It was on this day five years ago that my trading firm packed up our office in the Loop and moved out to Oak Brook. Six months before that, the trading floor itself shut down because of Covid.
Those final months downtown, the summer of 2020, were silent. The sidewalks were barren, the beer gardens empty, restaurants shuttered, and both ballparks played to empty seats. I left a city that didn’t look at all like the one I walked into back in the 1980s.
I will never work on a trading floor again. I will never walk over to the Berghoff for a beer and a carved sandwich. I will never wander through Marshall Field’s to look at the Christmas windows.
But luckily, those memories are still in my heart, and that is where they will stay.
Today is National Liqueur Day. Pour yourself a Frangelico after dinner and think about what you carry inside your heart. The things that truly belong to you; your people, your places, your moments will never fade. They will always come back to life, one memory at a time.
