Madison Park

A year after I graduated from college, I was living in a professor's townhouse on a gated boulevard in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago.  A couple friends and I had rented the townhouse from the professor and his wife while he was on sabbatical in Paris.  I remember November 3, 1992 was a gray and misty day, and I walked down Madison Park, past the famous Atrium Houses designed by Y.C. Wong, to cast my vote at a local school.  That night turned out to be the first night I ever felt hopeful about an election's results, when Bill Clinton managed to defeat Bush.

I never imagined that sixteen years later, another resident of Kenwood would cast his vote at that same polling place, and that he would be voting for himself in preparation for a huge rally in Grant Park.

The professor had a piano in his living room, and I spent many nights in 1992 trying to teach myself piano by playing Clementi's Piano Sonatina, Op. 36, No. 1.  Last night, after I heard Obama had won, I played it again, but this time on my new piano in Oakland, California.