Giving something back to Wrigley Field

By Ron Kantowski

Thursday, Aug. 13, 2009 | 10:44 a.m.

NOW

I left my glasses in Wrigley Field.

Capitalize it with quotation marks and it reads like a Tony Bennett song.

"I Left My Glasses in Wrigley Field." Just add a mournful twinkling of piano keys and brushes on a snare drum.

Well, maybe not.

Anyway, this is not the minor catastrophe it may appear to be. While it made focusing on home plate a little difficult from my seat in the left-field bleachers for Tuesday night's Cubs-Phillies game, I needed a new prescription anyway and had been putting it off for months.

I think this was just Harry Caray's way of telling me to make an appointment with my optician.

THEN

I experienced sensory overload during my four days in Chicago. From the sweet fragrance of mustard-slathered hot dogs at Wrigley Field to the clickety-click of horseshoes on asphalt of a Hansom cab on Michigan Avenue to the unmitigated roar of an "L" train around The Loop, I absorbed it all. I cruised around this magnificent city with the windows rolled down -- which should be the rule when the weather's warm and a gentle breeze is blowing off Lake Michigan.

But if I had to pick my favorite sound or smell of the trip, it would be that of beer bottles clinking another toast and the sound of sisters I had known since kindergarten but hadn't seen in 30 years laughing and laughing and laughing, as if time had stood still or didn't matter.