By Stephanie Shaw

It is bathing-suit weather, and we have just fended off an attack from our sister-in-law. She is breaking our balls because we refuse to wear a bikini. Our sister-in-law wears a bikini. We point out our age, and our childbearing body, as an excuse. We mention that the super-elastic bubble plastic that once held our abdominal wall together has long since mutinied. We mention that our belly is not the sort of belly one shows off in public. And she says “So what?” And we say, “People will take one look and think that it’s been in a fire. Or some sort of arcane industrial accident out of Stephen King, like it got caught in a laundry mangler, or put through a diabolical sieve.”

Our belly is remarkable. It has accommodated, at various times, an array of infants. Now it hangs loosely from its moorings and it is soft and crinkled and shiny, like a chenille sweater that should be hand-washed but was mistakenly put through the clothes dryer. Our sister-in-law’s brother tells us that it is like velvet, that he shares an important history with it, that it feels good against his belly. He regularly puts his lips on it. We think this is fine, and we tell our husband so, but we tell his sister that we are not prepared to share our remarkable belly with the municipal pool-swimming public, and she tells us that it’s our body and we should glory in it and never mind what anyone else thinks and we think this is a peculiar philosophy, spouting as it does from the pie hole of someone who clearly visits the salon every six weeks to get hot wax poured onto her pubic hair. Read the rest of this entry »

By David Witter

Formerly part of the Medinah Athletic Club, the swimming pool at 505 North Michigan is a 1920s Hollywood/Arabian fantasy, complete with gilded fountains and thousands of hand-laid mosaic tiles surrounding a Junior Olympic-sized natatorium. Now belonging to the Hotel Inter-Continental, it has attracted more than its share of celebrities and artists. Built in 1929, the screen’s first Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller showed off his jungle dives there. During the 1940s, screen and swimming siren Esther Williams also graced its waters. But the most notable of these may have been Tennessee Williams. Like “The Night of the Iguana”’s Rev. Lawrence T. Shannon returning to the Pacific Ocean, Williams regularly sought refuge from a hostile, critical world in the pool’s aqua blue waters. Read the rest of this entry »

By Jenny Seay

I don’t know what I expected as I followed Lisa through the dark gangway, past the opening of a rusted, chain-link gate. But I distinctly remember feeling disappointed—the yard, its unkempt grass strewn with beer cans and battered lawn chairs, was nothing like Lisa had described.

She adjusted her purse strap and shoved a thick strand of blonde hair behind her ear before turning to face me.

“You know, it’s not normally this grungy.” Her tone was hushed, but hardly inconspicuous enough to go unnoticed by the boys awaiting our arrival. They snapped to attention, and Dwayne, who had a hopeless crush on Lisa, lumbered over to greet us. Read the rest of this entry »

By David Witter

No chlorine. No walls. No ladders. There is nothing like treading water over the rolling waves of Lake Michigan and looking up at Navy Pier, Lake Shore Drive, or the Chicago skyline while you do it. Take a mask or goggles with you and on a sunny day you can see schools of minnows, shiny green perch, skittering crawfish and the occasional big white carp hanging out on, under and between the rocks on the lake bottom. Or dive into the murky black water after nightfall, then open your eyes underwater to complete darkness.

Beach closings, a falling lake level, more aggressive lifeguards and reconstruction of shoreline walls make swimming in Lake Michigan more of a chore, but there are still great places to experience the urban wonder of actually swimming in the lake.
For good swimmers, (I was a lifeguard for eight years) the best way to experience Lake Michigan is swimming off Chicago’s numerous rocks and ledges. In our recent past, any area that was not a sand beach, from Grand Avenue to Rogers Park, was littered with jagged, broken and deteriorating cement walls. Many a summer’s day I have climbed, hung and contorted my body against crashing waves to dive off of a jagged rock into the lake. Entering is the easy part, as getting out usually requires crawling up a cement block covered with slick seaweed or finding a handhold of stone or rusted rebar. There are generally no lifeguards in these areas, and the people along the secluded shoreline are often too busy making out, drinking, smoking reefer or staring at the occasional topless or thong-wearing bather to help you, so don’t try this alone. But if you are young, adventurous and a good swimmer, there are still a few places left where you and a friend can dive in and swim for as long as you want in almost any direction. Read the rest of this entry »

By Margaret Wappler

In order to slink into the waters of the opulent Hotel Intercontinental pool, I needed stealth, charisma and slap-it-together brains. I was game for the challenge. If you’ve seen a picture, or have been lucky enough to dip your toe into the water of the Junior Olympic-sized pool tucked away in the towering Hotel Intercontinental, you can see why.

This is not a pool enclosed by grubby concrete and piss-warm from a thousand neighborhood kids. It’s an encapsulated lake, surrounded by Moorish decadence—Spanish tiles, marble pillars, cast-iron chandeliers. Formerly part of the old Medinah Athletic Club, the splendid architecture calls into mind a castle in the Moors, retooled with
Jazz-Age snazz. Read the rest of this entry »

By Ellen Fox

You don’t have to leave town anymore to spend a day waterside with the rod and reel. Yes, you can go fishing right here in Chicago—on the Lake as well as on the much-maligned Chicago River—and this summer the folks at the Chicago Park District are seeing to it that you’re encouraged to catch some.

“Clean-up efforts have revitalized the water and revitalized the fish,” says Park District special project manager Bob Long (“the fishing guy”), and over the last few years, word of better fishing has really gotten around, says Henry Palmisano of Brideport’s stalwart Henry’s Sports & Bait Shop. Should you need any more proof of the renaissance, the prestigious Bassmaster Classic will be held along the Lakeshore—its first time in Chicago ever—this July. Read the rest of this entry »

The only real cure for the city is to get out of the city. Luckily for Chicagoans, there are literally thousands of camping opportunities, many of them 100 miles or less from that little patch of green in your front yard you call nature. Within the tri-state area (Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan)a number of parks and preserves offer everything from hang gliding to hiking that will take you far enough to forget the office, but close enough to still be in cellular range. The following is a mere sampling of what is available to the weekend camper. Read the rest of this entry »

With more than 4,500 miles of coastline, the Great Lakes region offers the beach-bound a diverse selection for building sand castles. While a car ride of less than two hours will take you to several fantastic natural beaches carved out around Lake Michigan’s historic sand dunes, a walk or a bus is all it takes to reach Chicago’s rather extraordinary string of 28 lakefront public beaches. Chicago’s beaches, like the city itself, offer a lively ethnic mix of revelers, as well as a level of upkeep that ranges from excellent to sadly unkempt. Oak Street and North Avenue have fairly established reps, but here’s a sampler of some spots you might not have discovered, organized from south to north. Unless noted, beaches are guarded from 9:00am to 9:30pm daily from June to Labor Day, and have both changing facilities and concession stands. Read the rest of this entry »

By Dale Eastman

Javier Torres knew the sounds and smells of Harrison Park even before he’d arrived in Pilsen, on the city’s Southwest Side, just a month ago. Torres’ father was for years part of the regular summer migration of temporary workers between Mexico and Chicago. Since money was always tight, tales of summer ballgames and sweet mangos bought from street vendors were often the only offerings he’d bring home to his son.

Factory work was what brought Torres’ father to Chicago, and Torres, an engineering instructor in Coahuila, Mexico, who’s now on summer sabbatical, tried it for a while, too. But working six days a week, 10-12 hours a day, for only $4.25 an hour didn’t suit him as well as it had his father 30 years before, and the tall and wiry Torres often found his thoughts wandering back to the park. Read the rest of this entry »