Crosswalks to Nowhere

I just finished re-reading Valley Voices by John Russell Ghrist. This is a 1996 history of radio stations that were based throughout the suburbs of Chicago, with a primary focus of the towns in the Fox River Valley.

There are all kinds of interesting tidbits in the book, including the histories of Chicago stations WGN, WMAQ, WBBM, WLS, and all sorts of suburban stations like Elgin's WRMN, Aurora's WAUR, and Arlington Heights' own WWMM.

There are sections about WFVH (Forest View High School) and WHCM (Harper College), two stations that carried the dulcet tones of my voice. There's also a brief section on Zenith's radio station and the twin antenna towers that once stood at the corners of Rand, Central, and Mt Prospect roads in Mt Prospect. (I saw those towers almost every day when I was growing up.)

This was truly a labor of love for the author, given the level of detail that appears in the book. It must have been difficult to collect all this information, given the fact that most of it was compiled in the days long before Google and Wikipedia.

I had an e-mail exchange with the author recently, in which he told me he received many upper-level credits from Indiana University for his work on the book, resulting in the degree he'd been working on. He also said that updating the book-- even bringing it from 1996 to the present-- would be a monumental task, and that radio stations don't care about their history and "want to tell you about the junk they are playing these days." Excellent points.

Mr Ghrist is currently the host of Midwest Ballroom on WDCB in Glen Ellyn, and occasionally speaks at local libraries on the history of Chicago radio.

Two versions of this book exist: the version that's linked above is a softcover, and there was an earlier comb-bound "manuscript" version which contains significantly more detail and many more photos of the people, stations, and station logos and advertisements. This earlier version was self-published by Mr Ghrist in 1993 and, while it has more of an "amateur" feel to it, gives the reader an idea of how tremendous this effort truly was.

If you're a fan of radio, especially Chicago radio, and you happen to run across a copy of Valley Voices, be sure to pick it up.

Spring is finally on its way. This weather this past weekend was beautiful and we were able to clear up the remaining leaves and other garden debris from the yard.

And this little guy is pushing his way through the ground...

Has anyone else noticed that the music in Walgreens is a little more, uh, hip than it used to be?

Okay, I'll admit that by "hip" I mean "the sort of thing they may play on your 'classic rock ' station's 'Deep Cuts' segment."

Over the past couple of weeks, I've heard Pink Floyd's "Learning to Fly," Jimi Hendrix' "Little Wing," and "I Hear You Knocking" by Dave Edmunds, all while shopping for things like shaving cream and coffee filters. And this was in a couple different stores, so it's not like the Walgreens I usually visit has suddenly become a Muzak rebel.

I couldn't tell you what they were playing before-- shows how innocuous it must have been.

I wonder if playing the Rolling Stones will increase sales of Geritol...

We attended this year's Chef's Fest at Arlington International Racecourse. You can hear all about it on our Discover Woodfield! podcast.

Here's Emma with Sonic the Hedgehog, who was visiting from GameWorks in Schaumburg.

I've long been a fan of Coca-Cola. That's pretty well-known in my immediate circles, and, many years ago, by the people who used to frequent the alt.food.cocacola Usenet group.

By now, most of us know that in 1985 Coca-Cola changed the formula of their flagship product and the backlash against "New Coke" resulted in the re-introduction of the "original formula" as Coca-Cola Classic.

But all was not the same. Pre-"New Coke" Coca-Cola was sweetened with sugar, and "Coca-Cola Classic" is sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup, as you see here. HFCS is significantly cheaper than sugar.

During Passover, people who follow the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition are forbidden from consuming products containing certain grains, including corn. Therefore, the Chicago Coca-Cola Bottling Company produces a limited amount of Coca-Cola Classic sweetened with sugar, which is sold in grocery stores in areas with larger Jewish populations.

Here's the delightful ingredient list:

You can identify Kosher Coca-Cola here in the Chicago area by looking for the seal of the Chicago Rabbinical Council on the can:

The cans in these photos have the same UPC code, so there's no way of differentiating the product at the scanner. If you're seeking the Kosher stuff, look for the identifiers I've shown above.

Now, to further confuse the situation, many foodies claim that Coca-Cola made in Mexico, which is available at many Mexican grocery stores in our area, tastes the same as "original" Coca-Cola. It certainly contains sugar, as you see:

But the last time I had a Mexican Coke (in Mexico a couple of years ago), it seemed to taste more like "New Coke" (or "Coke II") than the original, pre-1985 formula.

That brings us to today's experiment.

The three containers shown in the photo at the top of this page hold, from left to right, Kosher Coca-Cola, HFCS-sweetened Coca-Cola Classic, and a Coca-Cola (note the absence of the word "Classic") bottled in Mexico.

My experiment was to identify which drink came from which source, and to note the differences between each. I would take three clean glasses and have my lovely assistants pour equal amounts of each product into each of the three glasses. No ice. The cans and bottle were all kept next to each other in the refrigerator for several hours prior to the test and were opened at the time of the experiment.

And the results:

I was able to identify the HFCS-sweetened Coke Classic, but I confused the Mexican and Kosher Cokes. They both tasted very similar, which leads me to believe the "New Coke" taste of the Mexican product is a thing of the past.

Anyway, I now have a couple of six-packs of the Kosher stuff in my pantry, ready for when I want "The Real Thing."