Calling All Home Brew Aficionados

Budding brewers look for a local meetup.

Ukulele: 'Something Joyful and So Fun'

An evening at Eastgate Cafe shows there's a lot more to this instrument than meets the ear.

Enthusiasts call the ukulele the "people's instrument" — four strings, a few chords and zero pretense. "We want to play," said GiGi Monaco, co-owner of the Wonderwall Emporium and founder of The Harrison Street Ukulele Players in Oak Park. "Have fun." That may sound like Monaco is oversimplifying things. She's not. "That's what we want to do," she said. Founded in 2008, The Harrison Street Ukulele Players meet once a week inside the cozy confines of the Eastgate Cafe, 102 Harrison St. Each session, organized online via meetup.com, typically draws about a dozen or so people. "It's just been something joyful and so fun," said administrative assistant Annie Wegener, 46, of Mt. Prospect, who battles construction traffic and travels about …

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