Favorite daughter

I’ve been going to the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership gathering near Chicago’s O’Hare airport – at the towering Lutheran Center – and at two nearby hotels – for five years now. It wasn’t until late during this year’s gathering – this week – that someone told me that the adjoining suburb, Park Ridge (pictured above from the Lutheran Center 11th floor), is essentially Secretary of State Clinton’s hometown. A few times – including Tuesday – I’ve walked around a neighborhood in what turns out to be southern Park Ridge. It was there that the then-Hillary Rodham grew up with her tough conservative Republican father Hugh and in the First United Methodist Church, where Rev. Donald Jones (pictured below with Hillary and then further below more recently) – briefly the youth pastor at her church (he eventually got in trouble for such things as taking Hillary and others to go hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preach in Chicago)– influenced her. Jones died earlier this year: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/nyregion/28jones.html

For the first time this year I rented a car during the Chicago CCSP trip. However, I used it to visit friends (see “Old Friends”). If there is a next time, perhaps then – with or without a rental car – perhaps I can find Hillary’s childhood home – on Wisner Street – and the church and one or both of Hillary’s high schools. I’m told that there are now walking tours of Obama Hyde Park/Chicago South Side neighborhood. I found no such evidence of Hillary hometown tours, but perhaps I’ll mount one of my own next summer (although see my criticism of a Clinton decision last week in http://guatemalacrescenthill.blogspot.com/2009/08/changing-situation_07.html

-- Perry