PLRH is to Pines Lake as Pops is to Oak Park

The verdict is in. This Yankee is officially a Florida Girl. I'm proud to say that in the past 15 years I've never had to shovel snow, drive in the snow, or stuff a toddler into a snowsuit. But if the tourists ever push me to the brink and I flee to Montana, I now know that flannel sheets combined with radiant floor heating rock.

The absolute, hands-down best part of my trip to Oak Park was seeing my father's hometown through his eyes. If you've never visited your parent(s)' hometown with them, I highly recommend it. All my life I've heard about Oak Park and it's always been a mystery to me but now it's real.

My father hasn't lived in Oak Park for 60 years but he can relate the most minute details... The Borders book store downtown used to be Marshall Fields. That real estate office was the corner drugstore. That coffee shop used to be the florist where Pops bought corsages for his dance dates. The student fare on the "el" used to be 3 cents. The original public library where he worked after school was torn down and replaced with a modern glass and steel structure.

Pops took my brother and I on a driving tour of Oak Park. I didn't think to bring my camera. He showed us the hospital where he was born. We saw the park when he was three he fell off the swing and the wooden seat slammed into the back of his head. His father had to pull the splinters out of his scalp. Yes, his accident-proneness started at an early age.

We saw the Lutheran church where he went to kindergarten and then the parish school where he attended grammar school. He drove past his Catholic high school that was all boys at the time. It's now quadrupled in size and is co-ed. We also saw the public high school that my aunt attended.

We drove past the apartment building where he and his family lived. We saw the post office built by the WPA where Pops got his first Social Security card. The YMCA where he learned how to swim has been converted back to residences.

At the end of our tour, we drove across the street to the neighboring village of River Forest. We stopped at the tavern that my father's aunt and uncle owned until the 1940's and all had a pint. The tavern had to be in Forest Park because Oak Park used to be a dry village. Pops worked there after school when he was in high school. During our visit he just about choked when he found out that drafts were $4.50. He told the bartender that when he worked there a draft beer was 10 cents. The bartender just looked at him with a "does not compute" look on his face.

My favorite part of the tour was when Pops pointed out the Unity Temple and he told us that he went to dances there every weekend. I told him that it looked like a Frank Lloyd Wright design (I doubled checked and it is). Pops did a double-take and replied, "Huh, really?" I found that so funny that I had to go back and take a photo.