ALBANY PARK
My earliest coherent memories are from an apartment we had in Albany Park when I was pre-Kindergarten. I have memories from Old Irving, but they are not enough for a narrative. They are more like flashes. Anyway, we lived in an apartment on Drake between Wilson and Lawrence. Today that area is a little rough (although not terrible), and it may have not been that great when we lived there. I'm not actually sure. My universe was too small to really know.
Our building had six units. Three on each side of a stairway. At one point, the north side of the building had a family from India, a family of Jews from eastern Europe, and a family from Greece. The south side had a Yugoslavian family, an Arab/Kentucky mountain folk family, and us. The next door neighbors on one side were Cuban, while on the other it was a white cop and his family. This area remains extremely diverse. Lawrence from Kimball to Pulaski or so is very, very Korean. From Kimball to Kedzie it is pretty Latin, from Kedzie to the river it is Arab, with some Vietnamese and Spanish mixed in. Further west it is extremely Polish. This is the same street we live near now, although our stretch is more Greek and Bosnian.
It was in this milieu that I experienced some of the important events in Chicago in the late seventies and early eighties. For instance, when Star Wars came out, we went to the suburbs to see it. However, I got my Star Wars GLASSES from the Burger King that still stands on Kimball, just south of Lawrence. Similarly, when the snows came in 1979, I experienced them by diving off of the roof of a church into snow drifts, and climbing on top of vans buried in snow. That was the snow that destroyed Mayor Daley's Croatian successor as mayor, Michael Bilandic. The snow didn't get cleared, and he was defeated by a nice Irish girl named Jane Byrne. Interestingly, Bilandic bounced back to become Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, and is the Chief Justice whose signature appears on my law license. Is there another state where the consolation prize for losing the mayor's office is Chief Justice?
Anyway, I believe it had to be 1976 or 1977. I had been a Cub fan for years, although I was only five or six at the time. I am told that I was drawn to the Cubs before anyone realized I was drawn to ANYTHING. Maybe the moth-to-a-flame analogy is apt. In any case, I knew I was a Cub fan, and I knew that the guy who was the precinct captain was a guy who gave people stuff. It is hard to imagine in the post-311 era, but there was a time when all city services and benefits flowed through the precinct captain. Precincts were so small that the captain knew everybody, and knew who played political ball and who did not. Thus, there was a lot of incentive to be what we call "cooperative" in the city. Of course, this also gave the alderman lots of power. Now, the city has the 311 line that doles out the goodies, rendering aldermen largely irrelevant for prime goodies like city services and new garbage cans.
I remember seeing the precinct captain on our street where me and my friends were playing. He started talking to us, and must have asked if we were Cub fans. I don't really remember the genesis of the conversation, but I know the result—he said if it was OK with my mom, I could have two tickets to the Cubs game. I had never been to a game, but I knew I desperately wanted to go. I still can't imagine what it must have been like to have a five-year old ask, "Mom, if I get Cub tickets, can we go?" That must have seemed like the easiest yes in the world. "Yeah, and if you tickets to the moon, we can go there too" must have crossed her mind. And so I got my first Cubs tickets from the (South Side) political machine for which I have been voting ever since…
It was also in Albany Park that I lost my first dog. We had a very sweet Irish Setter named (cleverly enough) Tara. She was a great dog, and my memories of her are all very fond. As much as I dressed her up in T-shirts and tried to put pants on her (which, like hats, she simply was not patient enough to master), tried to ride her, and generally irritated her while she was trying to sleep, I have no recollection of her ever snapping at me. We also had a white Beetle. So, while the car was being worked on, my friend and I pretended we were driving. Obviously we needed a passenger, and the dog was a prime candidate. We put her in the back seat and proceeded to pretend to drive anywhere and everywhere our four year-old minds could think of. Our passenger apparently dozed off while we did all the driving. That is the only reason I can imagine for why she did not get out of the car when we did. I assume she continued to doze while we locked the garage, my friend went home, and I went inside. I have no idea why I did not remember where she was when asked, point blank, where the dog was. In fact, I did not remember as we walked the neighborhood calling her name, or while I was getting yelled at for losing the dog. I did not even remember when the next morning my dad went to go to work—and found the dog in the car. It wasn't very funny at the time.
As a postscript to losing the dog, I note that one of us got the other back. I don't remember if it was before I "lost" her (in which case I got the revenge) or after (in which case she got the revenge), but there was an incident. We had fried chicken, and for whatever reason I was allowed to eat it in the front room. I was equipped with a board that went from arm to arm on a chair on which my plate sat. I went to get something (I don't remember what) and left my plate on the board. I covered the chicken with a napkins to protect against dog attacks. When I returned, the napkins was exactly as I had left it. However, underneath the chicken AND the dog were gone. Either I locked her up in revenge, or she ate my chicken in revenge. I'll never know which.
OH, THEY SAID SO…
I have always wondered why in turnpike states they did not just hand me a speeding ticket when I arrived at the collection gate too quickly from the ticket gate. It is an easy calculation, and even charging me at my average speed would be more than not charging me at all. I have been told, when asked, that they "just don't do that." Now we have a species of that in Illinois. People can get automatic transponders that automatically deduct the toll from an account when your car passes through the toll both. Obviously they can tell the time, and if you pass through two toll booths, they could calculate your average speed between the booths. However, the Tribune Getting Around column indicates that they will not issue speeding tickets because, "tollway executive director Jack Hartman has said on the record that the data . . . would never be used for speeding enforcement." Oh, OK then.
REDIRECTING THE HEAT
Whew. Since the publication of The De Vinci Code, we Catholics have been the object of a lot of conspiracy theories. In fact, it was even seeming that we might replace the Masons, the CIA, and Jews as the controllers of the universe in paranoid land. Thankfully the Washington Post has an article about The Fellowship. They are a loose group of religious people that started as a prayer group in Seattle in the 1930's. Now they have exclusive unofficial headquarters outside of Washington and "seem to have its hand in every branch of government." Said the Post "There's something about this whole thing that gives me unease," said Jim Pebley, past president of the Arlington County Civic Federation. "Limos and national heavies running in and out of there at all times of the day and night. You have to wonder, what the heck is going on?"
We know what is going on. Global domination!
NOW THAT IS A TOUGH ONE
The Seattle Post- Intelligencer reports that a New Hampshire transsexual will be housed at a women's prison in Washington state. Apparently New Hampshire has a men's prison area for transsexuals, but that this prisoner had already been moved. In any case, the shocking thing here is that the prisoner had sex-reassignment surgery in CASABLANCA in 1969. Now THAT is a man who needed to be a woman. I'm not sure I'd get a check-up in Casablanca and this person got sex re-assignment surgery. High roller.
QUOTES
From today's Chicago Tribune, "teeth are the new breasts, with everyone assessing a perfect set, and wondering, 'Are they real?'"
From last night's Simpson's when Krusty finds out he's not really Jewish, "I thought I was a self-hating Jew, but it turns out I'm just an anti-Semite."
My earliest coherent memories are from an apartment we had in Albany Park when I was pre-Kindergarten. I have memories from Old Irving, but they are not enough for a narrative. They are more like flashes. Anyway, we lived in an apartment on Drake between Wilson and Lawrence. Today that area is a little rough (although not terrible), and it may have not been that great when we lived there. I'm not actually sure. My universe was too small to really know.
Our building had six units. Three on each side of a stairway. At one point, the north side of the building had a family from India, a family of Jews from eastern Europe, and a family from Greece. The south side had a Yugoslavian family, an Arab/Kentucky mountain folk family, and us. The next door neighbors on one side were Cuban, while on the other it was a white cop and his family. This area remains extremely diverse. Lawrence from Kimball to Pulaski or so is very, very Korean. From Kimball to Kedzie it is pretty Latin, from Kedzie to the river it is Arab, with some Vietnamese and Spanish mixed in. Further west it is extremely Polish. This is the same street we live near now, although our stretch is more Greek and Bosnian.
It was in this milieu that I experienced some of the important events in Chicago in the late seventies and early eighties. For instance, when Star Wars came out, we went to the suburbs to see it. However, I got my Star Wars GLASSES from the Burger King that still stands on Kimball, just south of Lawrence. Similarly, when the snows came in 1979, I experienced them by diving off of the roof of a church into snow drifts, and climbing on top of vans buried in snow. That was the snow that destroyed Mayor Daley's Croatian successor as mayor, Michael Bilandic. The snow didn't get cleared, and he was defeated by a nice Irish girl named Jane Byrne. Interestingly, Bilandic bounced back to become Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, and is the Chief Justice whose signature appears on my law license. Is there another state where the consolation prize for losing the mayor's office is Chief Justice?
Anyway, I believe it had to be 1976 or 1977. I had been a Cub fan for years, although I was only five or six at the time. I am told that I was drawn to the Cubs before anyone realized I was drawn to ANYTHING. Maybe the moth-to-a-flame analogy is apt. In any case, I knew I was a Cub fan, and I knew that the guy who was the precinct captain was a guy who gave people stuff. It is hard to imagine in the post-311 era, but there was a time when all city services and benefits flowed through the precinct captain. Precincts were so small that the captain knew everybody, and knew who played political ball and who did not. Thus, there was a lot of incentive to be what we call "cooperative" in the city. Of course, this also gave the alderman lots of power. Now, the city has the 311 line that doles out the goodies, rendering aldermen largely irrelevant for prime goodies like city services and new garbage cans.
I remember seeing the precinct captain on our street where me and my friends were playing. He started talking to us, and must have asked if we were Cub fans. I don't really remember the genesis of the conversation, but I know the result—he said if it was OK with my mom, I could have two tickets to the Cubs game. I had never been to a game, but I knew I desperately wanted to go. I still can't imagine what it must have been like to have a five-year old ask, "Mom, if I get Cub tickets, can we go?" That must have seemed like the easiest yes in the world. "Yeah, and if you tickets to the moon, we can go there too" must have crossed her mind. And so I got my first Cubs tickets from the (South Side) political machine for which I have been voting ever since…
It was also in Albany Park that I lost my first dog. We had a very sweet Irish Setter named (cleverly enough) Tara. She was a great dog, and my memories of her are all very fond. As much as I dressed her up in T-shirts and tried to put pants on her (which, like hats, she simply was not patient enough to master), tried to ride her, and generally irritated her while she was trying to sleep, I have no recollection of her ever snapping at me. We also had a white Beetle. So, while the car was being worked on, my friend and I pretended we were driving. Obviously we needed a passenger, and the dog was a prime candidate. We put her in the back seat and proceeded to pretend to drive anywhere and everywhere our four year-old minds could think of. Our passenger apparently dozed off while we did all the driving. That is the only reason I can imagine for why she did not get out of the car when we did. I assume she continued to doze while we locked the garage, my friend went home, and I went inside. I have no idea why I did not remember where she was when asked, point blank, where the dog was. In fact, I did not remember as we walked the neighborhood calling her name, or while I was getting yelled at for losing the dog. I did not even remember when the next morning my dad went to go to work—and found the dog in the car. It wasn't very funny at the time.
As a postscript to losing the dog, I note that one of us got the other back. I don't remember if it was before I "lost" her (in which case I got the revenge) or after (in which case she got the revenge), but there was an incident. We had fried chicken, and for whatever reason I was allowed to eat it in the front room. I was equipped with a board that went from arm to arm on a chair on which my plate sat. I went to get something (I don't remember what) and left my plate on the board. I covered the chicken with a napkins to protect against dog attacks. When I returned, the napkins was exactly as I had left it. However, underneath the chicken AND the dog were gone. Either I locked her up in revenge, or she ate my chicken in revenge. I'll never know which.
OH, THEY SAID SO…
I have always wondered why in turnpike states they did not just hand me a speeding ticket when I arrived at the collection gate too quickly from the ticket gate. It is an easy calculation, and even charging me at my average speed would be more than not charging me at all. I have been told, when asked, that they "just don't do that." Now we have a species of that in Illinois. People can get automatic transponders that automatically deduct the toll from an account when your car passes through the toll both. Obviously they can tell the time, and if you pass through two toll booths, they could calculate your average speed between the booths. However, the Tribune Getting Around column indicates that they will not issue speeding tickets because, "tollway executive director Jack Hartman has said on the record that the data . . . would never be used for speeding enforcement." Oh, OK then.
REDIRECTING THE HEAT
Whew. Since the publication of The De Vinci Code, we Catholics have been the object of a lot of conspiracy theories. In fact, it was even seeming that we might replace the Masons, the CIA, and Jews as the controllers of the universe in paranoid land. Thankfully the Washington Post has an article about The Fellowship. They are a loose group of religious people that started as a prayer group in Seattle in the 1930's. Now they have exclusive unofficial headquarters outside of Washington and "seem to have its hand in every branch of government." Said the Post "There's something about this whole thing that gives me unease," said Jim Pebley, past president of the Arlington County Civic Federation. "Limos and national heavies running in and out of there at all times of the day and night. You have to wonder, what the heck is going on?"
We know what is going on. Global domination!
NOW THAT IS A TOUGH ONE
The Seattle Post- Intelligencer reports that a New Hampshire transsexual will be housed at a women's prison in Washington state. Apparently New Hampshire has a men's prison area for transsexuals, but that this prisoner had already been moved. In any case, the shocking thing here is that the prisoner had sex-reassignment surgery in CASABLANCA in 1969. Now THAT is a man who needed to be a woman. I'm not sure I'd get a check-up in Casablanca and this person got sex re-assignment surgery. High roller.
QUOTES
From today's Chicago Tribune, "teeth are the new breasts, with everyone assessing a perfect set, and wondering, 'Are they real?'"
From last night's Simpson's when Krusty finds out he's not really Jewish, "I thought I was a self-hating Jew, but it turns out I'm just an anti-Semite."
posted by David at 11:36 AM
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