Constable: Gross gum wall an attraction any suburb could set up for free

The last time my wife and I spent a week's vacation in Seattle two decades ago, we had a great time, with wonderful hikes, fantastic meals, interesting music and a surprising amount of sunshine. We even enjoyed a few days without any rain at all.

Last week, when we revisited Seattle with our three teenage boys, we had an even better time, with scenic hikes, great food, fun museums and a scary amount of sunshine. We barely saw a cloud, let alone that once-famous Seattle rain.

The souvenir shops still sell coffee mugs with a "Got Rain?" logo, T-shirts featuring umbrellas, and "rain globes" that boast the skyline of Seattle and set off a persistent drizzle of raindrops when you shake them.

But the only umbrellas we saw in Seattle were used as sun shades by the overflow crowd on the lawn watching giant video screens showing professional e-sport game players competing for millions in cash prizes at the International Dota 2 tournament inside the Key Arena. It's odd to hear a crowd chanting "USA! USA!" as it cheers on the upstart American video game team Evil Geniuses, including Rosemont's Sumail Hassan Syed, as he and four teammates win the championship and $6.6 million in prize money. It's even weirder not to experience rain in Seattle. Rain and coffee are the lifeblood of the city.

But the town famous for its drizzle hasn't had a month with more than a quarter-inch of rain since April.

Generally green and lush, yards are dry, brown and brittle. Businesses with flower pots hanging high from awnings are forced to come up with ways to water them.

As our family is kayaking on the Puget Sound under blue skies and bright sunshine, our guide, Tom, an aspiring lawyer, notes that the persistent drought and record-setting heat wave with 90-degree days has created events once thought impossible

"There was a fire in the rain forest," Tom says. The Queets rain forest, which typically gets 200 inches of rainfall a year, is so dry that about 1,200 acres of century-old Sitka spruce and hemlock in Olympic National Park have been lost to fires recently.

My rain hat, dry as a bone, does keep the sun off my neck as we take in the iconic Space Needle, the fascinatingly quirky EMP Museum, the bustling Pike Place Market and even the nearby setting for David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" television show, which my wife and I used to watch 25 years ago and our kids discovered in time for the cult classic's anticipated revival next year.

Those traditional Seattle tourist destinations still draw crowds in all kinds of weather. There is nothing quite like any of those attractions anywhere in Chicago, let alone the suburbs.

But Seattle does have one unlikely tourist attraction that any one of our suburbs could duplicate right now without spending a dime of taxpayer money.

Tourists flock to an alley under Pike Place Market to see, and often contribute to, the Gum Wall. In the early 1990s, people standing in line for comedy shows at Unexpected Productions' Market Theater began to stick used chewing gum on the brick alley wall.

Officials twice scraped off the disgusting globs and cleaned the wall, but the habit of discarding chewed gum on the wall continued.

Unable to keep the wall clean, the city finally gave up and declared the site a tourist attraction.

A Gum Wall scene shows up in the movie "Love Happens," and the Gum Wall remains a favorite location for wedding photos.

The colorful, fragrant mass of gum covers 50 feet of wall, rising 15 feet high at spots and building up several inches thick in places. Some people use their gum to create pieces of art or make statements.

The gum wall is the second-germiest tourist attraction in the world, behind the oft-kissed Blarney stone, according to TripAdvisor.

It's gross, free and easy to maintain. I'm sure Schaumburg, Rosemont, Naperville, Arlington Heights or any suburb could create a similar gum-tastic tourist attraction. Since the wall has been done, we could create a "gum tree," "gum tower," "gum car" or even a statue of a Chicago Bear that could easily be converted into a "gummy bear."

Not only might it lure some adventurous tourists, but public art projects made of gum apparently stand up well against Seattle droughts, rain and heat waves, and even Chicago blizzards.