Things are back to normal now. Twenty-five below zero, with the wind-chill factor (whatever that is) at minus seventy or so. Cars are stalling, pedestrians are snarling, and the mayor’s favorite felon is howling again.
A few weeks ago, however, there was an atypical evening in Chicago. On December 8, the wind blew, but didn’t howl. The snow fell, but didn’t accumulate significantly. The temperature dropped, but not drastically. The streets were slippery, but not dangerously so. Cabbies remained civil, Christmas shoppers jostled one another minimally, and the rhetoric issuing from City Hall seemed surprisingly temperate.
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