Published: October 21, 2009 11:46 pm         

MARK BENNETT: From cheezborgers to pumpkin ice cream, everything goes better with autumn

TERRE HAUTE — Most folks consider fall to be a season of transition.

We mourn the passing of summer, file the vacation pictures and stick our sandals in the corner of the closet. Then, the mourning shifts to moaning, because — as we like to increasingly remind ourselves — “winter is coming.”

Instead, fall should be a destination on our seasonal calendars, not an off-ramp. Sugar maple trees bide their time through the green of spring and summer, and then explode with brilliant orange in October. The air peaks, too, chilled just right, like a cold root beer or a glass of wine. At last, temperatures hit the sweatshirt zone.

That’s not a transition; it’s the prime time of the year, must-see weather, the season so nice they named it twice — “fall” and “autumn.”

Its perfection swept over me shortly after my wife and I dined on “cheezborgers” in the Billy Goat Tavern in downtown Chicago a couple of weekends ago. The barkeep gave her a distinctive paper hat while she sat, sipping a Diet Coke, and I stood at a counter next to the grill, piling pickles and mustard on top of our borgers.

There’s nothing autumnal about this place. It’s hidden from the sun beneath Michigan Avenue, whose skyscrapers, shops, parks, churches, theaters and museums make that street the “Magnificent Mile.” A stairway takes you under the bright, bustling avenue to its dark “lower level.” The tavern is at the bottom of the stairs, adorned with a neon sign and a placard declaring it the home of the “cheezborger, cheezborger, cheezborger, no Pepsi … Coke” made famous in the classic “Saturday Night Live” skit starring John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray.

The “SNL” connection was one reason I wanted to experience this place, and with that memory, the grill crew didn’t disappoint. Ordering a single-patty cheeseburger is, well, impossible. The Greek guys manning the grill — armed with blank, impatient stares — insist the “doublecheez is better deal. You get doublecheez.” And, of course, anyone crazy enough to request fries or Pepsi gets scolded with a “no fries … cheeps” and a “no Pepsi … Coke,” straight out of the Not Ready for Primetime Players’ scripts.

The impatient service actually felt comforting, in a dictatorial kind of way. On a weekend getaway, you want to leave the headache-inducing job decisions behind. So the Billy Goat staff tells you what you want.

Which brings me to the other reason I wanted to see this place. Located just a few steps from the Chicago Tribune building, this gritty, underground spot has been the legendary watering hole of Second City journalists for decades. That includes the Mark Twain of 20th-century newspaper columnists, the late Mike Royko. He dominates the Billy Goat’s writers Wall of Fame, and rightly so. Royko had as much tolerance for Chicago’s crooked politicians and society’s excuse-makers as the tavern’s cooks do with some indecisive tourist.

Admittedly, I’d have gotten a lecture from Royko if he were there that day. I drank a light beer with my cheezborger — Bud Lite, to be specific. Light beer, he once wrote, tastes like it’s “brewed through a horse.”

Humbled, chuckling and full, we left the dim, quaintness of the Billy Goat, ascended the stairs onto Michigan Avenue and re-emerged into the autumn sunshine. This was our third day in Chicago, but that moment felt so October. For me, it’s the richest month of the year, filled with special birthdays, dates and memories. Driveway basketball with the kids. The World Series. College football. ISU’s Homecoming parade. Pumpkin ice cream at the Covered Bridge Festival. With all of that, the falling leaves are like nature’s confetti.

We took on the Magnificent Mile, undoubtedly walking several miles in three days from “The Bean” — a huge, shiny, stainless steel sculpture officially known as “Cloud Gate” — at Millennium Park, to the Hancock Center Observatory, with diversions to the House of Blues, Bin 36 and Harry Caray’s. The latter locale reinforced the October-ness of the weekend, as highlights of World Series-bound baseball teams flickered on the TV screens with, once again, no sign of Harry’s beloved Cubs.

A day afterward, back in the Wabash Valley, we roamed Bridgeton with thousands of other Covered Bridge Festival-goers in sweatshirts, searching for pumpkin ice cream in the cool fall breeze. Autumn is here.



Mark Bennett can be reached at (812) 231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.

     

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