Lake Petenwell v. Lake Michigan
Aldo Leopold v. Carl Sandburg
Sand County v. City with Big Shoulders
The perspective from Lake Petenwell shifted this week.
Brenda had to attend a work conference in Chicago, so I took on the role of her Uber driver and joined her for a couple of days in downtown Chicago.
As a lifelong Cubs fan, I’ve always loved the city. As a student of history, I appreciate its past—from the nomination of Abraham Lincoln to the Great Chicago Fire to Al Capone and everything in between. And as a lover of deep-dish pizza and Chicago hot dogs, I’m always happy to spend a few days eating my way through the city.
But this trip felt a little different.
Driving Brenda downtown and walking the streets, I was struck by the contrast between our life on the shores of Lake Petenwell and the constant motion of Chicago. That contrast brought to mind two writers who shaped my journey as a reader: Aldo Leopold and Carl Sandburg.
Growing up, the only thing I read with any consistency was the sports section—mostly Cubs box scores. Through high school, I don’t think I read a single assigned book cover to cover. I was never diagnosed with ADHD, but it’s fair to say my attention was… selective.
That started to change in college.
A geography professor, Professor Studnicka—one of my all-time favorites—recommended Aldo Leopold. It wasn’t an assignment, which made it even more unusual for me to pick it up. But if he thought everyone should read Leopold, I figured I should at least give it a shot.
Around the same time, one of my favorite history professors, Dr. Paula Nelson, suggested I read Carl Sandburg’s three-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln. Again, not required—just a recommendation when I was struggling to find something for an independent reading component.
Those two authors changed everything for me.
Reading was no longer something to avoid—it became something to seek out. I started looking for books that could move and inspire me the way Leopold and Sandburg did.
Now, living on Lake Petenwell—not far from where Leopold wrote A Sand County Almanac—and then finding myself in downtown Chicago, the city that inspired Sandburg’s famous poem, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of nostalgia… and a deep appreciation for the contrast between rural and urban life.
If you’ve never read Aldo Leopold, you should. Not because I say so—but because Professor Studnicka would.
To keep it simple, I’ll share my favorite passage from February of The Sand County Almanac:
“There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.
To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue.
To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February blizzard tosses the trees outside. If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own good oak, and let his mind work the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and with a wealth of detail denied to those who spend the week end in town astride a radiator.”
This passage has become a bit of a running joke between Brenda and me.
I like to tell her I’m going to plant a garden—mostly inspired by Leopold—but she knows the truth: I lack both the ambition and the skill to make that happen in the sandy soil around Lake Petenwell.
As for cutting, splitting, hauling, and piling my own oak… splitting and piling is about where my energy runs out. Still, there’s something about putting wood in the fireplace on a cold winter night that brings Leopold’s words to life.
I’ll never claim to be a great naturalist. But I don’t think it’s possible to read Leopold—or spend time in nature—without feeling a sense of wonder. I may not be able to identify every tree or bird, but I can still appreciate the complexity and beauty of what’s happening around me in a “sand” county.
And yet, that same sense of wonder shows up in a completely different form in a city like Chicago.
It was Sandburg’s Lincoln biography that introduced me to him, but it’s impossible to walk through Chicago without thinking of his poem named for the city:
“Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders…”
The world has changed since Sandburg wrote those lines—but Chicago still feels stormy, husky, and a little brawling.
I’ll admit, I’m never completely at ease in big cities. There’s too much traffic, too much noise, and too many people moving too fast.
But there’s also something remarkable about it.
The same sense of awe I feel in nature shows up in a different way—in the scale, the movement, the logistics of it all. Steel and concrete replace trees and water, but the complexity is just as impressive.
I’ve never understood the idea that one place—or one type of person—is more “American” than another.
Cities showcase human achievement in art, science, and innovation. Natural spaces reconnect us to something more basic and enduring. Both offer something valuable. Both are worth appreciating.
I’m grateful for our life on Lake Petenwell.
And I’m grateful for the chance to experience what the “City of Big Shoulders” still has to offer.
That’s the perspective from Petenwell this week… even if part of it came from downtown Chicago.
Until next Friday,
Chad Tuescher
aka Coach T · aka Tish
