Diamonds? What Diamonds?

How beautiful is that? How Chicago? Some 150 laborers and security guards were in McCormick Place when the fire started. Could one of them have grabbed the hot ice as he evacuated the place? Or could a firefighter have stuffed the box of rocks underneath his greatcoat amid all the confusion and smoke?

The diamonds have never been mentioned again. We only know this: some opportunistic Chicagoan became a wealthy man in the early morning hours of that frigid January day 41 years ago. It was a fitting coda for the first McCormick Place.

I love that city.

Big Mike