Interestingly, both Doctors Without Borders and Borders book stores, which no one was able to save (thereby making the doctors’ organizational name prescient), were founded in 1971. On the other hand, Crossing Borders Music, which put on the concert by my piano teacher, Marianne Parker, that I attended at the Chicago Cultural Center, across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park, originated in 2011.

The wonderful solo concert featured music from Marianne’s new album of Haitian music, entitled Pages intimes. As I told her afterward, she obviously has been holding out on me, not teaching me everything she knows, because, shockingly, I can’t play like she can. What other reason could there be?

I then rushed over to the Art Institute, across Monroe Street from Millennium Park, to attend its annual Block Party. On my way to the Impressionism room containing Van Gogh’s The Drinkers, for a program put on by the Brewseum, I passed by Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, thereby completing my park-adjacent trilogy.

Pub historian, and Brewseum founder and executive director, Liz Garibay presented a delightful lecture to the crowd on both the Van Gogh painting and the history and culture of drinking and drinking establishments in Chicago, including the 1855 Lager Beer Riot. After this educational tasting, I now thirst for more information, which I attend to drink in at the Brewseum’s exhibition currently on tap at the Field Museum.

I ended my near-the-park Sunday by watching Mucca Pazza (which translates as mad cow) end the party with one of their unique musical performances. P.T. Barnum would have been proud of the way they closed by marching through the Monroe Street exit, helping to clear the building by leading out hundreds of visitors, who then realized that the show was over.  This way to the egress.