No, Not the Appliance

When we lived in Chicago, we saw some pretty unusual things, as you can imagine. Big cities offer the best chance at anonymity, and people can go about doing whatever it is they do. I'm not talking about staged things, like New York City's naked cowboy, I mean everyday people, being extraordinary (not always in a positive way) in that brief moment. There are two instances that I immediately recall.

One time, my husband and I were driving down the Eisenhower Expressway, and we saw a guy trying to push his car by himself up the off-ramp, which was uphill. My husband asked me to let him out so he could give the guy a hand. I did, parked the car, and I was walking back toward the expressway when I saw what I could only assume was the entire Forest Park police department converging on the place where my husband and this guy were. They were questioning my husband about driving the car, which we hadn't noticed was smashed, with a broken windshield. It was then that we remembered seeing another smashed car on the embankment of the expressway up the road from our exit.

Apparently, the guy who was trying to push his car had hit the other car and kept going. As the police are questioning my husband, the other guy is running his hand from his forehead through his hair, front to back. His hair was very dark. Seems he was bleeding from his forehead and was trying to conceal the injury from the police because he told the police my husband was driving. While the police are talking to my husband, the other guy is slowly backing away from the police toward the woods which were just beyond the scene. My husband yelled to the police, “He's gonna bolt!” The police caught and cuffed the guy, and they were just about to cuff my husband when I came walking up.

“Who are you?”

LouAnn Halas. That tall, light haired guy you're talking to is my fiance.

“Where did you come from?”

I told him how we were driving home from wherever it was that we went, my husband saw the guy struggling and got out to help. I was just coming back from parking our car.

Pointing to the cop car, “Do you know this guy?” Being cuffed in the police car, the guy couldn't wipe away the blood, so now it's trickling down his face.

Only from seeing him push the car up the off-ramp. Never saw him before today.

“You just saved your fiance a tour of the jail.”

Yeah, they were going to arrest my husband for doing what he thought was a good deed. Little did we know, he could have been charged as an accessory after the fact. As you can imagine, it was a long time before he helped a stranger again.

The other incident that comes to mind happened one sunny Sunday morning. My friend was visiting from out of town, and we decided to go for a drive around downtown Chicago, otherwise known as “The Loop”. I was showing him all the buildings that were noteworthy, telling him little bits of trivia about the buildings I'd learned through the years, and we were just enjoying the city.

We were doing part of the Blues Brothers tour; I showed him Lower Wacker Drive, and we were on our way to Daley Plaza, driving down Washington Street, when what did we see? Go ahead, take a wild guess. You'll never believe what we saw, even after I tell you.

There was a guy, dressed like a ninja.

(No, not that ninja)

Walking down the center of Washington Street.

All in black, head to toe. Like a ninja.

He had his hood up, and after we passed him, we saw his face was covered, too.

Across his back, we saw something shiny, glinting in the sun. It was long, maybe 3 feet, and about an inch or two wide, and very thin.

What was it? What were we seeing shining in the sun?

A katana. Just hanging over his shoulder, down his back. A guy, dressed like a ninja, sauntering down the center of Washington Street, with a katana casually slung over his back, like you'd wear a backpack.

A ninja wearing a katana meandering down the center of Washington Street on a sunny Sunday morning in Chicago's loop.

This was long before cell phone cameras, and we weren't the type to bring cameras to a regular excursion, so you'll just have to believe me that it really happened, because it really did happen.

My friend wanted me to go back to see him again, but I kinda wanted to be away from there.

What are some unusual sights you've seen through the years??