Schiller Woods

 Memories of Schiller Woods occupy a dark dusty corner of my mind and probably always will.  Schiller Woods (hereafter simply “Schiller”) was a place I visited often during a brief period of my high school years, each time with my friend Dan (I am absolutely leaving his last name out of this).  Dan and I frequented Schiller for no reason other than boredom.  We explored the woods and were drawn by the eerie myths surrounding the preserve.  The goal was to have fun but our experiences were seldom positive; if I were a superstitious man I’d convince myself that the cool, dark woods were haunted by evil spirits who wanted nothing more than to see us leave and never return.

Initially, I became familiar with Schiller through Dan’s involvement in the model aircraft community - a harmless affair.  Dan was an ingenious kid who could build pretty much anything, including his model planes.  And Schiller boasts a large flat field for such activities.  One time, I accompanied Dan on one of his model aircraft outings.  With his plane in the sky, he asked if I’d like to try controlling the aircraft.  No way, I insisted.  Knowing my luck, I’d crash that thing in a second.  Redirecting his attention to his flight, he soon realized that something was wrong.  The plane was flying southward over the trees and appeared to have lost connection with Dan’s remote control.  Panicked, Dan handed the control to one of the older, more experienced model plane enthusiasts.  But it was too late - we watched the plane sputter in the distance and drop out of the sky, into the trees off into the distance.  Disappointed, Dan was destined to find the plane and salvage what he could. Dan and I walked around the woods for maybe an hour or so until we found the shredded remains of the aircraft strewn about some trees and the forest floor.  We collected what we could - the engine, as it turned out, was the most valuable component of the whole deal and was carried back along with a few fistfuls of hand painted balsa wood and plastic bits.  I considered myself to be bad luck and I never joined Dan on another of his flights again.

Our expedition from the manicured green landing strip into the woods did lead to a newfound interest in the forest.  The woods were overgrown with invasive trees and shrubs and at times were impenetrable and dark.  While exploring one day, Dan and I pushed through a thicket of prickly vegetation to find an open strip of land east of the airplane field and west of Cumberland Ave.  Tall, dry grasses dominated this area, and it didn’t take long for Dan to satisfy his pyromaniacal tendencies.  Using his lighter, he began lighting tips of grass as he walked by them, making sure to blow out the flame before passing.  Something about doing that made him feel good I guess.  I was well ahead of Dan when I heard some commotion behind me.  I turned to see Dan facing a small but rapidly spreading wildfire, a look of bewilderment on his face.  I ran toward him and on the ground near him I saw an old glass beer bottle.  I picked it up and filled it with water from the nearby “Schiller Brook” (I never knew the stream had a name until I reviewed Google Maps in preparation to write this).  If I weren’t so panicked about the spreading fire, I would have laughed at how stupid it was to throw a bottle of water on a wildfire and expect it to do something.  The fire spread southward across the grassy strip, and I insisted that we leave.  We quickly got to Dan’s car and drove off, watching the big plume of smoke rise to the heavens.  I guess in an attempt to try to forget what we had done, we drove to the McDonald’s at Montrose and Narragansett and ordered food.  Never in my life had I been so paranoid.  Two young guys smelling like smoke ordering and eating hamburgers in a fast food restaurant while the fire raged on nearby.  I was convinced that everyone who made eye contact with me was suspicious and that we were going to be in big trouble.  Dan dropped me off at my house, where I holed up for the remainder of the day.  As it turned out, the fire was a non-issue.  I never heard anything about it on the news and no one seemed to know anything about it.  Fast forward years later and I’d come to accept the fire as a boon to the environment.  Land managers do this sort of thing all the time - set fire to old dead vegetation to invigorate the native grasses and forbes.  But boy, for a while I felt guilty as sin about the whole ordeal.

Dan and I weren’t the only troubadours in the woods.  Sometimes while exploring the woods  we’d find the burned out shells of vehicles that had been stolen and lit ablaze.  This was a common trend back in the 90s.  Earlier, I encountered burned cars at LaBagh Woods, oftentimes stacked atop each other underneath the railroad trestle in the Chicago River.  Fortunately this no longer appears to be a popular pastime, at least based on my experiences.  

We crossed the line at least a few times during our Schiller exploits.  One time, I found a solid plastic Santa figure, about three to four feet high, in an alley.  It was solidly made, as if it was designed to be a long term advertising prop.  Of course I grabbed it and called Dan.  He came by the house and we brainstormed for a bit.  What can we do with this?  Ultimately we decided to strip Santa of any dignity he had left by removing the material clothing he was wearing, exposing his jolly belly and stark white legs (his underwear was painted on).  Then, we grabbed a couple of big fat Sharpies and wrote all sorts of demeaning things about our high school on Santa’s plastic flesh before driving him to Schiller Woods under the cover of nightfall.  We parked in the model airplane lot south of Irving Park Road and ran Santa out to the road in between traffic, the idea being that drivers would be shocked to find a portly little man with a shit-eating grin standing in the middle of the road at night.  Our experiment worked, with oncoming traffic slowing to inspect this man.  After realizing that we were in a vulnerable position along the road, Dan and I decided it would be best to place Santa out on the road from the car so that we could just drive off and return shortly after.  At one point we approached Santa as another car purposely swerved to hit him.  Santa went flying across the road and into a ditch.  Dan and I erupted in laughter.  We re-set Santa a couple more times, each time inspecting his new damage, before abandoning Santa to the elements of technology.  To this day his whereabouts are unknown, but I suspect he may have been collected by a Good Samaritan and given clothing and a warm meal.

Another hair brained idea we had was to make a human dummy and hang it from a tree along the woodline of the flying field.  We scrounged some old clothing and stuffed them with balled up newspaper, connecting the articles with safety pins.  Then, with a length of rope, we tied our dummy to a tree to make it appear as though someone had hanged themself.  Look - I’m not proud of this!  I was an angst-ridden sixteen year old with a dark sense of humor and little to no supervision (later that year I’d get a job and the rest is history).  But at the time we thought this was just so clever.  After we set the man in the tree, we parked in the lot north of Irving Park, in such a way as to afford a view of the field across the street.  And we waited.  And waited.  After what seemed like an eternity, a man with his dog approached the dummy.  Based on the nature of the man’s approach, we did not think that he thought for even a second that the dummy was actually a dead man hanging from a tree.  Without hesitation, the man tore the dummy down and carried it to the trash can.  We were disappointed but in hindsight it was for the better.

Our magnum opus would lead to the end of our Schiller shenanigans for good.  It was the Fourth of July, a warm and sunny day, and Dan and I were joined by another friend, Erik.  Dan had acquired a bunch of fireworks and we planned on setting them off atop Hidden Hill, a large, man made feature located in the woods behind the flying field.  Rumor has it that the hill was created using soil dug out during the construction of Schiller Pond, north of Irving Park Road.  Hidden Hill was also the epicenter for both debauchery and evil throughout its history; stories of orgies taking place on and around the hill during the 1970s were often told, and at least one murder occurred there just a few years before our time there (this one is true).  By this point in my life, my excitement over fireworks had largely waned, but I tagged along, because, Schiller.

After a short hike along the path that took us to the base of Hidden Hill, we reached the summit and Dan began lighting off bottle rockets.  It was what you’d expect it to be - bottle rocket after bottle rocket.  Set, light, pop.  Over and over.  Dan was ravenous when fire was involved in any capacity, but I quickly became distracted.  Looking over Erik’s shoulder, I saw someone standing in the distance.  It was a man, wearing a dark outfit.  Before I could ascertain who it was or why he was there, he disappeared.  I felt uneasy.  About a minute later, I heard the sound of sticks crunching underfoot in between bottle rockets.  So did Dan and Erik.  Not wanting to be reported, the three of us quickly decided to get out of there.  We skipped down the steep hill toward the woodline.  There was a very distinct feeling that we were being followed.  Then, from maybe 50 yards behind us, we heard a man shout, “Stop!”.  I turned and saw a law enforcement officer quickly approaching and told Dan. Dan then ditched all of the rest of his bottle rockets into Schiller Brook, and we kept on as if we didn’t hear the officer.  Then, we saw a second officer approach from the side, and then a third from in front of us.  We were trapped in and there was no hope for escape.  

“I said stop!”, yelled the officer behind us.

We stopped.  I was nervous.  I had never been in trouble in my life.  The three officers convened upon us and began questioning us.

“We saw you guys setting off fireworks up on the hill.  Where are your fireworks?”, asked an officer.

“We don’t have any”, Dan replied.

It wasn’t a lie.  We no longer had any because Dan ditched them in the sluggish creek.  And while two officers held us for interrogation, the third began to walk along the creek looking for the evidence.  But miraculously he didn’t find them.  I say miraculously because they were in plain sight.  It didn’t matter, though, because we were going to be arrested anyway.  The officers took us to where they were stationed across Irving Park.  The forest preserve property north of Irving Park was vast and a popular place for large family gatherings, sports, etc.  That day, it was especially full of people celebrating Independence Day.  As we were being processed by the police, some guy who had nothing to do with us lit a firecracker and threw it at one of the officers.  I couldn’t believe that.  He was taken into handcuffs and placed in the back of the police car.  Since Dan, Erik, and I were mostly cooperative, we were treated with “soft hands”. 

This experience sort of created a bit of a rift between Dan and I.  Like, we had reached the pinnacle of stupidity and there was nothing else left to do.  We didn’t really talk after that.  We saw each other in court when we pled guilty and had to pay a fine, and then we basically went our separate ways.  And so ended a series of dumb but memorable activities at Schiller.  And to this day I have not returned.  I’m happy to say that those days are WELL in my past!