I was born and grew up in the Chi-burbs, brn. in Evanston and grew up in Park Ridge which had a good pipe shop for about 25 years, right along the railroad tracks. Hey, from central North Carolina, and welcome aboard.
I went to college as an underclassman at Navy Pier and the West Side campus when it was a satellite to U.of I. Champagne Urban, before it became University of Illinois at Chicago, not to be confused with University of Chicago. I liked both Navy Pier and the Brutalist School (of architecture, really!) campus on the West Side. I had a one-act play produced there, as the result of a contest, when I was 19.