Chicago Unseen

There but before the grace of God go I.

Last week my wife and I went downtown.  We took the train from our suburban town and when we got off we were propelled into another world. It was a world of contrasts, rich and poor coexisting and in some cases seemingly unaware of the existence of the other.  

Mary and I walked from the train station to the restaurant that was the first port of call for the day and both within and outside of the train station were homeless people, all with a cup with perhaps a few cents in it begging for a little spare change. 

Despair

It was like this on almost every corner.  I don't remember such poverty appearing on the street when I was young. I don't remember the downtown area being such a testament to poverty and want.  You would sometimes see a panhandler downtown but not too often.  Last Saturday I observed people that were carrying all of their worlds possessions in a blanket and shopping carts. 

All That I Have

These are scenes that I would expect to see in the third world and not in Chicago, a city in the richest country in the world.  There is something wrong.  I just can't get the scenes I observed last week out of my head.

A human being is created in the likeness of God.  Not just some of us, all of us.  What has gone wrong?  Have we become blind to the needs of others.  The poor (Jesus said) you will always have with you, but I don't think he meant we should tolerate it.

The invisibility of these people comes from the fact that there are so many.  A person walking on the street from the train station to the restaurant cannot help everybody they meet so these people become invisible, their voices interpreted as just more city background noise to be ignored. 

I don't know what the point of this entry is other than to see my brain is still processing the data.  But the Bible is not silent on this subject at all:  (James 5: 1-15)

Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending
miseries. 2 Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become
moth-eaten, 3 your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire. You have stored up treasure for the last days.
4 Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who
harvested your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the 
harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
5 You have lived on earth in luxury and pleasure; you
have fattened your hearts for the day of slaughter.
6 You have condemned; you have murdered the righteous 
one; he offers you no resistance.  

I Can Relate To Beaver Cleaver

The prolific letter writer, Sister Emerita

In this classic clip from Leave It To Beaver, (The Beaver is 64 this year) the teacher sends the Beav home with a note to his parents, sealed in an envelope.  I don't remember this episode except of course that the note was for an innocent reason but the Beaver does not give it to his parents when his buddies tell him that the only reason a teacher would send a note home is if he were in big trouble.   I can sympathize with him because in the third grade I was at St. Joseph and St. Anne School in Chicago under the gentle care of Sister Emerita  Sister Emerita was old, I mean she had to be at least thirty five or forty!  Hey when you are in third grade everyone looks older to you.

At this time in my life I was having a problem.  I could not for the life of me get a handle on mathematics.  Therefore I decided to not do the homework.  Sister Emerita who allowed no free time for herself as when she was not teaching, she was writing letters for kids to take home to parents.  She did not discriminate as when she saw it as necessary she would send notes home even to the parents of children that she kept as teachers pets!  This was unheard of behavior for a teacher.  Usually the pets were exempt from being sent home clutching a missive from Sister Emerita.  For example, Mark Stefanic, a real nice guy and a super good student had notes sent home.  His mother once asked my mother what she thought of Sister Emerita's notes.  My mother said that she never received any.  My mother wasn't lying because when a note was given to me I carefully placed the envelope still sealed of course since it wasn't addressed to me; I had my scruples.

When parent teacher conference time came up, my parents were greeted rather coldly by the nun because she thought that they read her notes and thought nothing of them.  She would of course then tell them how I wasn't working up to my potential and tell them about the bad grades I was about to receive. BUT NEVER ONCE DID SHE MENTION THE LETTERS SHE HAD BEEN SENDING HOME!  My parents turned up the heat for a few weeks, but my grades did not improve so much because I could not understand the "New Math" that was being taught.

These letters I thought of as death warrants and thus destroyed them.  They were actually lifelines that Sister Emerita sent in her effort to help me.  I think back now that Beaver and me are preparing to enter our so called "Golden Years" Obamacare willing and wonder how my life would have been changed had even a fraction of those letter reached home?

Beaver, you are four years older and wiser than me but both of us had the same reaction to a letter from teacher and both of us did well for ourselves.  God bless you Sister Emerita for trying!

My autobiography has been published and you can learn more about growing up in Chicago during the Boomer Years -  Visit my website:

http://mjsglimpses.orgfree.com/index.html

The Shy Freshman - First Love

My Home Room 1967, a photo by Michael 1952 on Flickr.

I am a product of the 1960's and 70's and am truly a boomer. The picture above includes yours truly, I am in the white shirt in the second row, third from the left. Standing right in front of me is my first love, Josephine. I was really pleasantly surprised to see this charming and to my eyes the prettiest girl in my division.  I thought this was God's way of saying that you are going to have a really good year.  It started badly because that first day I did not walk up and say "hello." I was very shy around girls, they were a mystery to me.  I mean how did a boy talk to a girl? I heard other boys talking to their girlfriends and they what they were saying did not seem like something a guy should say to a girl. So I said nothing. What would have happened that first day in Ms. Duba's division if I would have said something, anything, to this girl who had been on my mind since sixth grade? Eventually I did ask her for a date, to the Military Ball that my ROTC troop was hosting and the date started out well and kind of went bad, but that is a story for another day.  Suffice it to say that this was a one time date and I was devastated. But after so many years I was able to establish contact with her and through the internet we brought each other up to date with was happening in each others lives. I also found out what went wrong at that military ball, she too was very shy.   Anyway, I found out that she had been married twice, one ex husband is in the process of converting his liver into something hard enough to strike matches off of and the other one passed away in extraordinary circumstances.  Josie had a very hard life, and I don't to go into details here but I admire her for the courage that she has and how she overcame many obstacles and is a happy person that contributes much to those around her.  I wouldn't be a human being if I didn't wonder "what if."  What if one of us was not shy, what changes would have that made in our life's?  I knew from sixth grade on I loved this girl but because of various circumstances in my life I had built walls and wasn't going to let anyone hurt me so I was ill prepared to give more than a little bit.  That date we went on tended to confirm every bad notion I had about myself and I dug a deeper foxhole.  Would have I married Josie?  If my fantasies which started in sixth grade are any gauge, I would have done whatever it took.  Unfortunately I was walking wounded and was so for many years.  

If my wife Mary reads this (no one so far has read too many of my posts LOL), dear one, you are the one that I have chosen to share my life with. Mary you were the first  one that accepted me for who I was and where I was. Your stole my heart and I don't know where I would be in life without your love and support.  I was very fortunate because the two times we got married, once before a judge and then before God and His Church are the happiest days of my life.  

God works in mysterious ways and His ways make every day a day that can change the path of your life. Don't take my word for it, but don't say I didn't warn you.  

So I watch the children play and dream my dreams of yesterday.

Don't tell them to be grateful I'm sure that they've told.

If I knew then what I know not that would have messed it up somehow. 

When the day stretched out before me like a long long Texas road 

Yes a long long Texas road 'bout a million miles or so

When you're just a child there ain't no time but now

Must have left that long old road seven hundred years agi

And I'd find it once again if I knew how.

Who Has the Film Stretcher?

I remember it as if it happened yesterday which is funny since sometimes I can't recall what I had for lunch by dinner time.  It was my big day, I was starting my first job as an usher at the United Artists Theater in downtown Chicago. I walked in and soon was decked out in black pants, white cardboard shirt front and collar and a red jacket.  This was the uniform that I would be wearing on most days of the week for the next three years.  That first day I was broken in correctly.  Here is the story, which is taken from my autobiography, Glimpses of God, which is available at the website you will see below. 

With the grand tour and my training complete, total time about thirty minutes, I was assigned to aisle three where my job would be to open the door for anyone who wanted go into the auditorium or to come out, labor that was not exactly rocket science.  I noticed that Hector had been on the phone making a few calls and I certainly didn’t think too much about it because after all I was the low man and he was the mighty Chief of Service.  After he made a couple of calls he called me over and told me that he had an important assignment for me.  I remember thinking that he really must like me because here I was on my first day and I was already receiving an important assignment from the Chief of Service.  He told me that the projectionists needed the film stretcher and that it was at the State Lake Theater and he wanted me to go there to get it.  He said it was an expensive piece of equipment and the downtown B and K theaters only had one that they had to share.  So dressed in my bright red blazer I was dispatched to the State Lake. 

When I arrived at the State Lake Theater which oddly enough was on the corner of State and Lake in downtown Chicago, their Chief of Service asked me what I wanted and I told him that Hector told me to pick up the film stretcher.  He said that they didn’t have it, that they had sent it to the Roosevelt Theater just a couple of blocks south.  So, off to the Roosevelt Theater I went determined to impress my new liege lord with my ability to get the job done.   When I arrived at the Roosevelt the Chief of Service there said that they had it up to about an hour ago and that they had sent it back to the Chicago Theater which was right across the street from the State Lake.  He also said that Hector had called looking for me concerned that I was taking so long in getting a simple job done.   I thanked the Roosevelt’s Chief and turned on my heel and rapidly retraced my steps to the north.

 I went to the front of the Chicago Theater and spoke to the Chief of Service and he said that they had the film stretcher and then he told me to come around to the side door.  I turned around and walked the long half block to the side entrance where the Chief of Service met me and we took the elevator up three floors and there outside the projectionist’s booth was a large sealed box that had a very strong chemical smell emitting from it.  He told me to pick it up and I did so, it must have weighed forty pounds.  He told me to be careful not to tip it so that the chemicals did not leak out as they could burn skin.  I followed him to the elevator and he shook his head stating that because of all of the chemical fumes the thing was not allowed in the elevator and he pointed to the stairs.  He then told me to hurry and get it to the UA because Hector had called looking for me.  I started walking down the stairs and tried to keep the box from tipping but whatever this film stretcher was, it was packed off center and the box was unwieldy to carry but I managed to get it down the stairs without tipping it.  When I got to the first floor the Chief was there with a clipboard and he told me I had to sign for the film stretcher.  I carefully put the box down on the ground and signed a form that he put in front of me.  Then I bent down and picked up the heavy box and as I did so it tipped a little and he again cautioned me to be very careful because if the chemicals leaked on me, I could be burned.

 The box really stunk of chemicals so I believed that I was in mortal peril.  I left the Chicago Theater and started making my way to the UA.  My arms were burning with pain because the box was very heavy and very clumsy to carry.  Then I felt some wetness hit my arm, no pain but I realized that I must have spilled some of the chemicals out of the film stretcher.  I started to walk faster.  It was hot that night and the box kept dripping on my hands and arms.  The closer that I got to the UA the more of the caustic chemicals were leaking onto my arms.  I was scared!  Finally I got the box to the UA and almost ran into the lobby and told Hector that I had spilled some of the chemicals on my arm, the whole box seemed to be soaked with chemicals now.  He looked at me and said that he hoped that I wasn’t burned too badly.  Then he burst out laughing along with everyone else on the floor.  He told me to put down the box.  He opened it and what was inside?  I saw about forty pounds of ice chips with a little bit of spray paint on the top layer of ice to impart the alarming aroma.  Now I was initiated, now I was one of them, fit to work as a paid usher at the proud B and K theater chain.

Here is my website - go there to see some pictures and more facts about this boomer boy from Chicago! 

http://mjsglimpses.orgfree.com/index.html