Chicago Illinois

Happy Hoban Day to all!
My usual 4QAtion practice is to select quotes more or less at random. This year being how this year is, I had a couple of quotes in mind that I specifically wanted to drop and in the course of looking those up, a quote that wanted to be part of the event made itself known to me, so I took it along.

On the 4th, just as I was preparing to leave home for work, my boss called. He was using the last of the coffee beans at the office and since our office, like many, cannot function without a steady supply of caffeine, he asked me to swing by Metropolis and pick up a couple more pounds. Metropolis is our coffee purveyor of choice and since their cafe http://www.metropoliscoffee.com/cafe/ is not far from my apartment so I am often called upon to perform this critical operational task for the greater good.

I got a late start this year. Around 9 p.m. I left work, clutching my yellow paper and a roll of tape, and headed to the Howard Street terminal of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). I had it in mind to post a my quote at the station, which is the terminus for 3 train lines and a number of bus lines serving the north side. The quote, from Linger Awhile, was printed out in a large legible font on two sheets and handwritten on one. One of the printed sheets I folded up and put into the receipt tray of a vending machine that dispenses tickets and passes for the CTA.

On Tuesday, it was cold and windy and snowy, as it has so often been this winter, here in Chicago. In the morning I selected my quotes (two this year) and wrote them out on authentic, yellow A4 paper from Ryman's (purchased in London in September, specifically for this purpose) and headed out to work.  As usual, I chose my quotes more or less at random, and as usual, I wasn't sure where they wanted to be left.  At the end of my work day, I found the right spot for this one:

A day late! (A day late and a dollar short, my 6th grade teacher would have said.) I realized in a panic yesterday evening that it was Russ's birthday and that I hadn't had, and wouldn't have, a chance to 4Qate. Despair!  This morning I grabbed, at random (as is my custom) a book from the Hoban stack. The Lion of Jachin-Boaz and Boaz-Jachin. Good.  I opened to a page that had a piece of paper (small, square, faded, yellow-ish) stuck in before it.  Read til I came to the passage that wanted to be quoted.