A BOOMER REMEMBERS BRIGHTON PARK

PART 1

The Great Wall of China & The Berlin Wall Failed But The
Fence Dad Built to Keep The Kids Out of The Yard Didn't! 

My little corner of Brighton Park centered around the area of Archer Avenue and California.  I lived at 2832 West 40th Place which put me almost smack dab in the middle between the intersection of Archer and California and Francisco Av, I lived right across the street from Winslow's lot which was the vacant lot where we played softball during the summer and early fall.  

Let me tell you about some of the people that lived on the street back in the 60's and 70's when I lived there. On one side in a modern bungalow that featured a big picture window was Mr. and Mrs. Kruger. They always had a yapping miniature poodle which was invariably named "Misty."  I've never been overly fond of poodles, they tend to be noisy and to bite.  Every Misty that they ever had managed to confirm the stereotype.  On the other side was Tom and his wife, whom we never saw come out of the house.  They were old folks and their house was dilapidated and covered with "Insulbrick"  which is a tar backed siding that was supposed to look like brick, it didn't fool anybody.  There were holes in the Insulbrick because the house harbored a large hive of bumble bees that were the size of flying golf balls.  Tom had a big yard, actually two lots.  He tried to grow vegetables in his garden but as I remember it mostly the withered and died on the vine. The neighborhood had lots of kids which really didn't sit well with Tom's wife.  If we were playing touch football in the street in front of their house she would send Tom out to shoe us away.  I guess we were making too much noise and Tom couldn't hear her nagging well. 

More important to me of course were the kids on the street.  Across the street was the Leach family.  They were real nice people.  My sister Janice was best friends with Melody and they hung around together.  Next door to Melody was the Kane family.  Jimmy Kane was a year younger than me, he had red hair and freckles and liked to skate board in the street. He also was the first kid in the neighborhood to start smoking.  I understand that he passed away a few years ago due to addiction.  But he was a handsome lad and he really wasn't a close friend of mine he was a typical boy.  He had a sister named Margie, a cute little girl who kind of made me think of the Danny Thomas show as she could have fit in there real good.  I was always kind of jealous of him because his family would drive out to Indiana on the 4th of July and buy a ton of fireworks.  At our house we had a red highway flare to celebrate America's birthday. 

 In the next house was Bill.  Now Bill was okay as far as I know but he really preferred playing with the girls and was good at jump rope.  When he did play baseball with the other guys he kind of threw like a girl. I heard he still lived in the old neighborhood, he would be my age.  Next to Bill was the Carter family.  Two twin boys, two girls lived in the first floor of the green tar papered house.  They were hillbillies.  The boys were known as "The Twins."  One was known as Big Twin and the other as Little Twin.  One of the boys, Bobby, was much shorter than his brother and so he was call the Little Twin and his brother was called the Big Twin.  It seemed to make sense at the time.  They celebrated learning how to smoke by accidentally burning down their garage one summer.  I've also heard other dark stories about them that I believe but since I have no evidence, I will not repeat.  The two sisters were as different as their twin brothers.  Dorothy was the younger girl and she was very slim. Dinah, we the exact opposite.  She was rounder than she was tall and I am afraid the took a lot of grief because of that.  She was kind of sweet on me, much to my horror I might add. 

In the next house on the second floor you would find Philip and his sister whose name right now escapes me, I will back fill her name in later.  Phil and I had one thing in common.  We hated each other.  I found him to be arrogant, prideful, a poor sport and just not nice to be around.  I would imagine that he felt the same about me.  I don't know where he hung around, it wasn't with the gang on 40th Place that is for sure. 

To round out this case of characters in the last two houses on the block you had Chucky his cousin Glen, and Glen's sister Jody.  Chucky and Glen were okay, they were a bit younger than the rest of the guys but they played softball with us and the were pretty much okay.  Jody, on the other hand, was a pip.  We used to sometimes go swimming at McKinley Park, where you swam coed and with swimming suits while at the Kelly pool the sexes swam segregated and nude.  Jody wanted very much to be a woman of the world.  She would wear these bikini swim suits that were made for ladies that had shall we say developed some.  She would get out of the water and the cups on her top would flip over exposing what she didn't yet have.  We thought it was hilarious. 

My little piece of Brighton Park was a wonder place to live.  Next time I am going to give you a tour of the shopping district.  

A Boomers Fascination With Failure - The Numbers Four, Five, and Six 

Okay I will admit it, I have a fascination with failure, at least when it comes to my early life.  My reminiscences tend to focus around the two most difficult years, bar none, of my life.  That would be fourth grade with Mrs. R. Reid, and sixth grade with a more likable Sister Margaret Jean.   Those of you who have read my book are aware of the major circumstances about those two seminal years in my youth.  For the rest of you, keep reading, you will catch on soon enough. 

I was never a good student, I had my own agenda and very seldom did it coincide with agenda of my teachers.  My mind was sluggish when it came to dealing with numbers.  The new math was a mystery my brain was incapable of grasping and the frustration I felt quickly emptied any enthusiasm I had for school work.  My thought was, if you can't do it, then don't do it.  This attitude made my life harder than it needed to be.  

I think the hardest thing for me to deal with was how I was treated by my peers.  I could never understand why I treated so poorly by peers.  I felt I was a good person.  I liked to have fun and wanted so badly to have friends in the quantity that some others did.  But by the fourth grade that was something that could not happen because I became terminally shy.  Fourth grade was the year when I crashed and burned and the time of my life when I was most despondent.  I felt alone, hurt, and completely humbled by my surroundings.  This was the worst year because Mrs. R. Reid sent signals as to who were the weak ones in the herd and thus fair game to be culled from the herd.  I was laughed at, teased, and mentally bullied that year.  I was spared from physical bullying because my best friend at the time was Dennis and he liked nothing better than a good fight so physically I was left alone. 

The sixth grade was another hard year for me, but it was also a year that I look back at very fondly because remembering the lessons of fifth grade, namely, Miss Powaga taught us in many ways that year that we were all important, we were all very special people.  I find it funny that none of the nuns I had ever preached that lesson.  So, in sixth grade I had become an expert at keeping a low profile but it did little to help me in relations with the other children.  I was not Michael or as my family knew me Mickey, I was "Spoula" as if one half my identity had been stripped away from me.  I always thought of myself as Michael and that is what I prefer people call me today, not Mike but Michael. I think that the name Michael has a certain dignity that I want to be associated with. Now there is the exception of course of my family and my two childhood friends (Big Jim and Dennis), they have the irrevocable right to call me "Mickey." 

In one chapter of  my book "Glimpses of God" I describe the story of Michael the prisoner who spent many lunch hours standing detention in the hall of St. Joseph and St. Anne's School watching for any sign of life in the statue of Mary at the end of the hall.  It all started of course when I stood up for myself against Sister Margaret Jean when she once again picked her pets for key roles in her stupid class play.  To her my insubordination were like the events at Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Maine, and the sacking of Washington D.C. all rolled up into one.  She could not let me get away with telling her in front of the whole class that I didn't want to be in her play because she picked the usual class pets for the cool speaking roles one of which I lusted for. Thankfully for her the demerit system was in place to deal with insubordinate people like me. Over the next semester she piled demerit atop demerits and I was sentenced to week after week of detention during lunch play time.  I served five weeks detention one semester and accumulated fifteen demerits from the prolific pen of Sister Margaret Jean.  One of those weeks was justified by my conduct, the other four were not.  


I have come to a conclusion about this time in my life.  While it is true that this was the very first time I stood up for myself for something that I dearly wanted and it is true that it helped start me on the road to recovery, it also fulfilled another less noble purpose.  When I was standing alone in that hallway watching the statue of Mary for signs of life, I was safe from playground taunts and bullying, it was a way to achieve some much needed peace in my troubled life because I was not a boy who enjoyed fighting.  When and if I rewrite my autobiography I will include this in the chapter on grade six. 

One funny thing about this is that while even today when I think about Mrs. R. Reid I get angry at what she did.  Her methods at least in my case were hurtful and personally harmful.    

On the other hand I think only good thoughts about Sister Margaret Jean.  As a person I liked her then and I like her now.  I bore her no ill will and even in my tiny little sixth grader brain box I realized we were both just doing what we needed to do, it was business and nothing personal.

I also have thought long and hard why these two years occupy such a large amount of space in my book and have determined that it is because these two years hardened me in ways that were important and that would serve me in my adult years.  Today in a crowded room of strangers I still do my best to blend into the woodwork because of the injuries suffered in these two pivotal years.  But I also, after a few moments will try to break the ice and that is progress in my life and it would not have been possible with the bad experiences of fourth and sixth grade and the wonderful oasis that Ms. Powaga gave to me in fifth grade. 

One thing about me that is important to know about me is that while I learn from the past, I live in the present.   Since the name of this blog is Boomer  Talk it really should talk about the boomer years. 

What about you?  What experiences did you have in your early life that made you who you are today?  

SIMPLICITY 

KG Report Card

My Kindergarten Report Card from 1958

We boomers started out just like our parents did and just how the next generation did, we had to learn the simple things of life. We had to learn our colors, our phone number, our birthday and harder things too.  We had to learn how to share and how to tie our shoes. 

What all of these things have in common is that they all started us on the road to learning the art of how to be a human being living in community.

Now I don't really remember a lot about KG but I do remember that the first day I came back I told my parents; "Boy I am glad that is over."    I truly was surprised when they insisted that I return the next day and even the next and the next day for another twelve years.  

I learned exactly two things in Kindergarten.  First I learned that it was hard to be the type of human being that the nuns wanted you to be.  Second I learned that Jesus loved you no matter what.  Both of these lessons are still incomplete in my life.  Through all of the boomer years I still am learning how to be a human being that is loving, kind, willing to share and to color inside the lines.  I am also still learning about the great love Jesus has for me, and not how I will be but how I am right now.

In KG we had lots of things to do, some of them important.  There was milk and cookie time and after that we rolled out some mats and we had nap time.  I don't think I ever slept during nap time but I did lay down and rest.  That too was a lesson.  Life could be divided into four parts.  Working, eating, playing, and sleeping.  That is how simple life really is and just think, this boomer learned it early.  The problem I had later on was putting it into action. 

When life gets you down, when trouble piles on top of trouble, remember life is simple.  Work, eat, play, and sleep is all you have to do.  Get enough of each and you can be happy too. 

Grampa

Many years ago, I had a person in my life I called "Grampa."  His actual title of course would be "Grandfather."  His name he answered to at least to the outside world was "Frank."  I never would call him that and for the record, while I was a child I don't think that I ever knew what his name was.  My mother called him "Pa" and my father called him "the old man."  

Grampa loved his grandchildren, of course that is what Grampas  are supposed to do.  In my early years, up to June of 1959 I lived in Bridgeport, an area on the Southwest side of Chicago that was the stomping ground of Mayor Richard Daley (the father, and REAL mayor of Chicago.)  I lived on Loomis Street near Archer Avenue just on the other side of the B and O railroad tracks.  It was a quiet neighborhood with not too many children.  I had one friend, a girl that lived at the end of the block named Coleen. She was a bit of a tomboy and so it was like playing with a guy.

Grampa would come over to visit his daughter, my mother Violet and to take me either for a walk or to the playground that was nearby.  I always asked him to take me to the Boiler Works that was a couple blocks away.  He could never say no to me and more often than not off we went.  We got to front of this building with a large opening and inside there were men using torches and pounding metal with hammers, the noise was magnificently loud and as usual it scared me and I would start to cry.  Grampa would take my hand and we would turn away from the fascinating and somewhat scary factory and we would make our way to the playground.  

In my teen years, which were near the end of his life, I would visit with him and we would play cards and he would play the harmonica for me.  I recorded one of the concerts and still have that tape in my collection.   I think God decided he could not be everywhere so he gave us grandparents. 

Chicken Soup for A Winter's Day

Today I look at winter with older and perhaps (just perhaps) wiser eyes.  But let's face it, I've experienced sixty winters already and I think that I've experienced most of what nature can throw at us when the sun is pointing more directly south of the equator.  Now when I was young, winter held no terrors for me or my sisters.  One time we went to the side of the overpass by McKinley Park on Chicago's southwest side.  It was the best hill around for using our sled.  We spent hours there and we were just a bit chilly when it was time to go home.  We started the long trek, about two and a quarter miles as the crow flies, but then again we were not crows.  We walked and walked and got colder and colder.  Now, I was the big brother and my sisters were really in bad shape.  In my pocket I was carrying a fortune, almost a whole dollar that I had saved up. We were about half way home when I knew Janice and Sandy could not go another step.  Then it hit me.  I had to do something.  On the corner was a greasy spoon sort of diner where the bus drivers would stop and get lunch or coffee or a coke or what have you.  I brought my sisters to into the place we went and sat at the counter and I ordered a bowl of chicken noodle soup and three spoons.  The three of us sat there and shared the soup and warmed up so we could make it the rest of the way home.  The sight of three kids sharing a bowl of soup for some reason caused smiles to appear on all of the other patrons of the restaurant, at the time I wondered why.