LINCOLN PARK – As temperatures in Chicago topped 65 degrees this weekend, hundreds of stumbling, translucent North siders left their homes for the first time this season to descend upon the lakefront.
Despite the 30 mile per hour winds – which sources report made the 65 degree temperature feel closer to 55 – and the bitter cold of the crumbling concrete steps that line the entire north side of the lakeshore, Chicago residents dragged out last season’s musty beach towels, their emergency six packs of 312, and even sunscreen to bask in the partly sunny weather and take advantage of the UV index, which at its peak measured at a 2.
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“It’s honestly really beautiful,” said meteorologist and weatherman Robert Eggerton, 48, on this morning’s local broadcast. “I’d compare it to baby sea turtles instinctively making their way to the sea, or salmon returning to the very streams they were born into to spawn.”
According to Eggerton, the most impressive aspect of this annual migration are the wildly unfavorable conditions that residents will accept this time of year in order to spend time outside.
“These people are completely undeterred by the fact that their leisure spot of choice is a hostile, brutalist wall of barren concrete with no cushion for butts, heads, or joints, and no respite from the sun, wind, and waves,” he said. “It really underscores the severity of the mass psychosis that Chicago winter causes residents from November and March every year.”
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Robby Smith, 27, of Lakeview is one such Chicagoan who braved the objectively intolerable conditions to expose his fleshy pink exterior to the elements in the company of his similarly pallid peers.
“I love that I can only access the lakefront by traversing through a narrow, scary tunnel that reeks of urine underneath an 8-lane highway that separates many of the 2.7 million residents of our fine city from our greatest natural resource,” said Smith. “Going through that tunnel for the first time each April is like, ‘hellooooo summertime Chi!’”
Hannah Jones, 23, also expressed enthusiasm for the first lakefront outing of the season.
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“There’s really nothing like it,” Jones said. “I don’t even mind that my ass is basically frozen to the concrete and that the wind whipping my hair into my eyes could very well blind me. If that’s the way I lose my vision, at least the last thing I ever see is me, my friends, dozens of other hauntingly pale Chicagoans, and the majestic Lake Michigan.”
Jones was equally thrilled for the next stop on her and her friends’ Saturday plans: drinking $18 spritzes on a makeshift bar patio on a sidewalk next to a few dumpsters and four lanes of Ashland Avenue traffic.
While this weekend saw favorable temperatures, Chicagoans should hold off on rejoicing: a polar vortex will plunge the city from Fool’s Spring #2 into Rebound Winter #3 later this week. 5 more rebound winters are expected before the official start to the city's warm season.
