From Soldier Field to Hammond and back: A journey like no other

HAMMOND, Ind. — I write to you from a territory worlds apart from our fair city of Chicago.

A travel-weary visitor, having journeyed here without sustenance or rest, can only wonder if he has reached the metropolitan rim of Indianapolis.

Colts country, this must be.

Let a preposterous scribe take you along on his expedition to Hammond, will you?

It begins at Soldier Field, home to the Bears for the past half-century. Such gridiron feats the Bears have achieved here! There was their championship team of 1985, and have I mentioned their championship team of 1985?

Alas, the Bears are reported to be leaving this venerable house of Avellini, McNown, Trestman and Eberflus. Given the organization possesses the turning radius of an ocean freighter, a move to an as-yet-unbuilt stadium in Hammond would likely take place sometime in the next three to 100 years.

The route from here to Hammond is treacherous and long, so we must go. I consider penning notes of farewell to my offspring, who neither know what their idiotic father is up to on this day nor care in the slightest, yet, gripped with too much excitement, pull from the curb in a vehicle maimed on one side by an alley post.

Reaching the state line — Chicago on one side, Hammond on the other — will take nearly forever, but I am determined. Some 13 miles and half a gallon of precious gasoline later, I glimpse the towering limestone obelisk I’m seeking. Indeed, it is the Illinois-Indiana State Line Boundary Marker, constructed in 1838 by the office of the United States Surveyor General, and pierces the clouds at over 15 feet tall. Who knew Hammond boasted such a majestic skyscraper?

From here, I begin tracking the scent — not quite literally — to the proposed stadium build site on and around the Lost Marsh Golf Course, which sprawls betwixt and between Wolf Lake and the Calumet Avenue thoroughfare. For help with this, I consult a trusty guide, googling, “What does it smell like in Hammond, Indiana?”

Artificial intelligence, which mustn’t be doubted, provides an intoxicating list of “common odor profiles”: petrochemicals and gas (“the scent of refining crude oil, asphalt and diesel”); fermenting corn and soap (“a sweet, organic and soapy smell that wafts over from nearby factories and agricultural processing plants”); and sulfur (“rotten eggs”).

It all sounds like hazardous waste to me, and I am enthralled to discover a golf course that has been fleshed out atop rolling hills of slag — rocky waste — and chemically treated human waste. A little slice of heaven! With our great nation in a full-on deregulation renaissance, it is buoying to imagine that the average Hammonder has forgotten more about hazardous waste than a rube from Chicago will ever know.

More thoughts stir as I gaze out upon the wondrous Wolf Lake. Who needs Lake Michigan when there’s a glimmering body of water roughly 1/20,000th the size right here? Who needs the Museum Campus when the BP Whiting Refinery (the Midwest’s largest oil refinery) and the Dover Chemical Corporation are standing sentry on either side of Lost Marsh? What a place to Bear Down this could be!

Less than five minutes by maimed vehicle later, I darken the doors of the Sportsmen’s Corner saloon, which sits on the border of Hammond and Whiting. I approach the bar and am quickly rebuffed by the man to my left, who wants nothing to do with an interloping reporter. It’s no problem, because the man to my right seems almost to have been waiting for me.

Clad in a Cubs T-shirt and seated across from a refrigerator festooned with Bears logos, he turns out to be Michael Chorba, 69, a lifelong resident of these parts and a co-owner of the establishment. Taking stock of the man, I find myself impressed that a Colts fan would put on such a welcoming show.

Mining for the truth, I ask him how much he secretly hates the Bears.

“How much do I hate ’em? Zero! I absolutely love ’em,” he answers.

But isn’t this a different world than Chicago?

“No, it’s identical. This is Chicago,” he says.

Has he ever been to Chicago?

“Yes,” he says. “Been to many Bears games. Yes.”

And if the Bears should plant their flag on this side of the state line?

“I’m getting the chills just thinking about it,” he says. “It would be awesome.”

Dizzied, I embark on the long voyage home. In an act of alarming foolishness, I make a wrong turn and soon find myself aghast at what I’ve done. The blasted Skyway! At the first chance, I exit — but not before I’ve heaved $8.10 into the vortex of inhumanity.

Back in the gentle bosom of the city, I cross the Calumet River at 95th St. and stock up on provisions at Calumet Fisheries in the form of smoked pepper and garlic salmon and a bag of fried perch. How much of the succulent fish will be left by the time I taste the aroma of home on the North Side? Hopefully, more than enough to share.

By now, I’ve burned through so much gasoline — a couple of gallons? — it occurs to me that a smarter man might have had the industriousness to convert a pile of the aforementioned human waste into fuel for his maimed vehicle. There is still much to learn.