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Hecht, Ben, 1894-1964

"A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago"

But this does not apply to train riders alone. In the summer
time there are the revelers on the Municipal Pier and the beach loungers
and all others who sit or take walks within sight of the water.
During the summer day the beaches are lively and the vari-colored bathing
suits and parasols offer little carnival panels at the ends of the east
running streets. As you pass them on the north side bus or on the south
side I. C., the sun, the swarm of bathers smeared like bits of brightly
colored paint across the yellow sand and the obliterating sweep of water
remind you of the modernist artists whose pictures are usually
lithographic blurs.
* * * * *
Yet winter and summer, even when the thousands upon thousands of bathers
cover the sand like a shower of confetti and when there are shouts and
circus excitements along the beach, people who look at the lake seem
always to become sad. One wonders why.
Perhaps it is because the inanimate sweep of the water, its hugeness and
silence, make one forget the petty things and the greedy trifles which
form the routine of one's day. And when one forgets these things one
remembers, alas, something they pleasantly obscured by their presence.


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