Vic Socotra

I am in the den of mellow men this morning, though it was not that way yesterday. I flew into the Windy City in the morning, overdressed as it turned out, and made my way through the teeming masses heading for Wrigley Stadium to Eric's apartment just two blocks form the bleacher entrance.

"Any woman in a Cubs shirt after eight o'clock tonight wants it, bad," said one of the boys. An important planning tip for urban life. They have learned a lot since they left home.

We were not headed to the baseballs game, though. We were invited to an exclusive book-out in the newly fashionable Bucktown neighborhood across town. It is a twelve dollar cab ride, and what was waiting on the other end was cold beers and beer-boiled Brats, Chicago style, with boiled onions and fierce mustard.

The beer was there on the proviso that we purchase it. So, with the chords of the American Anthem floating in the air and the little Hispanic men working on the complex of new decking on the back of the apartment studiously ignoring it, we ventured out to encab for the journey across Chicago.

Spartans from all across Chi-town would be gathering for something important. Victory over Notre Dame, live on the 52-inch Big Screen.

As you well know, the home team advantage has been a bust in the last eight games, the Irish and Spartans trading victories at each other's home fields. Flush from their triumph over the hapless Wolverines last week, ND wanted to extend the streak. the Spartans were committed to ending it.

My younger son has a couple buddies, transplanted Virginians by way of East Lansing who were drawn to this lively place. Three of them have a loft-style apartment in Bucktown. It is s pretty neighborhood, once working class but now with aspirations above that. Still edgy enough to be both affordable and cool. Their place is accessed via a narrow passage between buildings and is converted from something else. They have exposed brick walls and sleekly remodeled infrastructure. It is a great place to live, with a deck on back and the ability to grill to their hearts content.

The beer was cold, though I opted to start with the Old Usual that we procured from the Polonia Market down the street. The boys- there were now about six of them wearing a variety of MSU regalia. They talked non-stop about the trivia that makes up these rivalries, the stuff I have long forgotten or never knew along with all the stats on people who I do not remember.

Interestingly, there is some context to the bizarre planting of the Spartan Flag on the Notre Dame 50 yard line after the victory down there. A trophy exis ts to commemorate this once gigantic rivalry, which those of us of a certain age remember well. It is a giant cheerleaders megaphone, painted in the colors of both schools.

ND Coach Charlie Weiss was so supremely arrogant in is assumption of victory that year that the trophy was not even moved to the stadium for the game.

But that was another year. This one, the Green and White stuck it to the propaganda machine that is NBC. With each completed pass, the announcers gravely intoned that "Notre Dame is back!" just as State ran the ball in their face for over 200 yards on the muscular legs and determination of #23, the astonishing Juvan Ringer.

As you might imagine, things were a little foggy by the time the game was done and the initial triumph savored. Back in the cab, we passed the world headquarters of a famous hot-dog manufacturer, and a Costco. The connection was inescapable, and we talked about the October Surprise in the back of cab #2478 plowed inexorably through the traffic. Suliman the driver deliberately paid us little attention.

We know that the Administration would like to bring Osama's head back on a platter before the election. The question is what Mr. bin laden would like to do to us in exchange. i said that there was20a very large and very suspicious number of Information Technology specialists who had entered the country on special visas due to scarcity of expertise in the field, and the crushing need for people who manage our networked economy.

"Mark my words," I said. It is as clear as those guys taking flying lessons before 9/11. "Some of these guys are going to act in concert and try to take down the internet and do awful things to the SCADA network that controls the infrastructure."

"Supervisory control and Administration, or something like that. I was surprised when I found out about it. It never was vulnerable, before. Now everything is linked together. I don't think you can hack the systems, but if you were actually on the inside, running things, that is a different story. It is a very primitive version of computer stuff, and does things like open valves on pipelines and route trains and train tracks."

One of the boys snorted dismissively, and the other looked out the window of the cab. Wrigleyville as we approached Clark Street was a throbbing mass of people. The Cubs had clinched it. They were going to the playoffs, and the city by the lake had its own October Surprise.

We paid off Suliman the cabbie and emerged into the drunken chaos. It was well after eight o'clock, I noticed, and almost all the women were wearing Cubs shirts.