Every city needs its own Christie Weber. This morning I wake up and turn on the radio, listen to a bit of a row (Br. for a noisy disturbance or quarrel) on the BBC over the Pope claiming that “saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction,” and then I flip the channel.
Someone is talking with Christie Weber! They ask her about that tree planting project where she lined the Main Street of the downtown with trees. I missed hearing about that project but, “She is a hard worker. I can see her organizing something like that,” I think to myself…
Then I hear Christy talking about her latest project, developing a treetop garden in downtown Chicago and I realize that Chicago has its own Christy Webber – somehow cut from the same cloth as our own Door County Christie Weber. These two need to meet each other!
The Chicago Christy owns and operates Christy Webber Landscapes, a company she started on a shoestring budget in 1988, which now employs more than 250 people. Both Christies have created environmentally aware real estate developments. The Chicago Greenworks is big-city Christy’s match for the Sturgeon Bay Christie’s small-footprint home subdivision, featuring shared greenspace on the West Side. Door County’s Christie is also responsible for launching the annual Steel Bridge Songfest with her brother Pat MacDonald, who likes his name spelled mAcdonald.
The NPR radio story by Ketzel Levine entitled, “Days Of Easy Growth Over, A Business Adapts,” not only introduces me to this wonderful, feisty, stubborn and determined Chicago doppelganger, it also speaks of the financial decline experienced at NPR. This is Ketzel Levine’s last show, laid off to reduce operating expenses.
Ketzel closes her parting NPR radio story with, “Moxie is really a magic elexir… So, bartender, make it a moxie, straight up. On the other hand, make it a double!”
