Subject: Electronic Postcard #1 Hello everyone! Greetings from the e-mail annex of the Internet room at the American Library Association annual conference in Chicago! I arrived here Wednesday morning after the longest flight I ever took in my life -- just under eight hours from Honolulu to O'Hare in a DC-10, the first time I ever flew away from a sunset and into a sunrise in the same flight. As we dropped below the clouds on our approach to O'Hare, I could see a big orange ball of a sun sitting low in the early morning sky, as we passed over the Chicago suburbs that looked less the outskirts of a city than the midwestern town that is the heritage and in some ways, the soul of Chicago -- railroad tracks and old trucks on muddy roads being the most notable features to me. The airport is large, but fortunately it was relatively peaceful at that hour of the morning. I was prepared to see a lot of things I had never seen before, but nothing prepared me for the sight of the toilet seats in the restroom -- they had a mechanical device on the back that automatically applies a fresh plastic seat cover for each new user. During the ride to the hotel, my bleary eyes were jarred by the sight of billboards and boldly obvious commercial signs and advertisements painted on the sides and roofs of buildings. It made me very aware that I wasn't in Hawaii any more. My hotel room wasn't ready for a couple of hours after I got there, so I walked around the neighborhood for a while. I was anxious to see the city, for as some of you may know, I was born in this city and lived here for the first four years of my life. I have almost no memories of the place. In my first wanderings, I found the hospital I was born in. I also found the headquarters of the ALA. There are all sorts of associations headquartered here. The American Medical Association -- big tall steel and glass tower. The American Bar Association -- big office building, marble walls outside their lobby. Am. Hospital Assoc. -- huge complex of buildings. ALA -- a short white brick building occupying about a third of the block at 50 East Huron. Oddly enough, I think we have bigger conferences than the other guys. The city is great. I'm having a good time. Wish you were here. Ralph Toyama / 73 and Aloha Automation Librarian /__ from University of Hawaii - Leeward Community College / Radio NH6PY/9 Mobile rtoyama@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu / Chicago IL, USA