My day’s simply not complete until I’ve pissed off a large contingency of people (i.e., 3 out of the 5 people who read this thing), so here’s today’s contribution.

People of Chicago and the greater Midwest bordering any of the Great Lakes, lend me your ears:

You live on a lakeshore. You visit the lakeshore. You drive, unsurprisingly, along Lake-Shore-Drive.

You do NOT, repeat, do NOT, live on a beach. You do not go spend the day at the beach or any beach for that matter. Sadly, I’d go so far as to say many of you have never seen a beach with your own eyes. There is no beach in the greater Chicagoland area.

Capiche?

I do not care what the dictionary may state. I am considered by many the foremost expert on Beach Studies, and sand plus water do not a beach make. The international criteria for a "beach" is hitherto as follows:

1. Saltwater. There is no such thing as a “freshwater beach.” Go ride a unicorn while waving to Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny on your freshwater beach. Got it?

2. This saltwater must constitute the ocean itself, or a sea, bay, harbor or other inlet leading directly from one of the earth’s four oceans. In other words, sorry - the Great Salt Lake has no beachfront property. Neither does the Caspian Sea (is that even saltwater?)

Period. This is not up for discussion. Leave your comments protesting my professional assessment, and I will politely thank you for your opinion.

And I’m sorry - I know that the truth can be a bitter pill to swallow, but the truth it remains nonetheless. I feel very strongly about this. I’ve seen friendships crumble and relationships die over this issue. Telling me you believe Chicago has a beach is like telling me you’re going to vote Republican. I will go to my grave upholding this universal constant. You could burn me at the stake for heresy – ‘still a lakeshore, sorry. Puncture both my eyeballs with needless – I’m going with “lakeshore.” Castrate me without an anesthetic – I’ll take “Lakeshore” for $600, Alex. You remember the climax of Braveheart? Instead of Mel Gibson being drawn and quartered, yelling “FREEDOM!” think Dickie C. being drawn and quartered, yelling “LAKESHORE!!” with my last dying breath. That’s right, it’s that important.

This reminds me of this day a couple winters ago. See, the surf is usually thumping in the winter time, so it’s theoretically the best time to get in the water – bigger, more adventurous surf + smaller crowds. It was around February, and the water was so cold that it wasn’t only wetsuit conditions, it was bootie conditions too. So I drive to Venice and go out by the Jetty. Problem was, I never bothered to check the surf report. Flat as a pancake. Water? Somewhere around 56 degrees probably. Just me and one other guy on a shortboard out there. After a few minutes, we looked at each other and just started chuckling, and I’ll never forget what he said:

It’s like Lake Michigan out here.

Ah, the irony. The cruel, cruel irony.

In this weekend’s Tribune Sports Section, they did a feature on the surfers up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. These guys are “freshwater surfers,” and if you’ve seen the movie Step into Liquid then you’ve probably already heard of them. These guys surf ripples and then proudly boast of accomplishments comparable to Malibu. I dunno, I admire their spirit…but the jury’s still out. I don’t know if they give me hope, or if the whole freshwater surfing endeavor is pretty sad and just makes me feel more depressed about losing the surf back home.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving my new digs, but the distance from the ocean and Cronkette (um, not in the order of importance) were the two fundamental flaws to this plan. I’m curious though, and I guess I’ll have to plan a weekend in Sheboygan to find out…