A story on the radio today about L. Frank Baum, author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The novel grew out of stories he told his own children and neighbor children when living in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood.

Maybe you have to know Chicago to understand this. It's like hearing that The Cat in the Hat came out of Theodor Geisel telling rhymes to kids in South Central Los Angeles. Of course Humboldt then and now are different things but still...

Humboldt Park isn't the most hood of Chicago's hoods but it's no place to fuck around. I was at the Puerto Rican Pride festival there a few summers ago. The sun was starting to go down and I went to where my bike was locked up to find a pit bull, dead and bloody, lying on a flattened piece of cardboard next to the bike rack.

Definitely one of my top 5 horrifying Chicago moments--right there in Humboldt Park. So that would make me, what, the lion then?