News

Aug 22, 2023

Nancy E. Anderson: Is there an Evanston canon? Here’s my crack at it.

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The New York Times recently published a piece titled “The Dad Canon” by Joseph Bernstein.

I thought a canon was composed solely of books, but this was an overview of all facets of Millennial dads, from the products they buy, to their thoughts and actions.

I enjoyed Bernstein’s all-over-the-place catalog. (I love lists!) So, I borrowed his idea and applied it to Evanston. Are there certain things we like or concepts we relish? What belongs in the Evanston canon?

I didn’t survey anyone. I just created this lighthearted listicle based on my own observations, so take it with an appropriate grain of salt and dispute it at your next local gathering.

Subarus. I’ve often thought of the Subaru as the official car of Evanston. They’re everywhere.

I went looking for concrete data and found a J.D. Power study from May that showed the most popular car by state. Subarus are tops in Alaska, Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington. The number one car in Illinois is the Honda Civic.

I wanted more granular information, so I emailed Subaru of America, Inc., and asked about Evanston.

I got a response from Adam Leiter, the company’s corporate communications specialist, who said, “Regarding your inquiry, your observations are correct! Looking at registration data through May 2023, Evanston in particular ranks as the number onearea for Subarus in the Chicago metropolitan area by percentage of market share for all vehicles.”

This is not to say that other cars aren’t equally popular in Evanston, but it does confirm that we like Subarus.

Citing famous people from Evanston. Evanstonians are known to babble on about well-known folk with an Evanston connection, from Lena Waithe, to the Cusacks, to Emery Moorehead, to Erik Spoelstra. (This is scratching the surface. There’s Charles Gates Dawes, Frances Willard, Zach Gilford, Anders Holm … the list goes on.)

My husband lights up with excitement when he talks about Laura Harrier, who once studied in our kitchen with one of our kids. I then try to outdo him by saying that Cassidy Hubbarth used to babysit for me when I was a single mom.

Bragging about movies made here. As an addendum to famous people, we like to talk about movies made in Evanston and show out-of-towners these locales, like the Uncle Buck house.

Dogs, particularly ‘doodle’ dogs. I mean Labradoodles and goldendoodles.

“Race Against Hate” T-shirts. Full disclosure: I work part-time for YWCA Evanston/North Shore, which hosts the race, and I’m not trying to promote this event. It just seems that people here have at least one “Race Against Hate” T-shirt in a drawer somewhere.

Disparaging other Chicago suburbs. We tend to be dismissive of Chicagoland burgs not our own, particularly those with gated neighborhoods and massive McMansions. We don’t roll our eyes at Skokie though. Skokie’s like family.

Lawn signs. Evanstonians like signs, particularly those related to activities at Evanston Township High School, as I wrote last summer.

Adirondack chairs in the front yard. The standard is to have two Adirondack chairs facing outward.

Abiding love for Lake Michigan. Whether sitting on a beach or driving by and noting the color of the water, we love the lake.

Consuming news I don’t know if it’s because Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is in our backyard, but we devour news here, particularly “print” journalism from local sites like this one, along with Chicago metro and national newspapers.

And we don’t just read in digital format. I still see plastic-wrapped, actual newspapers on front sidewalks and porches.

I’ll end by saying that part of the Evanston canon is having an opinion on just about everything. But since we’re avid news consumers, at least these opinions are informed ones.

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Nancy E. Anderson is a writer, communications consultant and swim coach. She has lived in Evanston since 1992. More by Nancy E. Anderson