From there, I walked six blocks south on Green Street to Randolph Street before making a right turn and going one more block. I made my second visit to JP Graziano’s for lunch. I asked for a tuna sandwich and they seemed surprised I was ordering tuna instead of the Mr. P. What was interesting was I had only visited once and they still recognized me and remembered what I ordered about four weeks ago.
Of course, I asked for very little mayo, just enough to hold the sandwich together. It was no issue, they mixed a can of Genova tuna, which is marinated in olive oil, and combined it with celery, red onion, roasted peppers, and artichoke hearts before topping it with mild giardinera, provolone, lettuce, and tomato. And it all goes on that crusty D’Amato’s Italian bread. With a bottle of Sprite, it cost me a little over $9.00. All the ingredients tasted so fresh and full of flavor. Even though, I prefer the Mr. P with the cold cuts, this was a lighter alternative and it tasted tremendous.
2) Then, I took the pink line two stops, from Morgan to Polk, which basically right near Rush Hospital, so I was on the west side, about five blocks from the United Center. Amazingly, I had never set foot in Little Italy in my 12 years living in Chicagoland. It wasn’t overly impressive, it seemed small, but I recognized a few famous restaurants like Pompeii and Rosebud. I walked over to the Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame on Taylor St. It wasn’t a huge museum, just three rooms over two floors, but I found so much great memorabilia. Plenty of Mike Piazza stuff, of course. I saw baseball uniforms, Olympic gold medals from hockey and swimming, football helmets, wrestling gear, golf bags, boxing gloves, etc. Legends like Phil Mickelson, Dan Marino, Andy Robustelli, Ed Giacomin, Macho Man Randy Savage, Mike Modano, Ron Santo, Joe Torre, Vince Lombardi, Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, Tony Lazerri, Matt Biondi, Mark Bavaro, and Cammi Granato. It only took me about 90 minutes to go through the museum and the $5.00 charge was worth it. I just wish they had souvenirs available. Oh, and I found a Daily News article from June, 1946. “Pep KO’s Bartolo.” Poor Sal Bartolo, letting down my family name…
3) From there I headed across the street to charge my phone at Starbuck’s for an hour. Then, it was Scarufo’s, an old school Italian bakery. I thought about a cannoli, but I went with a pumpkin bar that had this almond crust. Really, really nice dessert. I’m sure if I liked cappuccino, that would have been a perfect time for one
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4) By now, the wind was blowing a little stiffer, maybe 15 mph. I walked through it about two blocks west to Ashland St, where I caught the 9 bus, and took it north to Fullerton, and walked back over to the Squared Circle, Lisa Marie Varon’s/Victoria/Tara’s wrestling-themed restaurant. I had actually gone there after work on Friday night to hang out with Jay Lethal and Veda Scott, from Ring of Honor. I scarfed down delicious pizza wontons, a stuffed Windy City burger with Monterey Jack, avocado, onions, mushrooms, bacon, avocado, and aioli, and had a few locally brewed beers. It was so cool watching old ROH and WWE SmackDown with two of ROH’s biggest stars. There was one point when Bryan Danielson was on the ROH DVD, circa 2006. On the adjacent TV was Daniel Bryan on SmackDown in the present day. It was pretty funny. He has much more hair now, to say the least! Maybe the coolest moment for me, besides taking my pic with Veda, was when the Real Americans came on, Zeb Colter gave his usual speech, and I stood up along with Jay and said in a loud, clear voice, “WE THE PEOPLE!” Can’t buy memories like that.
This time, I came for the Glory By Honor pre-show party from 3-5 pm. I met Tadarius Thomas and ACH for the first time and they even sat at my table. They both ate pizza wontons and stuffed burgers with fries too, which I thought was cool, considering they’re both known for their agility and high-flying. I also said hi to Jimmy Jacobs, we’ve met a couple of times now. Good ol’ Q even came after work, and he of course, got his Mac Attack burger without the bacon. Lisa always makes fun of him for ordering the same thing, and I don’t blame her!
5) Around 5:30, the three wrestlers, along with 20 of us boarded a small bus to take us to the Frontier Fieldhouse in Chicago Ridge. We tried watching a NXT DVD, but of course, only the audio would work. Wrestling on the radio doesn’t exactly translate well. I sent next to a young woman named Malin, who came to Chicago from France, just to see ROH. She spoke English very well and is very blunt; she has no problem making fun of anyone in a playful way. Hard to make her smile, but I’m sure she was just playing hard to get.
6) The ride took about an hour; we had plenty of traffic getting to the highway. I didn’t get any merchandise this time. I’d been spending enough on food and the bus ride. Of course, ring announcer Bobby Cruise made sure to avoid me; he still couldn’t handle my Jets beating his Patriots the weekend prior. Very sad, isn’t it? Anyway, the Ring of Honor show was awesome. Kevin Steen vs. Michael Bennett was fun, especially when Steen did CM Punk’s finisher in front of Maria, Bennett’s fiancé aka Punk’s ex. And he flipped her off too! Roderick Strong vs. Paul London had us on our feet. The eight-man elimination main event told a great story; it was really entertaining. World champion Adam Cole had to have gotten a concussion on Michael Elgin’s top rope powerbomb that ended the match. I have no idea how he showed up at the after party. One of the highlights out of the ring was Q and I introducing Malin to Jay Lethal. She was so scared to meet him, but he happily took a picture with her and signed a photo. He immediately recognized me and said “Hey, we had dinner together last night!” That was a pretty awesome feeling.
7) I immediately boarded the bus back and we all watched “A Night of Hoopla,” the last ROH show in Chicago. Roderick joined us and we all stopped at the liquor store next to Rosa’s to get some “goodies” for the ride back. I went with a 24-ounce MGD. Q was already back by the time we arrived. I had a hot dog at the show, but hadn’t really eaten a meal in 12 hours. I got pesto chicken pizza and an oatmeal cookie shake. The key was to grind the cookies down into the shake and drink them through the straw. Delicious! And I liked the pizza, I think I would order one with tomato sauce next time, but I liked the crust. It was 12 inches, so a typical medium, and I had no problem finishing it off.
8) Q and I, along with our acquaintances Greg and Chris, chatted a little with Todd Sinclair, the head ref. But mostly, we let the wrestlers hang with each other. I did get to see Eddie Kingston of Outlaw, Inc. And he’s a diehard Giants fan. Of course, I wore my Chad Pennington jersey, so of course, he gave me a “Fuck the Jets,” before shaking my hand.
9) I left the Squared Circle around 2 a.m. Thankfully, Q dropped me off at the Logan Square station, so I would have a shorter ride back to Cumberland. I had lost my subway card, so I bought the new Ventra card, which I was eventually going to have to do anyway, since Ventra is taking over as the way to use public trans in the city. No big deal, I lost about $5.00 on the lost card. But man, that was 25 long minutes back to Cumberland surrounded by a bunch of drunks in Halloween costumes. Then came the not-so-short 40-minute drive home and I stumbled in the house half-asleep around 4 am. I think it took three minutes for me to collapse in bed.
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