Chicago Chicago That Toddlin' Town

They have the time, the time of their life

I saw a man who danced with his wife.

Actually, I didn't see anybody dancing.

But we did have a great time.

We took a river cruise that highlighted the architecture of the city.

Here's a few pictures of the buildings.

We went to the Museum of Science and Industry.

  I went down a coal mine, learned about corn,

          pigs, trains, tornadoes 

            and lots of other cool stuff.

              
    This train was the first to travel over 100 mph!

We also saw a Jim Henson exhibit (creator of one of my all time favorite shows - the Muppets)

We went to Buddy Guy's Legends Cafe

for a live blues set.

We went to the Hard Rock Cafe to look for James Young's (from Styx) jumpsuit.

They apparently moved it somewhere else.

The host said that they re-decorated a couple of years ago.

They did have the drum set behind the bar from Styx's Todd Sucherman.
This is me sitting in front of it.

Now, for anyone who wonders about the song title, here's an explanation from www.wordwizard.com about how the term "toddling" came to be used.

Hey my blog can be educational too!!!

This is an age-old question especially for Chicagoans. I believe that the answer is that there is no definite answer. Fred Fisher (1875-1942) wrote words and music (1922) for the very successful song, “Chicago (that toddlin’ town)” in praise of his adopted city (he had emigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1900). It was originally a very popular 1920s song which was brought back by Sinatra in the 1957 movie ‘the Joker is Wild.’– the life story of vaudevillian Joe E. Lewis. Fisher had a long and successful career and wrote the music and sometimes also the lyrics for many well-known songs (including Peg O’ My Heart). As far as I could tell (and I could be wrong but don’t think so, or there wouldn’t be all the controversy), he never made clear where he got that term “toddlin’ town) and there is no record (again, as far as I could determine) of it being an expression before he put it into song. My best guess is that he wanted a word for alliterative effect and neither hustln’ nor ‘bustlin’ (which would have been more descriptive of Chicago) sounded as good to him, so he created an adjective – which didn’t quite fit the town (to walk leisurely, stroll, or saunter) – and thus the confusion for the last 80 [[now 87]] years.


On to St Louis!