Brown line to Van Buren today, then ambled around to find the Library Center, a beautiful nine-story public library in the Loop area. Huge libraries are always a draw for me, for the purpose of wandering up and down aisles looking for anything that might grab my attention. This building and the nice new-looking library I saw in Oak Park both indicate a well funded and well used library system.

Oak Park is a nice neighborhood. Not in a tourist-y sort of way, though it does have little shops here and there, but in a "rich enough to live there for the sake of history" sort of way. Part of the neighborhood is historic, with old Victorian homes and ornate churches. My reason for being there was the Ernest Hemingway museum, located a block from the house he spent the first two decades of his life.

The museum focuses on the author's work in WWII as a war correspondent more than WWI, where much of his writing is based. There is also an exhibit about the movie adaptations of his work, complete with original posters. The back wall of the one room collection is draped with Hemingway themed banners from a museum in Spain. But the most in-depth area is the corner devoted to his primary education at Oak Park High School. He was, according to a cheerfully narrated looping DVD, good at darn near everything. He ran track, took advanced courses in "The Oxford Room," a posh English classroom in the school, acted in school plays, and played the cello. Most American lit classes will mention the author's later proclivity for self-destruction, which plays well to a college audience. The museum treats him as the local boy done good, only mentioning his darker tendencies in point of fact as part of other anecdotes. I found this to be a welcome change from the norm.

The park across from the museum has a memorial to the neighborhood residents who served in WWI, again signifying the importance of history to the neighborhood. A block north of there is much more modern with the sprawling campus of Oak Park High School, which looks more like Stanford than the yuppie school I went to. According to the aforementioned video, the Oxford room is now rechristened the Hemingway room.

I should mention that I spend a good ammount of time walking today, as I got off at the wrong stop and had to walk a few extra blocks. The value of planning in the morning is reinforced by my sore feet. On the plus side, I found a music store that sells Smashing Pumpkins concert soundboard bootlegs. They're a bit pricey at thirty bucks each, but I just may have to go back before I leave.