Take Me to Maxwell Street

My family moved to Arizona from Michigan permanently during the summer of 1979. I was still five years old, and we had lived here when I was three, so it wasn't anything scary for me. Oddly enough, it wasn't the Phoenix summer that caused me to dislike living here so much, it was the winter time. Being so young, all my memories were of snow and white Christmases, and I pined every year for that rarest of miracles -- the snow storm in the Valley of the Sun. Of course, it never happened.

When I was old enough, I saved enough money to move to Chicago. It wasn't Michigan, but it was the Midwest, and I had friends there already. It was a blustery mid-May morning when I arrived at O'Hare. My thermal speedometer had gone from 100 to 60 in a little less than five hours, and life was good. I spent the summer enjoying the weather, playing basketball, and experiencing all the gourmet pleasures my friend had told me about.

Two words: Maxwell Street.

I had never had a Polish on a bun before, and I have been addicted ever since my first bite of this pedestrian culinary masterpiece. A Maxwell Street Polish with a sack of greasy, soggy thin French fries and an ice-cold can of Coke (I have since switched to Pepsi) tops anything you'll find in any restaurant of any quality anywhere in the world. But it has to be from Jim's Original, where the sausages are cooked on a large metal grill with onions and pork chops, soaking up the oil and flavor. Throw it on a bun with a few lines of mustard, and we're talking heart attack heaven.

I moved back to the Phoenix area permanently July, 1998. I took a Greyhound bus, and arrived some time in the early afternoon. I stepped off the bus into 117 degree heat, and I was not thrilled.

It was a long trip. I was tired, I was hungry, and I was in no mood to mess around. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that a "Chicago" hot dog joint opened up in Tempe. I was ecstatic. I was excited. Anxious to share my glorious food find with my brother-in-law, I convinced him to go with me and share in the experience. He's from Toledo, and had never experienced a Chicago Polish, so it was an easy sell.

This "Chicago restaurant" (a glorified hot dog stand in strip mall form, the name of which I have intentionally eliminated from my memory) did not grill their Polishes with onions. They did not grill them at all. I watched in horror as the man behind the counter pulled my purchase from a pot of boiling water, placed it on a bun, and loaded it into a wax paper bag with dry, crispy thick fries and handed it to me with a large wax paper cup of fountain soda.

I won't go into all the gory details of eating a bland, watery Kielbasa with grocery store fries. I ate it, complaining about the method of preparation the entire time, and apologized to my sister's husband for wasting his time, money, and taste buds.

Nine years later, the Suns open the season against the Seattle (Super)Sonics, and I'm left with the same feeling of "I'm starving, so I'll take it, but this is not how this should be."

Excited as I have been for the new Suns season to start, I knew that it wouldn't be everything I remembered from the playoffs (controversy and results notwithstanding). The level of play, the intensity, the feeling that we were trying to accomplish something huge -- I didn't expect any of it. But it's Suns basketball, and we have ALL needed a fix for months.

I won't go into all the gory details of watching a bland, sloppy game with preseason defense. Unlike the Phoenix faux Polish, the Suns game against the Sonics yielded at least some positive feelings.

For starters, Amare Stoudemire is beginning to look like the Amare of 2004 again, despite his wind not having caught up with his ambition quite yet. The Suns went to him early and often, and he did not disappoint as he threw down two arena rattling slams, the second of which came on a moh-hoh-honsterous windmill as he flashed across the lane, passing two Sonic defenders before reaching across his body to throw it down -- HARD. He even managed to avoid committing his first foul for a full ten minutes, which has to be a record for him.

The big question about Amare coming in, though, concerned his defense. Well ... he only had one foul in the first quarter. He had two in the second, but one of them was the offensive variety, and the other came off the ball (admittedly, I don't remember even seeing that foul). Some might say that Amare decided to let guys blow by him rather than reach in late. Well ... is that not an improvement over previous seasons? He still managed to record a steal and a block to go along with his 11 rebounds.

And Nick Collison, who should be best remembered by Suns fans as snagging 21 rebounds in a Phoenix win last season (25.5 points on 22-31 shooting and 18 rebounds in two of the games against Amare), went off for a whopping 8 points and 7 rebounds in 33 minutes this time. It's not Defensive Player of the Year, but it's a step in the right direction.

Speaking of the right direction - did I mention that Marcus Banks seems to have turned the corner a bit? I think I did. I'll admit that I was not too thrilled with his performance in the first half, but three straight three pointers to account for 9 points in a 13-0 run that brought the Suns back from a nine point deficit late in the third quarter goes a long way to repairing bad memories. So I think I'll forget that first half. I'll take 12 points and one turnover in 14 minutes of playing time every night, though I would like to see a few assists in there, as well.

On the opposite end of the three-point spectrum stands Grant Hill. I cannot for the life of me figure out why he took seven shots beyond the arc, but he did, missing all but one. He started his scoring with a pair of free throws that he received after being fouled while slashing to the basket. It was a great move, and he should have stuck with it the whole game because those were the only two free throws the Suns shot in the first half.

Fortunately, someone talked some sense into him. He got back to his slashing ways in the third quarter, gliding beautifully to the basket twice in the second half to go along with one of his long-sought-after mid-range jumpers. I don't mind if he takes the occasional three once he gets comfortable with it in a game situation, but for the most part, I want to see the Grant Hill that brings the mustard to the picnic. Seriously...he scored 13 points on 12 shots while missing six three pointers. There's no reason that he shouldn't average five or six fouls shots a game. If we wanted to see a bunch of threes clanking off the front of the rim, the team would have kept James Jones.

For the most part, I am happy to have had a taste of the sustenance that I've been missing for the last 5 1/2 months. For certain, there are improvements to be made, but we have another six months to worry about those. These are our Phoenix Suns, and they hadn't won a season opener in the Steve Nash Era, Part Zwei. I take what I can get with the full faith that the team will work itself into shape, just as it has every season for the last three years.

And in doing so, they just may bring that rarest of miracles to the Valley of the Suns. I'm not going back to Chicago, so I hope it snows in Phoenix real soon -- preferrably in June.

I'll take that over a Maxwell Street Polish every day of the week.