminded him that he, too, had the job, the apartment and the girlfriend. "I know, I know," he said as he smiled and made the hand gestures again.

Pat and his girlfriend had to go to work the next morning, so they left the bar at about 11. I stayed another few minutes to watch the Cubs win in extra innings, and then walked back to my sister's apartment.