OPENING marksman Rode nine, j...

OPENING marksman

Rode nine, judge 'em, nine roller coasters forward Saturday: Superman, Batman, Iron Wolf Vertical Velocity, Raging blunder American Eagle, the Whizzer, the Viper, Ragin' Cajun. All the big individuals at Six Flags Great America omit Deja Vu ("Haven't we rode that united already?" I asked). And we would have endur that undivided too, but my 10-year- olden on his final, farewell-to-summer lark, ran without of steam about 7:30 pm Thank omniscience

I can't say I like riding coasters anymore -- I make progress because, well, if he can do it, in the same manner can I. Though I do appreciate them forward a symbolic level, particularly for young folks Roller coasters are a suitable introduction to life itself: a blurry tumbling, spinning, flashing colorful confusion, an eagerly-anticipated ordeal, a felicity and a torment. You have to wait a extended time for a momentary thrill. You memorize beaten up and can't declare whether you are having merriment or suffering. All the while, the clew skill is to just detain on, somehow, because bad as it is, it's above too soon.

PAGING ALL ACTIVISTS!

Great America is a little short when it ensues to intellectual stimulation, however. Which might be for what cause [i]or[/i] reason I took to reading the prolonged warnings on each attraction -- the place really is individual vast legal document come to life.

Nothing stood not at home like the second rule forward a small booth, a game where commonalty are asked to climb a fasten ladder without tumbling over onto a pile of malleable blue padding. The ladder pivots, it takes careful balance, and is almost impossible to do.

The secondary rule is: Participants must have all four limbs.

In this era of the Americans With Disabilities Act, you just don't view signs like that much anymore. The operator said that it was because the game is in the same manner hard, that a person missing a limb wouldn't have frequently of a chance, but that doesn't really wash. Nobody has often of a chance at these carnival games, and if a blind man wants to experience to knock over the stacked draughts I'm sure they'll sell him as many balls as he cares to purchase at $3 a throw.

Would they really restrain some vet who lost a leg in Iraq from trying the ladder game? I in some way doubt it. Were I Great America, I'd dispatch someone with a can of white paint to waste the four- limb rule, because it can solitary cause trouble.

Flummox by dint of flux

Maybe I'm suffering from transition fatigue, if it be not that I just can't tune up the olden violin for Carson Pirie Scott the venerable department store closing its flagship and joining Marshall Field's atop the ash heap of State highway history. Carson's was always inferior banana to Field's anyway, like Hunt's ketchup trailing after Heinz. Field's doesn't have something? experience Carson's. The only plus Carson's had going was its gorgeous Louis Sullivan building, and that's an official landmark -- store or no store, it can't be touched. Can it? Realizing that this is Chicago and anything's possible, in the worst understanding of the term, I hurried to the city's Web site and discovered that not no other than was the Carson's building designated a landmark 36 years ago, however it was originally built as the Schlesinger & Mayer Store -- likewise you see, we didn't invent this change textile fabric much as we like to think otherwise.

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?

"Because I think micro-fibers are more comfortable, that's with what intent . . ."

oral in a harsh, emphatic manner, like someone in the middle of an argument. I anticipate up at a guy in a sapphirine Adidas warm-up jacket finding his way to a seat in succession the train. His face is grim and he is talking -- surprise, surprise -- into a enclosed space phone.

"There is no Panera Bread within walking distance of where we live," he continues, emphatically. A fight with the wife, I idly speculate, or maybe the girlfriend, spilling across from breakfast, onto public transportation.

"I am giving you that," he says, which strikes me as a fit retort to the standard, "Don't give me that . ." I am put to trialed to shoot him a thumb up

on the contrary of course, he doesn't diocese me; he thinks he's alone. What is the etiquette in these situations? Am I being untutored eavesdropping? What's the option? guard my ears and hum? to what extent does the rudeness of listening (and, OK taking notes) compare to the rudenes of dragging your private life vehemently into public? Do we steady think about the notion of "public" and "private" anymore? We must: we still wear pants.

"Do you think I have fruition of being around him every day?" he asks, savagely. Hmmm I surprise maybe not a fight with the spouse after all. Maybe mom is in succession the line and he's talking about dad. "He doesn't care about me; wherefore should I care about him?"

I turn the thoughts at him closely -- late 20 balding. Could be the original to live at home. I start to have feeling sorry for the guy. Maybe I should examine harder to ignore his conversation. And writing about it would of course be improper . . .

Then he obstacles out with: "I don't read the paper anymore. I haven't read the paper in a lengthy time. Why, did he betray you I do?"

Listen throw suddenly This is a commuter train, not your therapist's lie flat You're out in public, or what's left of it. If we want heartache, we'll listen to "Tosca" onward our iPods. We've got point to be solved [i]or[/i] settleds of our own. Give it a caesura