At Home at O'Hare International Airport

Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Walkway between
Concourses B and C in Terminal 1.
Photo by Becky Howell

Summer is right around the corner, and we all want to get out of town and see something new. We spend a lot of time driving to and from airports, and there’s loads of time hanging out there. Sometimes there is just enough time to jump on the flight, other times it’s all night long.

For me, most travel somehow involves Chicago’s O'Hare International Airport. Before I moved to the Northwest for college, I used to live in the Chicago area, and I like to say I was raised in Illinois but grew up in Seattle. When I graduated from high school, I set my sights on the Northwest to be set free from what felt like boring Midwestern suburbia, a restrictive dress code, five months of winter, and so much stuffy church.

I was not disappointed.

Hello, ripped jeans, Puget Sound, rock star church, five months of spring, and the best coffee I could dream of. I didn’t drink or do drugs, I just woke up every morning and let the Olympic mountains stun me again.

My infatuation turned into love, then commitment, and early on I found myself mostly staying out west and making only short trips back home to see family.

That was back in the ’80s, and since then I’ve flown from the Northwest to well over 100 encounters with O'Hare, if you count both coming and going. I know a few business travelers who laugh at that and say, “Hey, I do that in a year!” Still, to me it seems like I’ve seen a whole lot of O'Hare since I made my home in the Northwest several decades ago. O'Hare has seen me, too, as a witness to the seasons of my life.

At first, there was the college and travel bug phase, where that trip to Europe became a year, and many other excuses for repeating world adventures. Then there were weddings and family reunions, babies to introduce and big number birthdays, and eventually funerals for grandparents.

We all got older and O'Hare got bigger, somehow managing over 200,000 travelers per day, according to the FAA. Our families grew, too. Amazingly, thanks to deregulation, the cost of a flight from Seattle or Portland stayed roughly the same, around $400 round-trip, minus the free bags and a meal.

Chicago style dog. Never, ever,  ketchup.
Photo by Becky Howell

These days O'Hare hosts my emergency visits to check up on mom and dad -- after dad’s heart attack, mom’s broken leg, her broken hip. Mom and dad don’t pick us up anymore, it’s just too confusing. I’ll take Uber and we can all relax. I always fly nonstop and at the end of that hideously early flight awaits my reward: Chicago junk food heaven. Italian beef, Italian sausage, deep dish pizza, or a Chicago dog. Take your pick, all in United’s Concourse C.

John Gambatese on his way
to find "Nuts on Clark."
Photo by Becky Howell

Just one O'Hare story, for the road. It happened not long ago. We had just arrived in Chicago, all of us bleary-eyed from the overnight flight. It was day one of a family summer vacation involving cousins and a wedding and museums and waterskiing, when we discovered my husband was having a stroke.

Two surreal days in the hospital, a haphazard shuttle of kids to buses and planes and there we were again. Terminal One. This time I was pushing my husband in a wheelchair in a bubble of quiet as we rolled toward our gate. I felt as strong and able to produce tears as a paper sack. My husband’s spirit was good though, and O'Hare’s waiting area turned into a practice space for his wobbly first steps in between rows of chairs. We even smiled a little.

It’s two years later and my husband is up to full speed and I’ve been four times back to Chicago. O'Hare remains the same, a haven and a headache. Mostly, it’s a stage, featuring the life and times of a visiting daughter.



At a Glance:

Photo courtesy maxpixel.net

About Bees and Sweet Beginnings at O'Hare Airport
In 2011, O'Hare became the first major airport to build an apiary on its property, according to the Chicago Department of Aviation, with as many as 75 hives and a million bees. The bees are maintained by 30 to 40 ex-offenders taking part in a North Lawndale Employment Network  program called Sweet Beginnings,LLC. In this program, participants with a past are taught beekeeping and learn how to make fresh honey, soaps, lip balms, candles and moisturizers, which are marketed under the beelove product line. Products are sold and used at local stores and restaurants and throughout both Chicago airports. More than 500 persons have completed the program, transferring to jobs in manufacturing, food processing, customer service, and hospitality.  The repeat-offender rate is less than 10 percent. As for the honey, Sweet Beginnings won an Illinois State Fair Blue Ribbon "First Premium" award for its honeycomb produced at O'Hare.

Photo courtesy pxhere.com

Hairy Friends of O'Hare
Since 2013, O'Hare Airport has used grazers like goats, sheep llamas, burros and alpacas to control vegetation instead of mowers, especially in the harder-to-reach areas or on steeper banks as along Willow-Higgins Creek on the airport property, according to a report by ABC News. In the summer of 2017, more than 100 goats controlled buckthorn, garlic mustard, ragweed and various other invasive species.

Linn-Benton Community College's Dr. Ramycia McGhee, Motivator and Mentor

Ramycia McGhee under the cherry blossoms in Albany.
Photo by Jonathan Binion

Dr. Ramycia McGhee radiates positive energy as she walks briskly into the Poetry classroom with two students trailing behind her, their arms loaded with journal notebooks. Students settle into their desks, the mood is lively and comfortable on a pleasant, spring evening. Easy-going banter passes around the room, about the day, homework, happenings.

McGhee, a seasoned instructor who taught Writing for eight years at City Colleges of Chicago before joining LBCC’s English Department last September, introduces the lesson on Harlem Renaissance poetry and authors. For 80 minutes McGhee’s rich and rhythmic voice encourages and challenges the students to think deeper, to give more, wake up, work together, respond. Students smile, listen, speak up, answer back. Before you know it, class is already over.

A few people leave quickly but many linger, surrounding McGhee as she sits on her desk at the front of the room, calling out homework reminders, giving advice, a complement or two, an occasional hug.

McGhee answers a student's question after class.
Photo by Becky Howell

McGhee makes teaching look easy thanks to hard work and a natural connection with students. Born and raised in inner-city Chicago, McGhee worked and volunteered as a teenager and young adult in a variety of jobs mentoring and motivating young people. One day not long after she graduated from college, McGhee was volunteering with AmeriCorps when she was invited to fill in as a college writing instructor for at-risk students in inner-city Chicago.

"I fell in love with it,” said McGhee, who eventually was offered a permanent part-time teaching position with City Colleges of Chicago, where she worked as she finished her doctorate degree in Education Leadership Management. “I will never forget my first day. I had the biggest butterflies and my stomach was in knots. Yet my students were eating it up and I was too. It was instant gratification.”

She had found her calling, even though her career plans and training up to that point had been geared toward journalism. Selected as a McNair Scholar, which prepares undergraduate people of color to complete an undergraduate degree and beyond, McGhee received her Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Journalism and a minor in Race and Ethnic Cultures from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.  Soon after she received a master’s in Journalism from Roosevelt University in Chicago.

The writing training gained through journalism applied well to teaching, plus the broadcast side is a bonus. For McGhee it turned into the perfect background for teaching writing and literature.

One big question remains: why move halfway across the country to teach at LB?

McGhee admits it was a pretty drastic decision to leave her hometown, but she and her husband had been wanting to move out of Illinois for some time.  She was looking to teach full-time at a small school in a small town, to get out of the big city and just slow down. Most of all, she prayed for this opportunity and believes God led her to move to Oregon and LBCC.

“I didn’t know what I was coming into. I’m black, my husband is black. But I know God would never put me in a place that would endanger me,” said McGhee. “I have had nothing but good things happen to me here.”

Chris Riseley, an English Department faculty member who hosted a welcome party for McGhee in his home when she first arrived, said the good goes both ways.

“Ramycia brings a passion for people, poetry, literature and developmental writing to our department.
at LBCC. I learn something new from Ramycia every single time we get together, said Riseley.

Colleague Robin Havernick’s office is right next door to McGhee’s and she agrees. “Ramycia adds sunshine to our lives at LBCC! She makes students happy and willing to work hard and be their very best,” said Havernick

Riseley and Havernick support the Black History Month student essay contest which McGhee started and said it has inspired intellectual engagement and action with some of the most important issues facing our country today. McGhee and Havernick traveled to Alabama in April to attend the Peace and Justice Summit, and McGhee will be taking over teaching African American Literature when Havernick retires this summer. McGhee has other plans too. She said she hopes to start a people of color group on campus, and one day would like to teach at Oak Creek Correctional Center.

As she has settled into her new community, McGhee said she loves her eight-minute commute to work, the dog-friendly parks, and her church family. Yet, McGhee said she misses a few things back home. Here there is not much of a night life, it’s hard to find the right hair stylist, and everything closes too early.

“And girl, there is no soul food here. Period.” said McGhee.

Still, McGhee said she really appreciates the sweet spirit of Oregon. And she makes one thing very clear: this is right where God wants her.


At a Glance:

Education: Bachelor’s in Broadcast Journalism, with a minor in Race and Ethnic Cultures from University Wisconsin-Whitewater; Master’s in Journalism from Roosevelt University; Ed.D in Education Leadership Management from Capella University

McGhee displays several Barbies from her collection
Photo by Becky Howell

Family: Married for nine years to John McGhee

Fun Fact: Has a collection of more than 50 African American Barbies

Side Gig: Is a freelance make-up artist

Favorite color: Pink

Favorite Author: Sister Souljah

Hobbies: Traveling, reading, writing, shopping, spending time with friends and two dogs Cupcake and Chulo

Ramycia McGhee in her office.
Photo by Becky Howell

Office Visit with Dr. McGhee
Photos by Becky Howell

Ramycia McGhee wears a bright pink blouse and a gleaming smile as she talks about her recent journey from City Colleges of Chicago to LBCC.  She answers a soft knock at her door with a gentle but quick interchange with a colleague.  Several minutes later, soft knock, again, patient reply.  Students arrive outside her door for appointments. She assures them she'll be with them soon.


On her desk is a note with flowers from a colleague.  She offers me chocolate-covered almonds "from a student, so sweet," she said.  A corkboard covered with smiling faces of friends and family on one wall.  Scripture and other encouraging verses and the serenity prayer cover the walls surrounding her desk and a pink lamp, which exactly matches her blouse.