The Good old days

I received the following e-mail from my daughter Debbie. I changed a few of the things to fit my memories. I added memories from my brother and sisters.

Lightning Bugs / Older 'n Dirt!!

"Hey Dad," one of my kids asked the other day, "What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?"

"We didn't have fast food when I was growing up," I informed him. "All the food was slow."

"C'mon, seriously, Where did you eat?"

"It was a place called 'at home'," I explained. "Grandma cooked every day and when Grandpa got home from work, we sat down together at the kitchen table for "Supper", and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it." I used to hide my spinach under my mashed potatoes, hoping Mom would not notice until I was gone. (That never worked) Check out my Mom's Cook Book.

The first time that I remember going out to dinner was for my parents' 25th anniversary. I was playing college baseball and I showed up in my CTC (Chicago Teachers College) baseball uniform. We walked over to Luigi's where the sign said "One Hundred Yards of Spaghetti". Al and Connie bought the old Queen Theater that was on the 2500 W. block of North Avenue and turned it into very popular pizza place. It soon became so popular that a few years later, they bought the store on the northeast corner of Rockwell and North Ave that formerly housed the National Tea Super Market. The New Luigi's was 4 times larger and was always filled. Al must have missed a protection payment, because he was found in the trunk of his car in the Chicago River after a few years and Luigi's soon closed.

There were no Hooters restaurants and if there was, we never would have been able to get my Mom to go there, even if their wings were tasty. Dad might have gone, he liked chicken. I marvel at how easy it is for kids that are my grandson's age, to talk their parents into a trip to Hooters. The only time I get to go there is when my grandson has a hockey road trip. There were many hot dog stands and guys with carts selling hot dogs in the old neighborhood. There was Sammy's Red Hots by Carole's house on Maplewood and Division. There was Freddy's Hot Dogs and Moishe Pippick's (Yiddish for belly button) Hot Dogs. You could get a dog, and fries for a quarter at any of these places. There was the "Humboldt Spot" on California and Division that was later renamed "Ricky's" where you could get a corned beef sandwich with pickle, and coleslaw for fifty cents. It was owned by Art Melmen, whose son Ricky is now one of the country's biggest restaurateurs.

The closest thing we had to "Fast Food" was Saturday's lunch. Mom would send me to the corner grocery store where Josie was the lady in charge. We would get some fresh buns and some sliced ham along with a big dill pickle. Josie would always put in a bar of Ivory soap since Saturday was "Bath Day". One memory that I have was on a day when Mom sent me to the store with a note. I gave it to Josie and she got the "can of corn" grabber and pulled down a box that was wrapped in plain brown paper. The secrecy got the best of my curiosity, so I ripped a hole in the wrapper on the way home to see what was in there. You guessed it, I had a box of Kotex sanitary napkins. Looking back, I wondered how I was picked for that job and I surmised that my sisters were too young and my brother was too smart.

We went to a Restaurant!

My sister Pat reminded me of the time we were driving back from Terre Haute* and we stopped at a restaurant. We ordered chicken, and soon we heard chickens squawking. Then about an hour later they brought us the chicken, but it was not cooked through. They were still bloody, but fresh, really fresh. Mom tells me she took us to the doctor after that trip to get a cure for the infections that all of us got in our mouths from eating there. He gave her a purple liquid called Mercurochrome to paint on our sores. (Mercurochrome, is a topical antiseptic used for minor cuts and scrapes. It is readily available in most countries but no longer sold in the United States because of its mercury content.) We played with mercury every time a thermometer broke. We also had lead pipes in our house until my dad replaced them with galvanized pipe when I was in high school. My uncle Frank had lead pipes for all of his 96 years. When Dad removed the pipes from our house, I took a couple of 14 inch sections and pounded them flat and sewed a pocket on some baseball socks and went jogging. We had baseball bats with lead in them for practice swings, so I used the logic that if I jogged with lead weights, I would be able to run faster once I got the lead out. There was no weight training, I pushed a broom and built up my arms.

Herb took the above picture at that Indiana Restaurant. (Left -Right) Mom's earring, Dad's back, Me pouring a drink, Mary and Pat.

Our equivalent of fast food was fried shrimp that Dad used to pick up by the river, after bowling on a Friday night. That was good food! I wonder what they did to it. They probably used butter.

Our grandma used to take us on a Milwaukee Ave. street car, all the way to the end of the line at Devon. We would bring sprinkling cans to the cemetery in Niles IL. After hauling water and pulling weeds from my Uncle John's grave all afternoon, we would head back to the street car, but we would stop at Prince Castle and have a burger and ice cream. We did that several times a year.

*For Vacation, we drove to Terre Haute Indiana to visit the Sisters of Providence that taught us at St. Mark School. I remember going to see the Terre Haute Phillies play a night game. I remember seeing "Pudin Head" Jones, who went on to star for the Philadelphia Phillies from 1947-1960.

** Note from my sister Pat

Mary used to eat her canned spinach and make us look bad. You and I would be sitting there with the clock ticking away and our eyes tearing up and the cold spinach coagulating on our plates. Then Mom would cave and say, "OK, you don't have to eat your spinach if you do the dishes." Our faces would light up! Anything was better than the dreaded canned spinach.

Pat

Vacations in the 1970s

When I became a dad, we took road trip vacations. We went to Six Flags in Georgia and Missouri. We visited my sister in the Smokey Mountains many times. We usually stopped for food at Fast food places. I remember one trip to Baraboo Wisconsin to visit the Circus Museum where Dan got a ride on an elephant. Carole and I had a coupon for a free meal for 2 at the fancy hotel restaurant, so we got a bucket of chicken for the kids in the room while we had a peaceful, quiet meal. 50 years later, during the Corona Virus pandemic, I heard that KFC was abandoning their finger lickin good slogan. That reminded me of a memorable to KFC.

That triggered a memory from 1975 when we were on vacation and we stopped at a KFC to feed the family. My kids were big fans of Wacky Packs. Wacky Packages are a series of humorous trading cards featuring parodies of consumer products. The cards were produced by the Topps Company beginning in 1967, usually in a sticker format. At the height of their popularity in 1973–74, Wacky Packages outsold baseball cards! While waiting in line, our 5-year-old son, Dan, said, “We are getting Kentucky fried fingers!” There were 10 or more people in line and they all started laughing. I started talking about Wacky packs in the Duffer locker room and many guys remembered them. One of my teammates, brought me a pack of them the next week, here are just a few of them.

This reminds me of when I was about 16 and helping my Dad hang ceiling tiles with a staple gun when the doorbell rang. My dad got down off of the ladder and went to the door. We were on the second floor and we could open the door to the hallway and yell to the person who rang the bell who was in the foyer. If we wanted to admit the person we could press a button to open the downstairs door.

My Dad yelled, "Who's there?" The female solicitor replied, "Is the lady of the house home?" My dad said, "No, come on up!" She vanished and we laughed.

We had a spare bedroom that we called the "Junk Room" and it was always a mess, so we never had to ask this question.

Back Yard Fun

Neon | Neon signs

The L. Fish Furniture sign pictured above used to hang on the North Avenue furniture store that was located just 300 feet away from our house. (The second one is the modern one hanging in Indianapolis.) When I was little, I used to think that that giant fish was taking a bite out of the building. Most of the furniture was shipped in wooden crates, so that alley was full of wooden treasures. We brought a lot of wood for Grandpa to chop for a stove that heated his bath water. Grandpa also took the nails and tapped them straight with his hammer. I remember getting wooden crates that protected refrigerators from the alley behind the L. Fish furniture store. My brother Herb and I would build a ramp with three six foot long, 4 foot wide planks. We propped up the first plank about 4 feet high and that was the starting line. We then connected it to another plank that was 3 feet high. It was propped up with 2 by 4s. We connected the 3rd plank that was 1 foot high and propped up with bricks and the finish line was resting in the grass. Those 3 planks gave our gravity powered cars an 18 foot run to the finish.

I made a ramp for my grandson Mike's gravity powered cars back in 2002. When I saw the picture below, it reminded me of the car ramps that we made in the late 1940s.

Amazon.com: Rhode Island Novelty 9 Inch Paddle Ball, One Dozen ... We had a lot of fun in the small backyard, my cousins and siblings are pictured below playing paddle ball. I remember helping my grandpa work in his garden. I remember that he grew tomatoes, with seeds that he got from tomatoes. We had a big tree in the middle that made it hard to play a baseball game. We played baseball in the alley and in Campbell's yard. We did play running bases and we were able to play catch in that backyard. (We never said, "Have a catch")

Having a 3 story building with an open porch on each floor gave us a lot of opportunities to sail paper airplanes or parachutes made from a handkerchief and a toy soldier. As a teen, I would climb over the railing from the first floor and jump to the grass. My brother and I made a movie that made it look like I jumped off of the 3rd floor into a water filled milk carton. Herb has released that movie in a DVD.

My sister Pat wrote;

"I remember the erector set. You guys got all the fun stuff-- chemistry sets, baseball gloves, etc. Mary and I just got dolls and miniature brooms and scrub boards. We were being prepped for a lifetime of childbirth and toil."

That Chemistry set had real dangerous chemicals. Herb taught me which 3 chemicals were needed to make gun powder. I was just learning to read at that time.

The June 2007 issue of Reminisce Extra featured the above picture.

(Left to Right) my sister Pat, cousins Marcy, Josie, sister Mary and cousin Frank. Bill Link was resting on the Turf.

Baseball Memories

This is what I looked like when I played 3rd base in college.

That was our Servel gas refrigerator. My dad used to say that the little man in the refrigerator who turned the light on was named pieniądze. (pieniądze is money in Polish That is one of the few Polish words that my dad knew that were not cuss words)

Humboldt Park Amvets 1955. (Not much protection for your important body parts.)

I caught several hundred games and many more batting practice sessions without a cup. I never saw a protective cup in the 50s. In 1961, my college baseball coach, Isadore "Spin" Salario, told me about those new funny looking cups and suggested that I get one while playing 3rd base. (I switched to 3rd base to avoid being a backup catcher.) (I didn't take his advice, but I did get one when I became an umpire in the Mid 1960s)

I never got dinged by a thrown ball while I was protected by the chest protector ball flap. I have to state that it only protects attacks from the front, sort of like The Maginot Line. I did get dinged with a ball from behind when I was catching batting practice in Humboldt park. Their batting cages had 2 by 12 lumber planks behind home plate. While catching batting practice, I let an outside pitch sail past me and focused on the next pitch. Little did I know that the wild pitch would rebound off of the backstop and find it's way to my dangling unprotected testicles just as the pitcher was throwing the next pitch. I fell face down and did what all guys do when they get dinged. Fortunately the pitch sailed over me and the batter stepped out as the pitch was on the way. I feel that pain every time I see and Umpire or catcher go down.

No Hitters

September 13, 2020, My wife and I watched Alec Mills toss a no-hitter to beat the Milwaukee Brewers 12-0. That event started me thinking about the First No-hitter that I witnessed when I was a freshman in high school.

1955 was the first time I got to see a no hitter. I was a freshman in high school so I rushed home to see what the Cubs were doing. My 12 year old sister Pat was home sick that day, so she was on the couch watching the game and recording every out on a score sheet. Our Dad taught all of us to keep score when we watched a game. When we went to Wrigley Field, he always bought a scorecard for a dime. It came with a short pencil that had no eraser. He kept score while teaching us how to do that. As a 15 year old when I came home, I went right to the refrigerator to get some food. I put on the radio while munching on my snack. The play by play Cub radio announcer, Bert Wilson, shouted, "that great catch keeps the no hitter alive!" I took my snack and ran to the living room (Sometimes called the parlor) and yelled, "why didn't you tell me Jones was pitching a no-hitter?" Pat looked puzzled and asked me, "what's a no-hitter?" She was more focused watching her favorite player Handsome Ransom Jackson. Rookie pitcher Sam "Toothpick" Jones was no-hitting the hard hitting Pirates through 7 innings. I can't blame Pat for not knowing what a no-hitter was since no Cub had pitched a no hitter in 37 years. The Cubs took a 4-0 lead into the 9th inning thanks to 3 hits by Ernie Banks and 2 hits each by Randy Jackson, Ted Tappe and Sam Jones. The toothpick man ended this gem with suspense and style when he walked the the bases full, then struck out Dick Groat, Roberto Clemente and Frank Thomas to become the first black pitcher to throw a no-hit game in the major leagues and it was the first no-hitter hurled in Wrigley Field since Hippo Vaughn's gem in 1917.

I started thinking about the other no-hitters that I was lucky enough to witness. I watched Jake Arrieta get no-hitters in 2015 and 2016. I watched every pitch of the first no-hitter in Milwaukee when Carlos Zambrano no-hit the Astros in 2008 when Huston's park was flooded by hurricane Ike. I saw all of Milt Pappas' no-hitter on September 2, 1972 when he beat the Padres 8-0. (That was the last week of summer break) Burt Hooton beat the Phillies 4-0 that same season in April with a no-hitter and I saw the last few innings when I got home from teaching school. I also watched the last few innings of Ken Holtsman's 1-0 no-hit win over the Reds on June 3, 1971 and his 1969 no-hitter over the Braves in August. May 15, 1960, I watched Ernie Banks receive his 1959 MVP award before the game. Don Cardwell got the call to pitch game 2 of a double header. The Phillies had just traded him to the Cubs 9 days earlier with a strained arm and a losing career record of 17-23. When Cardwell walked the 2nd man in the first inning, I went off to work on a paper that was due the next day. (I was in my 2nd year at Chicago Teachers' College.) I checked into the game in the 7th inning, the Cubs were winning and Cardinals were hitless. I sat down and watched him retire 26 strait Cardinals! The last out came when Walt "Moose" Moryn made a shoestring catch to end the game. Moose was 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed 205 pounds. He played for the Cubs until 1961. In 1963 after I graduated college, I was playing 12 inch fast pitch softball in Maywood for Ernie's Bar and Grill. Moose was playing on a team that we played against several times. He had a hard time catching up the the underhand fast pitches. He struck out swinging 4 times in the first game that he played against us. A few weeks later, after striking out twice, he hit one out of sight.

I never could join little league in 1952 when I was 12, the first time that I heard of little league was when Jack Brickhouse started showing games on WGN-TV from Thillens's stadium at 6404 North Kedzie Ave. I lived 1600 north, so that was a long bus ride. The stadium was founded in 1938 by Mel Thillens, Sr.,owner of Thillens Inc. check-cashing business. Thillens' idea was to have a baseball park that anyone can use, rent-free. It cost Thillens a total of $6 million to build the park. In 1940 the ballpark erected lights for night use. In the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s both Little League games and men's 16-inch softball games were televised from the park by WGN-TV, with Jack Brickhouse announcing.

I did get a uniform when I was 15 when I played Babe Ruth baseball in Humboldt park. We were sponsored by Amvets. There was only one other team in the league that had uniforms and that was thanks to Dan Rostenkowski who was a United States Representative from Chicago, serving from 1959 to 1995. He became one of the most powerful legislators in Washington, especially in matters of taxation, until he went to prison for stealing stamps. He helped President Regan pass the Windfall Elimination Provision that reduced my Social security benefit from $250 to $66 dollars. (About $400 short of what I need for Medicare) Fortunately I have a Chicago Teacher's pension that I contributed 8% of my salary into for 39 years and that pension was managed well and keeps sending me checks. I can't complain, if my Dad was here, he would say you're complaining with a loaf of bread under your arm.

My kids had little league uniforms sponsored by local businesses. Ken played for Fairview Hardware. They had FH on their caps that made them an easy target of opponents. The kindest insult was Fat Heads. The next year they dropped the H and just went with F. Ken and I are pictured in our F hats below.

Canvas Bases

It was sad to see Kris Bryant slip off of the slippery first base "bag" and roll his ankle on September 22, 2019. He had to leave the game. Those bases are dangerous when they get wet. Corey Paterson blew his knee out when his spikes slipped off of a wet first base. Patterson tore the ACL and cartilage in his left knee when he beat out an infield single in the eighth inning Sunday July 6, 2002. He was having an all star year. That put him out for the season and he never regained his speed in following years. Bryce Harper injured his knee in 2017 when he slipped off of a wet hard plastic1st base.
Years ago before plastic was invented, We played with stuffed canvas bags that were held in place by 2 spikes. Those canvas bags would allow your spikes to dig in even when it was raining. The player's union should demand that MLB gets rid of the dangerous hard plastic bases. We would pound in the long spikes with a beat up wooden bat to anchor the bases. The kids today would ruin their aluminum or composite bats doing that today.

My Dad, Herb Lopatka was quite a player, according to accounts from my grandpa and Uncle George. They watched him play with Cub Great, Phil Cavarretta.

This is my Father in law Edmund Nowak

This is my Dad's glove. Mom said that he bought it at the Wilson Sporting Goods Factory for 2 or 3 dollars in the late 1930s. The Wilson factory was on Milwaukee Ave, near Rockwell Street. I bought my Roy Campanella catchers mitt (Pictured below) from a guy who worked there for $20. I later bought my A2000 fielder's glove for $25 in the late 1950s. They were selling for about $50 in the stores. Most of the professional players were starting to use the A2000. I was earning $1.10 per hour at Carl-Sons Hardware store at that time. I worked there part time when I was in High School and College. I had to take some time off when I was playing college baseball and Carl didn't like that too much, so he told me, " You have to make up my mind, do you want to work or play baseball." I asked my Dad for advice. He said, "Tell Carl that you are going to play baseball now, because you will have to work the rest of your life." My Dad knew Carl well from his grade school days. Carl was a rich kid whose mom used to dress him funny. Kids picked on him and my Dad used to keep the bullies away from him. Carl used to give my dad candy to pay for his protection. Carl liked to schedule deliveries of 80 pound bags of ready mix concrete on days when I was working, since I didn't mind working up a sweat hauling and stacking those bags into the bins. We didn't have weights to lift back then, so I was building a strong back and arms while getting paid. I was one of the first football players to use weight training on my legs. I took sections of lead pipe that my Dad removed from our house and hammered them flat. I then sewed a pocket in some old baseball socks and inserted the flattened lead pipes into them. I would go jogging with the weights and build up my legs.

The ball in my Roy Campanella catchers mitt was caught bare handed by my Dad in the Wrigley Field Bleachers. It was a home run that came off of the bat of Pittsburgh Pirate slugger, Ralph Kiner. Ralph had 54 home runs in 1949 (The year my Dad caught that ball) . Kiner later played for the Chicago Cubs from 1953-55. He teamed up with Hank Sauer* and Frank Baumholtz to give the Cubs the slowest outfield in the history of baseball. We were sitting on the last bench in the left field bleachers. My Dad stood on the bench and caught Kiner's line drive homerun and handed it to Herb and me. My dad would take his 2 week vacation when the Cubs had a home stand. We went to every game. That was Dad's vacation and we loved it. The next day, there was another homerun that Dad had to run back and jump for. He caught it with one hand, then scraped his back on the screen. His back had some sun burn blisters and when he hit the screen, he dropped the ball and 10 fans jumped on the ball and fought for it. I remember my Dad asking my brother and me why we didn't jump into the pile and get that ball. I was 9 and Herb was 12 at the time. We never got out of our seat and could not give him a good answer for our inactivity. We kept the Kiner ball on a shelf and we were not supposed to play with it, but it was so tempting, because we seldom had a ball with a cover on it. We used to play with a ball until the cover came off, then we taped it with friction tape and played with it for years. The problem with a taped ball was that it started out as a spheroid then evolved into an ellipsoid as more layers of tape built up at the poles of the ball. One day, Herb and I took the ball off of the shelf to play catch in the alley. By the way, people in Chicago never said "let's have a catch" We said, "let's play catch." We agreed to play very carefully and never let the ball touch the concrete. So we started throwing the ball back and forth very carefully. Then it happened, I uncorked a wild pitch that went skipping down the alley picking up numerous scars. Once the ball was scratched up, we got more reckless with it and we played catch many more times. It was such a thrill to throw a ball that had seams. Later in the year, we decided to cover the scars with varnish.

*Hank Sauer had a chewing tobacco addiction. Fans in the left field bleachers would toss packages of chewing tobacco on the the field when he came out to his position after hitting a homerun. Hank would pick up every one and hide them in the vines before play resumed. I would take them to the dugout when the inning ended.

I remember going to Wrigley Field when I was 7, in 1947 when Jackie Robinson made his first appearance in Chicago. I had never seen a person of color at Wrigley Field before that day. I was amazed to see the park was filled with colored people. That is what they were called back then. All other colored players were playing in the Negro Baseball League until Major League Baseball lifted the ban on people of color. That paid attendance of 47,101 set a record that still stands today. Read more details here.

Sandlot

When my grandson gave me a DVD of the movie Sandlot, I saw many things that brought back memories. We often played ball in the alley and we learned to hit up the middle to center field because if you swung early or late, the ball would go in someone's yard. That was not a problem most of the time, because we could go in and retrieve the ball without a problem, but there was one exception, if you hit a long fly to right center, it went into Mr. Wagner's yard and he was always out there to get the ball and keep it. He would say, "Over the fence is out!" So we did lose a few balls in his yard just like the movie Sandlot. We were afraid of old man Wagner, so we never went near his yard when a ball went in except for the one time when our cousin Bob Urbaszewski was playing with us. We had a ball go in Wagner's yard and Bob just walked right in and ignored us as we yelled warnings, he picked up the ball and came back out and we were all amazed and happy that the game was back on. Sandlot reminded me of the empty lot that we played on. There were bricks all around from a building that was demolished. We used the bricks for bases and played baseball games there almost every day. When older guys came over to play we just left without giving them any lip because they convinced that we would live longer by leaving. One day, my cousin Frank was playing with us. He was 4 years older than me and almost the same age as the teenagers that were chasing us off of the field, so he started arguing with them. I climbed the 5 foot fence and was on my way home when I looked back to see if Frank was coming, I saw him swing the bat and drop one of the guys. I sprinted home and jumped into the basement entrance and stayed there until Mom called for dinner. I did not go back to our sandlot for the rest of the summer. We played alley ball or went to Humboldt Park for the rest of the summer. A few years later, our sandlot became Maplewood playground with lights that stayed on until 9:00 and it was supervised with a coach named Henie Schmidt. He made a great ice rink every winter and I learned to ice skate. (Hockey was not allowed)

The Erector set in the Sandlot movie triggered many memories that I have building things with the Erector set that my brother and I shared. We had the deluxe set pictured above that had enough parts and motor to build the working Ferris Wheel pictured below. It would take us a week to assemble the Ferris Wheel and even longer to take it apart when we got tired of watching it go around. When the Ferris Wheel was built, most of the parts were used so you could not build other things.

When my Dad had a stroke, my sister Mary wrote to Harry Carry and told him how much my Dad enjoyed watching the Cubs. Harry sent this hand written letter to my Dad.

In the spring of 2016, when our granddaughter Amanda graduated and became a Registered Nurse, I was honored to attend the commencement service at Lewis University. I went there a little early for the 6:00 event, so that I could tour the campus of the college that I almost attended. I never got to tour the campus because there were a thousand cars winding to a parking place. As I was driving through the campus, memories flooded back to 1958 when I was a Catholic League All Star basketball player. I was invited to Lewis by their coach Gordie Gillespie* who was coaching Basketball and Baseball at Lewis. (He was also coaching football at Joliet Catholic) I arrived at the college early and brought my baseball glove because I knew that Coach Gillespie was the baseball coach and that maybe I could impress him and give me a better chance of getting a scholarship. (I knew that they didn’t need another short white guy for their basketball team)

When I arrived I went out to centerfield as coach Gillespie was pitching to his players. He yelled, “No one is getting a hit off of me!” A few pitches later, the batter hit a line drive to right center that was headed for extra bases. I sprinted to my left and made a diving catch that made coach very happy. After practice, he told me that they didn’t have baseball scholarships, but he could offer me a working scholarship. I thanked him and told him that I would talk to my parents and let him know. I never did talk to my parents because I thought Romeoville was too far to go to college. I went to Chicago Teachers College North (Sabin Branch) that was located about one mile from my house. I did return to Lewis College a few years later when I was playing 3^rd base for Chicago Teachers College main branch. We were so impressed that Lewis had a field with an outfield fence. Our home field was a south side Chicago park with rocks and broken glass that we cleaned up before games and practice. I don’t remember anything about the game at Lewis, so we may have lost. I do remember when they came to our park, they won the game when Ed Spiezio hit a line drive to left field that hit a rock in front of our left fielder. The ball bounced over his head and rolled a long way. (No fence) Spiezio circled the bases for a game winning homerun. Ed Spiezo was a Joliet kid who went on to play for the St Louis Cardinals and Chicago White Sox.

* Gordie Gillespie has 1,893 wins as a baseball coach, more than another other college coach in history. He was coaching Football at Joliet Catholic High and St Francis College.

Over 59 years, he has had only 10 losing seasons as a head coach while combining to go 2,402-1,170-6. In 1998, Gillespie was named the NAIA "Coach of the Century" by Collegiate Baseball Magazine.

Try Out for the Chicago Cubs

In 1958, the Chicago Cubs had a tryout at Wrigley Field. I grabbed my spikes and Roy Campanella catchers mitt and jumped on the North Avenue bus. They never let us bat, but I did get to throw 3 or 4 times to second base. It was a thrill just to be in the Cub dugout. There were baseballs all around on one of my friends put one in his bag. I thought about doing that, but I overcame my temptation and decide not to steal from the Cubs.

Try Out for the White Sox

In 1959, the Chicago White Sox had a tryout at Lake Forest College that had Paul “Dizzy” Trout running the tryout. We were timed in a 50 yard dash before showing off our throwing arm. We all got to hit against pitchers who were trying out. I was one of the last guys to hit and they ran out of pitchers, so Dizzy started tossing up easy to hit pitches. I couldn’t wait to hit a former major leaguer who beat the Cubs in game 4 of the 1945 World Series. When I was in the on deck circle, a limo pulled up with a hot shot pitching prospect who was throwing pitches faster than I had ever seen. I had the “Good Luck” to be the first guy to face him. His first pitch exploded into the catcher’s mitt before I started my swing. I decided to start my swing when the ball left his hand. When I did that I hit the ball way foul just before it got to the catcher. I decided to swing when he started his wind up. He jammed me with an inside fastball that I lifted weekly over the first basemen’s head for a base hit. I had my Nellie Fox bat that had a thick handle that never broke. I played several seasons with that bat and never broke it. The Sox never offered me a contract, but I was happy with my one for one tryout performance. I was the only guy with a hit off of that pitcher. He fanned the next 4 hitters. That gave me something in common with Fidel Castro since the Sox cut him when he tried out for the Sox as a pitcher.

I submitted the following article to Reminisce Magazine:

Baseball Parks That I visited

1946 Terre Haute Phillies Memorial Stadium

May 18, 1947 Wrigley Field, Jackie Robinson played his first game in Chicago

1950 My Dad caught the homerun Ball that Ralph Kiner

May 19, 1956 Wrigley Field, Dale Long hit an historic home run

On June 25^th 1961 I watched the Milwaukee Braves in Milwaukee County Stadium while on my Honeymoon.

On April 8^th, 1969 Wrigley Field Opening Day with my 7 year old son

1969 July "Busch Stadium II" Ken and I watched the Cubs play the Cardinals

July 12, 1979, Comiskey Park White Sox forfeited the second game of a double header on Disco Demolition night

1981 Atlanta Braves played in Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium

1984 Riverfront Stadium. Pete Rose in his first game as a player- manager

August 12, 1985 Wrigley Field, Dan and I saw the Cubs beat the Montreal Expos

August 29, 1989 Wrigley Field, Cubs beat the Huston Astro 10-9 after trailing 9-0

April 1994 New Comiskey Park, Michael Jordan Played for the White Sox

June 8, 2007 My wife and I went to Turner Field to see the Cubs beat the Braves

August 19, 2007 Wrigley Field, Cubs and Cardinals played 3 innings in the rain

August 23, 2009 Ho-Ho Kam Park in Mesa, Arizona. Cub pre-season games

June 23 2010 Tennessee Smokies Park, Cubs AA Tennessee Smokies

June 2014 Kane County Cougar Field, Kyle Schwarber played for the “A” Cubs

March 2016 Watched the Cubs play at Sloan Park in Mesa, Arizona

June 25 2016 Tennessee Smokies Park, Cubs AA Tennessee Smokies

September 5, 2016 Miller Field. Cubs beat the Milwaukee Brewers

April 9, 2017 We returned to Miller Field in Milwaukee Wisconsin

2018 Watched the Cubs play at Sloan Park in Mesa, Arizona

June 2019 Kane County Cougar Field

I lived in the Humboldt park area just 4.5 miles from Wrigley field. My Dad, Herb Lopatka was a big baseball fan. He loved taking my brother, sisters and me to Cub games. My Dad liked to take his vacation when the Cubs were in town so that we could go to 4 or 5 games in the week. He played with Cub star Phil Cavarretta when they were paid $5 to play in Lincoln Park during the Great Depression. The Cubs were in the World Series with the Detroit Tigers when I was in Kindergarten, so I loved the Chicago Cubs for as long as I can remember. I remember going to my first night game in 1946 at the Terre Haute Phillies Memorial Stadium where we saw Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones. As a 6 year old, I just remember a night game and the fans chanting “Puddin head” when Willie Jones came up to bat. For many years after that when Puddin head Jones came to Chicago with the Philadelphia Phillies, my Dad would remind me that we saw him playing for the Terre Haute Phillies.

My earliest memory of Wrigley Field came on May 18,1947. I saw Jackie Robinson play his first game in Chicago. The paid crowd of 46,572. Most of the fans were African American. Whenever my Dad took us to Wrigley before that day, there would be 5 or 6 thousand white fans at the game.

We went to a game in 1950 and Ralph Kiner hit a homerun to the back row of the left field bleachers. My dad stood up on the bench and caught that ball bare handed. My Dad handed the ball to my brother and me and said, “put this on a shelf and don’t scuff it up.” A year or so later, my brother and I took it out to the alley behind our house and played catch very carefully until I uncorked a wild pitch that sent the ball skipping down the concrete pavement. We varnished the ball with the hope that it would cover the scuffs, but Dad never looked at it. The ball is pictured avove in my Roy Campanella catcher’s mitt.

May 19, 1956, My friend Jim Cowley and I hopped a North Avenue bus to the Clyborn Ave Subway station. That train took us to Wrigley Field where 60 cents got us a ticket to the bleachers. We sat in right-center field in the front row where the Pittsburgh Pirate first baseman, Dale Long, hit a home run that Jim was able to grab. I was impressed to see my 16 year old friend give that ball to a younger boy. Dale Long went on to hit home runs in eight consecutive games. That record still stands today.

On June 25^th, 1961, I got married and we drove up through Michigan to Mackinac Island. On the way home we stopped in Milwaukee and I found out the Maury Wills and the Dodgers were in town to play the Milwaukee Braves in Milwaukee County Stadium. My wife Carole was too tired to go to a game, So I went alone and got stopped for a traffic violation, the police officer let me go when I told him I was here on my honeymoon and I wanted to see a ball game.

On April 8^th, 1969, I took my 7 year old son Ken to Wrigley Field to see Ernie Banks and Ron Santo open the 1969 season. Ken was wearing his number 14 Ernie Banks uniform. We saw a thrilling extra inning walk off win. Ernie hit 2 home runs and a single. Forty four years later, my grandson proudly wore that Ernie Banks uniform to a Kane County Cougar minor league game where they took a picture of him’ That picture was on the cover of every Game Day program in June and July 2013.

You can see that picture in my Ernie Banks tribute.

Later that year I drove to St Louis with my son Ken to see the Cubs play the St Louis Cardinals. It was camera day and I was able to go on the blistering hot artificial turf field with Ken and get pictures of the 1969 Cubs.

July 12, 1979, I took my 9 year old son Dan and his cousins Steve and Jay to Comiskey Park for a day- night double header on Disco Demolition night. We only saw one game because a riot broke out when a DJ blew up hundreds of disco records after game one. The White Sox forfeited game 2 because the field was not playable.

We took a family vacation to 6 Flags over Georgia in 1981 where I was thrilled to see the original Riverview Carousel that I rode many times in Riverview Amusement park that was located just a few miles from my house in Chicago. The Atlanta Braves had a game in the Atlanta–Fulton County Stadium, so I took my kids to see a game.

We went on a family vacation to Cincinnati in 1984 where we saw Pete Rose in his first game as a player- manager in Riverfront Stadium.

August 12, 1985 I took my 15 year old son Dan to Wrigley where we saw the Cubs beat the Montreal Expos. Dan recalled the following, “I remember Thad Bosley was still on the team and I was arguing with the guy next to me that Thad Bosley was better than Richie Hebner at pinch hitting. Bosley hit a pinch-hit home run in the 6^th and again in the 8^th and the guy hugged me when the Cubs won.”

Dan and I returned to Wrigley on August 29, 1989 to see the Cubs down 9-0 in the 6^th inning. The Cubs scored 2 in the 6^th, 3 in the 7^th and 4 in the 8^th to tie the game and send it to extra innings where they won it in the 10^th inning.

2003- 2005 I went to see the Cubs play the Sox every year at the new Comskey Park. My high school, Holy Trinity, would get 90 tickets, I would send out an e-mail and we would have a nice sized group of Duffer Hockey players. We had 16 in 2003, we had our best turn out in 2005 when we had 10 Cub fans and 10 Sox fans see Mark Prior return from the DL to beat Garland 2-0. When the Sox won the World Series, they quit giving my school a chance to buy tickets, so we did not go in 2006. The next year they changed their policy, but the price went up to $50, so no one replied and the same thing happened in 07.

My wife and I made another trip to Atlanta in 2007 where we met my sister Pat and her Daughter Sandi who are big Cub Fans. We went to Turner Field to see the Cubs beat the Braves with 2 home runs by Alfonso Soriano.

August 19, 2007 Wrigley Field, Cubs and Cardinals played 3 innings in the rain. Carlos Zambrano was perfect, but the rain never stopped.

June 28, 2009 U.S. Cellular Field (New Comiskey) Olympic Gold medal winner, Cammi Granato was in town to throw out the first pitch before the Cubs played the Sox.

August 23, 2009 I went to Arizona and watched the Cubs play 4 pre-season games at Ho-Ho Kam Park with my sister Pat and her daughter Sandi. I returned again in 2016 and 2018 when the Cubs moved to Sloan park. My Daughter Kathie went with me to meet Pat and Sandi.

June 23 2010 we had a family reunion in the Great Smokey Mountains. We had a group of 33 people, so they wanted me to throw out the first pitch. I knew that no one wants to see a 70 year old man bounce a pitch, so I gave the ball to my granddaughter Michelle who was an ace on her Romeoville high school softball team. She was nervous, but she threw a perfect pitch right to the catcher and got a big cheer from the crowd. We saw the Cubs AA Tennessee Smokies beat the Carolina Mud Cats. We returned to the Smokies park in 2016 and this time Michelle coached her younger cousin Audrey (another softball granddaughter) who threw a strike in the opening ceremony.

September 5, 2016 My wife Carole and I went to watch the Cubs beat the Milwaukee Brewers in Miller Field.

Slow pitch 16 inch Softball was a game you had to play if you lived in Chicago. There was no fast pitch softball in the city. I did play fast pitch after I graduated College when Jack Geider talked me into playing 12 inch fast pitch softball for Ernie's Bar & Grill in Maywood. Slow pitch 16 inch Softball was popular because you could play it on a small field and you didn't need a glove. I played at Maplewood playground. That field had a right field fence that was only 50 feet beyond first base. If you hit it over the fence, you were called out and someone had to go over the fence into the alley the retrieve the ball. If you hit it real hard, it would be in someone's back yard and you may never see that ball again.

We could buy a brand new Clincher Softball for $3.00 in the 1950s. When we played another team, each player chipped in 15 cents. There were 10 players on a sixteen inch softball team, so we had enough for a new ball. The winning team got to take the used ball home to use as a practice ball.

Money Game

When we wanted to play for money, we each paid 30 cents and if we won, we got to keep the ball and we we got a thirty cent refund. That was enough to buy 6 cokes!

Alley Ball

We also played softball in the alley between Rockwell Street and Talman Ave. in the 1600 North block. We learned to hit straight up the middle into centerfield. If you didn't, you would have to go in someone's yard to get the ball. Not all neighbors were good about having kids in their yard stepping on flowers while looking for a ball. Mr. Wagner used to take the ball before you could get it and say, "Over the fence is out!" You had to get another ball or the game was over. We were so afraid of him that we wouldn't even try to go in his yard. It was understood that if you hit the ball in his yard, the game was over.

The Encyclopedia of Chicago has an interesting description of the game, although the writer never played the game because he wrote, "the softness of the ball allows for the game to be played barehanded." Wrong! A new 16 inch Clincher Softball (pictured above) was as hard as any ball you could find. It didn't soften up much until the latter inning of a 16-15 slug fest. Many teams would win the coin toss and elect to be the "Visitors" so that they could bat first when the Clincher was rock hard. My Dad played for his Company team, Birtman Electric. His team got new uniforms every year, so My Mom would take one of my Dad's Birtman Electric uniforms and reduce it to fit me. (Pictured below)

We always had a bat or a ball in our hands. (Above) My Dad, Herb and Mom, Adeline, Brother Herb, me and sister Pat.

The Encyclopedia of Chicago claims that 16 inch Softball was invented in Chicago in November 1887. The exact dimensions of the first ball, crafted from boxing-glove laces by creator George Hancock, is unknown. A 14-inch ball was used, however, in 1933 when 70,000 people saw the first major tournament game at the Century of Progress Exposition.

Catholic elementary schools had a league of 7th and 8th graders. The owner of the Hardware store on Division and Campbell offered to buy us uniforms, so Sister Veronica Ann A.K.A. Sister Superior (My Dad called her General when he was driving the nuns around) had to measure us for out new uniforms. When she had to measure our inseam, she measured from our belt down to our shoe top. When one of our Italian teammates tried to show her where she should be measuring the inseam from, she slapped him for touching himself there. She sent in the measurements that had inseams 12 to 14 inches longer than they should have been, When we got our uniforms, the crotch of the pants almost reached the ground. It was hard to hit a ground ball through our legs with our sagging pants, but our speed suffered. There were enough Catholic Schools in the area that we could walk to. There were no "Soccer Moms" with mini vans, because families were lucky if they had one car and no body ever heard of soccer except for our DP (Displaced Persons) friends and they were busy trying learn what the infield fly rule was.

St. Aloysius had German Nuns and Priests, St. Fidelis had Polish Nuns and priests. Father Walter Krempa at St, Fidelis was way ahead of his time, He formed a girls team that my wife played for. When I mentioned a Clincher softball being hard, she immediately recalled circling under a flyball in center field that lined up perfectly with our nearest star. The "softball hit her right in the forehead. She was dazed, but she quickly got the ball in and held the runner to a single. She felt dizzy after that, but fortunately there were no concussions in those days and she did not cry, because there is no crying in baseball (or softball).

The picture below is of our Church Teen Club called the Lionites. We too got money from the Hardware store guy, but this time we measured the inseam from the proper place. My St. Mark Page has some of the names there. I was the captain, so I had to sit next to the priest.

When we didn't have a team to play against, would choose up teams by having the 2 best players be the captains. They picked their teammates with alternate picks. The all important first pick was decided by the "Bat Toss." One of the captains would toss the bat with the knob up to his opposing captain, who would catch in with one hand somewhere in the handle part of the bat. The tosser would then grab the bat just above the hand of the bat catcher. They would continue that until they ran out of bat. The guy that got the knob got the first pick. Sometimes the guy that didn't get the Knob, got 3 kicks at the bat to try to dislodge it, if he did, He got first pick.

When there were not enough players for 2 teams, we played "Piggy move up." You needed enough guys to for 8 fielders and 2 or 3 batters. When you made an out batting, you went to right field then from right field to center after another guy made an out. Then to left, 3rd, short, second, first then pitcher. Once you worked your way through all positions, you got to bat again until you made an out. That is how I learned to play all positions. That came in handy when I showed up at try outs for my college team with my Roy Campanella catcher's mitt and the team already had a catcher that started every game last year. I looked around for a position that had a player that I had a chance to beat out. When Coach ISADORE "SPIN" SALARIO called for a 3rd basemen, I grabbed my friend's fielder's glove and gave my "Decker" as it was sometimes called by my dad. I didn't get to start the first game, so I was on the bench when I got got the call to pinch hit. I singled up the middle on the first pitch, then stole second and went to 3rd on the throw that hit my leg as I slid in. I scored the game winner on a fly ball. After that, I was the starting 3rd basemen for the rest of the season. I often thought, "What if I popped up that time," Would I ever get another chance to play? My first game as a starter was at Concordia College in April with light snow falling. The first pitch of the game was hit right at me and I booted it. If we had an official scorer, he may have called it a bad hop single, but Leo Priebe had to pitch from the stretch and soon the bases were loaded with 2 outs. Their number 6 hitter hit a shot right over the third base bag. I made a dive to my right and snagged it with my Wilson A-2000 glove. I rolled over and got to my feet and tried to find Larry Priebe, my first basemen, (Leo's twin brother). I fired a throw in the general direction of first base, but it was wide right and Larry had to come off of the bag to catch it. He did manage to grab it and slap the runner in the head before he reached first base. That tag got us out of the inning and we went on to win the game. I was the starting 3rd basemen for the rest of the season.

I quit playing Softball when I got married. I kept active with touch football and driveway basketball. I made an ice rink and started playing hockey with the kids. When I was 30 I started playing hockey with grownups and I did get talked into playing 16 inch softball with some college friends. I wasn't sure that I could play in a men's league and my fears were validated when the first team we played was made op of kids from Augusta playground where I was the recreation leader there when I was in my 20s and these kids looked up to me and wished that they could beat me in any contest. They recognized me when I stepped on to the field and started getting teased about being an old man of 30. I silenced them when I dropped a soft line drive down the right field line for a stand up double. We went on to beat those 20 year olds with some timely hitting. I didn't play 16 inch softball for another 18 years I got talked into playing softball for a Budweiser team made up of guys that were my son Ken's age. The team had sons of Don Neistrom who was the head of Budweiser's biggest distributor. Don JR, Dave, Dennis and Dan were mid to late 20s. They had a younger brother Johnny who was just out of college and he put together a young team of college age guys to challenge his brother's team. Johnny called his team the "Nads". I never got what that crazy name was about until we played them and they were yelling "Go Nads, Go Nads." I have to share one of my finest old guy softball memories.

At age 48 years, I was not as fast as the rest of the guys, but most of the time, I could hit that slow pitched 16 inch softball where ever I wanted. Most of the time, there was a hole in right center for right handed hitters, so most of my hits were soft line drives over the second baseman's head. Mostly singles, once in a while I would get to 2nd base.

The championship family feud game brought me to the plate with 2 outs in the last inning. We were trailing by one run but we had runners on 2nd and 3rd. Johnny knew that most of my hits went to right center, so he moved the outfielders over to the right, that is the way they would play a lefty. That alignment gave me a big hole in left field, where it is easier to hit for a right hand hitter. I lofted a soft liner over 3rd and the tying and winning runs scored.

We went to a sports bar to celebrate and Johnny's team was there to drown their sorrows. The big brothers were giving Johnny a hard time and he stood up and announced, "You won, but if you didn't have Mr. Lopatka, we would have won the championship." There was silence as I just smiled from ear to ear.

Ernie Banks

Ernie Banks joined the Cubs when I was a die hard 13 year old Cub Fan. The Cubs were in the World Series when I was in kindergarten, so I had no choice, My family members were all Cub fans. Many years later, I took my son Ken out of Kindergarten to go to the 1969 season Home opener. We bought Ken a Cub uniform with number 14 on the back. After Ernie homered in his first 2 at bats and the place went wild, Ken kept asking, "when is Ernie coming up?" I told him that he will not homer every time he bats. When Ernie came up, he made a liar out of me as he hit his 3rd straight home run. Ernie hit a line drive single to left in his 4th at bat, so I restored my credibility with my 5 year old. The Cubs went on to win that game in extra innings with a game winning home run by Willie Smith. (I think it was Willie) When Ken got too big for that Ernie Banks uniform, his little brother Dan started wearing in in 1975-7. When Dan got too big for it, we put it in the attic for years until Dan found it and put it on his son Luke. They went to a Kane County Cougar game in 2013 and they put him on the cover of the July "Game Days" program. The PR people were all over him when Dan took Luke to Wrigley Field.

When Ernie died in January 2015, I posted the following on Facebook:

The Human Race lost a treasure tonight. Ernie Banks influenced me as a teenager more than any other person. He really was the only black person that I "Knew". (I only knew him through radio and television.) He was so nice that I developed a positive attitude toward all African Americans. A few years ago, I went to Arizona for Cub spring training and I was so disappointed that he was not in there. I asked Billy Williams about him and he said that his Mom had passed away and He would not be there. I wanted to tell him how I spent my life working with Black children because of his influence. I always wanted to meet him and tell him that. I am broken hearted that I will never get to meet him now and tell him how he influenced me and many other people in a positive way. May God bless him.

Rag Ball

This cartoon reminded me of the time I broke my first window. My friend Bob Campbell had a 30 foot by 30 foot back yard that was too small to have a baseball game, so we adapted and set up a home plate and 3 bases and we used a rag for a baseball. That turned out to be boring, so I made a ball using rags tightly packed into a canvas cover that I hand stitched. It was much more fun because you could square it up and hit it out of the yard. You could even hit an "Upper Deck" home run onto my grandpa's porch in left field. Well one day I really hit that rag ball into left center field that went right through my Grandparent's kitchen window. We couldn't run and blame it on anyone else, so I confessed and my mom told me to dig into my bank and give my Christmas savings to my Grandpa to fix the window. So I grabbed my bank and took it to grandpa as he was removing the window frame to take it to the hardware store. Grandpa Z was a saint and waved me and my barrel bank away. We stopped playing Rag ball and started using a Ping-Pong ball. We never broke another window, but we broke a lot of Ping-Pong balls. One ball rarely made it through a game.

I took Mike to several White Sox games when Randolph school was sponsored by the Chicago White Sox, I got a free hat and tickets. Mike looks a little sad here because his grandpa is wearing a White Sox hat. I had to do that because we welcomed a White Sox executive to our school with an outdoor assembly where we had a platform set up so that he could address the students. I had one of the rockets that my student built set up on a launch pad ready to blast off just before we introduced him. We had a slight breeze, so I aimed Big Bertha into the wind at a 65 degree angle. (A scientific guess) The student body counted down from 10, 9, 8, when we got to one, my student pressed the launch button as we held our breath hoping that Big Bertha would lift off. One second after the launch button was pressed, smoke came out and Big Bertha fired into the sky as the crowd cheered. After a 6 second burn of the "B" rocket engine, we saw a puff of smoke as the parachute popped out and opened. As luck would have it, the breeze directed Big Bertha right back to us and landed just a few feet from where it was launched. The successful return brought a big cheer from the students and guests.

Mike and I were at the new White Sox park in 1994 when Michael Jordan hit a double against the Cubs. On the way to our car, I remember passing a street musician playing his guitar. He had his guitar case open to collect donations. I told Mike that people give money if they like his music. I gave Mike a quarter to toss into the case. We stood there a few minutes listening to the music. Mike looked at the quarter and looked at the musician as he pondered a tough decision. He finally looked at me and said, "I'm keeping this," as he put the quarter in his jeans.

One time we went to Old Comiskey park in 1990, a year before it was demolished, Mike needed to relieve his bladder and there was a free standing stall with one toilet. Mike went in and locked the door and did his business. When he was finished, he crawled out of the stall leaving the stall locked. I started to have him crawl back in to unlock the door, but when I looked at the dirty floor, we just quickly went to our seats. I had him use the stall because If I took him to the men's room, they had long troughs with running water that allowed 30 guys to relieve themselves at one time without waiting in line. Now you have to wait 10 minutes in line in the new parks that have motion sensing electronic flushers. Mike was too short to reach the trough with his little pee shooter, so I would have had to hold him up. I was reluctant to do that ever since my friend Frank told me the story about a guy that was holding a baby in one arm and unzipping his pants with the other hand when he dropped the baby into the urine trough. He quickly picked the baby up as fans around him disinfected the kid by pouring beer on him. It is a good thing beers didn't cost 10 bucks back then.

Football

When I was in 8^th grade, I went to watch the Holy Trinity Tigers beat Weber High school in a football game. As I walked home, my brother’s friends were so excited as they chanted, “No school tomorrow!” That is when I decided that I wanted to go to Holy Trinity and play football. (the Weber coach offered me an illegal scholarship when he saw me play basketball in a tournament at Weber. I told the coach that I couldn’t go to Weber because my brother would kill me.) We kicked the football for hours every day at Maplewood playground in the Fall. I enjoyed kicking so I built a frame with two by fours and made a “Net” using window sash rope that would allow me to kick a football without having to chase it for 50 yards. I should have got a patent on my net because a few years later, every NFL team had a kicking net. By the time I got to high school, I could routinely kick 50-yard field goals, so I couldn’t wait to try out for the freshman football team. I was 5’11’ tall so I was one of the bigger players, so I made the team as a tight end on offense and a defensive end. (We played offence and defense and never came off of the field unless we were injured) I asked the coach several times when he would have tryouts for kicking, but he kept saying, “Maybe tomorrow.” One week before our first game, he finally asked me to kick from extra point distance. Our practice field was at Eckhart Park. Our school did not have any athletic fields, so the freshman team walked a mile to practice. The Varsity was bussed several miles to Humboldt park. Eckert Park was among the first in a system of small West Side parks authorized by state legislation in 1905. It had a swimming pool that was located behind a tall fence about 25 yards behind the goal posts. I told him that we better back up because the ball will go into the empty pool that was drained after Labor Day. He laughed and said, “If you kick it that far, I’ll go get the ball.” Our quarterback teed the ball up and I kicked it through the goal posts and over the fence and into the pool. My coach looked at me and said, “See if you can do that again, as long as I have to get one ball, I may as well get another one.” I went on to kick 5 footballs into the pool. Coach said, “You are my kicker.” He then told the team equipment manager to climb the pool fence and retrieve the footballs. I also was named the team punter. I became the varsity punter and placekicker in my junior and senior years.

Basketball

Father Faucher was quite a guy He was a young priest at our parish, St. Mark. He was responsible for getting me into basketball. St. Mark did not have a gymnasium, so he arranged for us to get some practice time every week at Lafayette School near by. He coached us to the 8th Grade Catholic North Side Championship in 1954, There are some articles about our thrilling victories that I scanned on my St. Mark Web page.

Ink Wells

Family Circus cartoons give me many memories. This one made me think of the pens that I had in grade school. We had fountain pens that needed to be filled with ink, so our school desks had a hole in the top right corner that would hold an ink bottle. (You can see one in my 4th grade picture below) Girls that had pigtails would sometimes have one dipped into the ink by a naughty boy.

Fountain pens were a big improvement over the dip pen or the quill because you could fill it with ink and it would last for a while. When you wrote with ink, you had to be careful not to touch it until it dried. If you wrote with your left hand like my sister Pat, you had to curl your hand around like the picture below so that you didn't smear the ink.

"I ALWAYS had residual ink on my left-baby finger because of the ink. It was really hard writing in that contorted position. Those were the days. but there was something beautiful about ink as opposed to ball-point pens. Call me crazy. Now I feel like going out and buying a fountain pen."

Pat

A quill pen is a writing implement made from a molted flight feather (preferably a primary wing-feather) of a large bird. Quills were used for writing with ink before the invention of the dip pen, the metal-nibbed pen, the fountain pen, and, eventually, the ballpoint pen. The hand-cut goose quill is rarely used as a calligraphy tool, because many papers are now derived from wood pulp and wear down the quill very quickly. However, it is still the tool of choice for a few scribes who noted that quills provide an unmatched sharp stroke as well as greater flexibility than a steel pen.

This is the ink bottle that was used.

My 4th grade Class Picture

Click on the picture to enlarge the image and you will be able to read the sayings on the black board. "Peaceful Thoughts make beautiful lives" Cleanliness is next to Godliness" and "Politeness is to say and do the nicest thing in the nicest way. These sayings are timeless.

The Sisters of Providence who taught me at St Mark used to make me write many repetitive sentences as a form of punishment. I had to do that often, so I developed the skill of writing with 3 pencils. I don't know if it saved me any time because it took me 3 times longer than when I used one pencil, but I felt like I was beating the system. I did develop poor penmanship by writing fast. I also used my poor penmanship to hide my poor spelling.

This reminds me of the time I was on the roof of our 2 flat in Chicago around 1965. Our 3 year old son was playing in the yard and I had a ladder in the alley. I heard Carole screaming to me, so I came over to the ladder and to my shock, Ken was at the top of the ladder, 2 stories above the alley. I grabbed him and pulled him onto the roof and wondered what I would do next. A neighbor climbed up and put ken on his shoulder and carried him down to the safety of Carole's arms. Ken got out of the yard by crawling under the gate and then climbed up to be with his Dad. I don't know how he got up that high, because he had mittens on and his little hands could not even reach half way around the rungs of that old wooden ladder. Boys can sure find trouble.

Air Conditioning

The closest thing we had to an air-conditioner was this oscillating GE fan (We learned to keep our fingers away from the steel blades) and a big window fan that my Dad installed in the kitchen window. He had the window fan blowing the air out so that it created a low pressure in the house. That made air come into every open window. It was wonderful on hot days when temperatures dropped a little in the evening. On hot evenings, we would go outside and sit on the front porch stairs and everybody in the neighborhood was out on their porch, so that was our social media. It was usually delightful out there (Compared to the hot house) except on nights when the wind was coming from the south where the Union Stock Yards were located. The yards covered a half square mile west of Halsted Street between Pershing Road and 47th Street. It was built on a tract of swampland. It took 1,000 men to dig 30 miles of ditches and drains that emptied into a fork of the Chicago River, later it became known as the notorious Bubbly Creek when its waters thickened with pungent slaughterhouse offal. The creek derives its name from the gases bubbling out of the riverbed from the decomposition of blood and entrails dumped into the river. During the peak times of World War I, 15 million animals a year moved through Chicago, almost 9 million pounds of meat a day. We lived 10 miles north of the yards. The smell was bad. The Yards opened in 1865 and closed in 1971. FYI, that fan still works after I replaced the power cord. My sister Pat told me that she liked to talk into that fan and get strange sounds. Just a few years ago, we were rehabbing the third floor. My friend Thor was on a ladder replacing wall board when he had a speeding particle fly past his ear and ricochet off of the wall. It was the 1 inch head of a porcelain doll that fell into the fan and the head of the doll got propelled at bullet speed at Thor.

Related image

Union Stock Yards

The first time that I experienced air conditioned comfort was in the Crystal Theater that was located at 2701 W. North Ave. That was our fancy place to see a movie. The price of admission was 25 cents. The Queen Theater was closer to our house and only charged 14 cents on week days and 17 Cents on Sunday, but the Queen never put in Air conditioners. My big brother, Herb, said "We only went to the Crystal for special movies and 15 Saturday morning cartoons because they charged 25 cents, the Queen was only a dime." Several times a year, we would get a flyer in our mail box that announced 15 cartoons were going to be shown on an upcoming Saturday. Whenever they had 15 cartoons, the 1860 seats were filled. Cartoon Network would have been bad news for the Crystal Theater.

Crystal Theater 1951

Jim Schmidt told me the following story at our 50th reunion:

Jim and I were good friends since grade school, so He needed a loan one day when he brought a date to my neighborhood theater. The Queen Theater was only a half a block from my house and the admission was 14 cents on week days. The Crystal Theater was just 2 blocks west of the Queen but it was very fancy and they charged 25 cents. You wouldn't impress a date by taking her the the Queen, so Jim took his date to the upscale theater, only to find he was a nickel short when he got there. He walked over to my house and asked me if he could borrow a nickel. He tells me I gave him a quarter. I don't remember that, but Jim swears it is a true story and he never forgot that.

Thanks to Cinema Treasures for this picture.

Telephones

Our first phone 
        looked like the one above.  There was no rotary dial. It had a 
        label that read "Brunswick 3098." I had friends that had Humboldt 6782 
        and Armitage 5826. When you picked it up, the operator would say, 
        "Number pleeze." like that gal on Saturday Night Live with the nasal 
        inflection. My brother remembers when the Campbells were on our party 
        line I would signal my friend Bob and we would be talking for free until 
        the operator got mad and told us to hang up.  We never called a 
        friend on the phone, that would put a nickel charge on your bill.  
        When I wanted to have Bob come out to play, I didn't ring his door bell 
        because kids were not allowed to do that either.  I would stand 
        outside of his house and call out loud, "Yo Bobbie" several times until 
        he opened a window to tell me if he was able to come out. When I got a 
        little older, we got a Rotary Dial Phone like the one pictured below and 
        talking to an operator was eliminated.   
      

As long as I can remember, we had a phone in our 2nd floor home. We had one phone in the dining room and no extension phones anywhere and the cord was 3 feet long, so you could not leave the room for privacy. My Grandma would come up stairs and call her sisters every now and then on our phone and Uncle Frank didn't have a phone on the 3rd floor either until much later. I remember having a party line that was less expensive than a private line. A party line was not as much fun as it sounded. You had to share that line with an anonymous person (party). When they were on the line, you could not make a call, but you could listen in to their conversation if you chose to do so. Usually you would say you were sorry for interrupting their conversation and hang up and then try again a little later. If you had an emergency, you would plead with them to hang up and give you the line to make a call. My Mom developed a way signal my grandma. She would knock on the pipes with a metal object then go to the back door where my grandma, who lived on the first floor, would yell "What?" Mom would yell, "Your just sister called, can you come up?"

My Neighbor Bob Campbell had several teen aged sisters who ran up quite a phone bill, (Maybe 6 or 7 dollars) so their Dad had "Ma Bell" install a pay phone in his kitchen. You needed a nickel to make a call at his house. When I was dating my wife Carole, her parents did not have a phone and I had to call her aunt Angie who lived next door. She would tap on Carole's window with a curtain rod to let her family know that they had a call. They had a bay window in the gangway that reached almost to her house. ("Gangway" Any one who lived/lives in Chicago knows what this means - it is the sidewalk between two extremely close houses.) When Carole would open her window, her Aunt would hand the phone to her and listen to the conversation. When Carole graduated in 1958 and got a job, one of her first paychecks went to get a phone for her family.

When Touchtone phones came out in 1963, My Mom stayed with the dial phone, although she did get a pink phone, but stayed with the dial because the Bell System was charging a fee for having a touch tone phone. My cousin Rich tells me they never graduated to the touch tone system. You needed a touch tone phone to call someone with a pager. Pagers were popular before cell phones came out. Despite their lack of modern features, rotary phones occasionally find special uses. For instance, the anti-drug Fairlawn Coalition of the Anacostia section of Washington, D.C., persuaded the phone company to reinstall rotary-dial pay phones in the 1980s to discourage loitering by drug purchasers, since the dials could not be used to call dealers' pagers.^[6]

When we got married, our teenaged daughters had a Princess Touchtone phone in their bedroom. In the late 1990s, we finally got a cordless phone. Before that we had cords that would let you extend 20-25 feet from the phone carriage. In the early 1980s, the phone company was sued for charging customers for having multiple phones, so I went crazy and ran phone lines to every room including the bathroom and garages. I had so many phones that some of them had a problem getting enough current to ring.

My daughter Debbie replied, "I do remember using the kitchen or downstairs hallway phone & stretching the cord like crazy for privacy! I also remember having my own phone in my downstairs bedroom & Kathie was good at hitting that privacy button so she could listen in & I couldn't hear her. It's 'because she cared!"

In the late 1990s, I got a flip phone that let me talk to people while I was away from the house! How was that possible? I got my Mom a cell phone in 2005 and when she fell and broke her hip, she was able to call my brother and me to get help. I upgraded my Flip Phone and started sending texts and pictures in 2010. I have dropped it many times and it still works. I resisted getting a smart phone because I have a wife that knows almost everything. I could call her to find out the score of a Cub or Blackhawk game, but just before Christmas in 2016, I got a smart phone just in time to get lessons from my granddaughter Grace. She got me set up for Facebook and e-mail while I watched in amazement.

This reminds me of when my Mom would give my dad a daily secret report by phone. When my Dad came home with inside information that puzzled my brother and me, we asked him how he knew certain things that happened while he was away at work, Dad would say that a little bird told him. The next day, my brother was out in the yard with a broom trying to silence the birds.

We had many mini-vacations to Olson Rug Park. (20 minute drive to Pulaski and Diversary)

Olson Rug Park, former Chicago landmark, now parking lot

September 2, 2011

By: John R. Schmidt

The northwest corner of Diversey and Pulaski is a parking lot today. But at one time it was the site of a lovely Chicago landmark.

In 1935 the Olson Rug Company was expanding its Diversey Avenue plant. Company president Walter E. Olson used the occasion to build a park for his employees on the grounds. Olson had a summer home in Wisconsin, and he wanted to bring a bit of the north woods to the crowded Avondale neighborhood.

The finished park covered 22 acres. There were rock gardens, climbing paths, a duck pond, a waterfall, shrubs, trees, flowers and an 800-foot-long lawn. Olson himself kept tweaking his creation. During the summer he'd drive through the countryside followed by a truck, collecting rocks.

As Olson Rug Park became more elaborate, it was opened to the public, free of charge. A trailer was set up to serve hot dogs, lemonade and other staples. The word spread. By 1955 over 200,000 people a year were visiting the park.

Decor changed with the season. At Christmas there was the obligatory Santa, at Easter the obligatory Easter Bunny. Halloween saw a floodlit Harvest Moon hung over the waterfall, complete with a witch on a broomstick. Some years the great lawn featured a re-creation on McCutcheon's famed cartoon "Injun Summer."

Neighborhood kids considered Olson Rug Park their own private playground, much superior to the city's Kocziusko Park. The waterfall was particularly popular. With no guardrail and that slippery flag-stone walkway, at any moment you might be swept over the rapids to your doom!

Marshall Field & Company bought the Olson Rug plant and turned it into a warehouse in 1965, but kept the park operating until 1978. Then it was bulldozed in favor of more parking space.

HINT TO MACY'S--If you really want to become part of Chicago, why not rebuild Olson Rug Park?

When I was telling my son-in-law Dan about Olson Rug, he sent me this picture of the Olson Rug Truck that mimicked the aerodynamic design of the his Mark Twain Zephyr Train.

World Wars
I was born in February of 1940 and do not have many memories of World War II since I was not yet 2 years old when Pear Harbor was bombed by Japan on December 7, 1941. I do remember my Mom's Uncle coming over in his Army uniform to say goodby before he went back overseas. I do remember the sky being filled with United States war planes when the war was over. I was in St. Mark kindergarten when Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. That summer, The United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on August 6, 1945. Three days later, the second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Japan soon surrendered after that. The next month, the Chicago Cubs clinched a trip to the World Series.
My Mom's Uncle Joe Wijas shared some memories of World War I. My brother Herb recalled this memory from Uncle Joe:
"He joined because his friend decided to enlist. When he got to France they had to stand while their names were called for assignment. They did it alphabetically so they didn't get to the 'W's and called it off. The next day they continued and he was assigned to drive an ambulance.

It had 4 wheel steering so if you made a left turn the rear went to the right so as to be able to make tight turns. The only problem he had was driving down a street, making a left turn and the rear knocked down some vegetable stand. The Frenchman started jumping up and down and yelling in French which Joe didn't comprehend so he just waved and drove off. He never saw combat but played cards and dice with troops including English and Canadian. He said while playing poker someone let one go and a British guy said, "Somebody purred." So Joe learned what you call a fart in Britain. That's about all I recall except he did learn some French phrases. He never said whether he learned any cuss words, He probably did but...."
We loved to go to Uncle Joe and Aunt Anna's house, they had three teenage boys that had cool toys that they gave to us when they out grew them. Uncle Joe would have my brother and I stay overnight to help him with chores like raking leaves and painting his fence. I remember painting his cyclone fence on one side while he was on the other side. When we were done, my face was covered with silver freckles. My sister Pat reminded me that he had a German combat helmet with a long spike on top. Herb told me that the helmet belonged to an officer and it had a bullet on the side.

Uncle Joe was my Confirmation sponsor and He drove me to church in Joe Jr's green Dodge convertible. He gave me a silver dollar. My classmates were impressed.

4th of July

My sister Pat shared the following memory:

"I remember the picture of the zebras in her red Chinese decorated dining room. And I loved Aunt Anna's dishes. They had beautiful red apples (?) on them, I think. And I learned not to gamble. When we'd go to their home on weekends, Dad would give me a handful of nickels to play in the slot machine. I had little hands at the time so I don't really know how many nickels there were. I'd play and win and lose and play for quite a while, but at the end I would always end up with no nickels. I did that for a while until a light bulb went off in my head.

Then there was the Fourth of July when I blew my face up with a roman candle. I was told to hold it up high so I wouldn't get hurt, but I got tired and lowered my arms. Then it backfired into my face. I was carried into the bathroom and soapy water was thrown into my face to wash my eyes to remove the gunpowder. Of course, I closed my eyes to avoid the soap. Then they kept screaming, "Can you see!! Can you see!!" Well, not with my eyes closed. So I said, "No." That's when I heard Mom scream an agonizing scream--like only a mother could scream. I probably took ten years off of her life. Then I remember sitting and resting while Duke came over and consoled me. He was such a pretty, black dog.

It took a while before all of the gunpowder left my face. I had to have eye drops and I wasn't allowed to watch TV for probably a month. Of course, Mom wouldn't let anyone else watch TV either because I couldn't. You can imagine how popular I was around the house. I was left with a moon-shaped scar under my nose. Kids at school would politely tell me that I had a booger under my nose and needed to wipe it. I still have that little moon-shaped scar. Of course, it is very faded by now. No one tells me to wipe my nose any longer."
Thanks for the memories Pat!

I remember your accident vividly. I remember that Herb and I brought a bunch of firecrackers home that night and hid them from Mom in a Kodak Photo paper box because Mom would never open a light sensitive box of photo paper because she did once and Herb charged her $3.00 for spoiling the paper. When we wanted a firecracker, we would pick up a box and shake it. If it made noise, we knew we had the right box. We would spend weeks building balsa wood airplanes then set them on fire and sail them off the third floor porch. The "dope" that we painted them with was very flammable. We would put a firecracker or two in the plane and watch it blow up! That was fun and Mom never knew that we had explosives.

I shared my scary Christmas memories in my Christmas memories section.

My sister Mary shared the following memory:

I remember the huge pool table with large mesh pockets that I could stick my fingers in

& Herb making packets of medicine on it.* The slot machine was my favorite & my Godfather Joe

Giving me nickels. The red room was gorgeous but only to look at. I could sit comfortably in the

Living room because there was plastic on the furniture. Aunt Anna had a big machine to iron on & an ironing board that came out of a wall. There was a beautiful rock garden & a goose or geese in the back yard. I remember the horrible of the fireworks, I was very scared.
*(That needs some clarification) Uncle Joe owned a pharmacy store in downtown Chicago. He had Herb package measured doses of powder ulcer medicine.

The cover for the Chicago Railroad Fair's 1949 official program

Chicago Railroad Fair

I was 8 years old when we went to The Chicago Railroad Fair. It was an event organized to celebrate and commemorate 100 years of railroad history west of Chicago, Illinois. It was held in Chicago in 1948 and 1949 along the shore of Lake Michigan and is often referred to as "the last great railroad fair" with 39 railroad companies participating.

The origin of the fair traces back to the Chicago and North Western Railway (CNW), which at the time was the successor of the first railroad to operate out of Chicago, the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad. CNW was seeking a way to commemorate 100 years of railroading in Chicago, especially as it was done on the CNW itself. Public Relations Manager F.V. Koval is credited with developing the idea behind the fair.^[1] The CNW advertising and public relation staff went to work to promote the show in the early months of 1948, beginning with a series of photographs made by company photographer Don Lidikay of people in 19th century costumes posing with the locomotive Pioneer, which had pulled the first train out of Chicago in 1848.^[1]

The fair was rapidly planned during the winter and spring of 1948, and originally scheduled to run between July and August of that summer. Erected on 50 acres (200,000 m²) of Burnham Park in Chicago between 21st and 31st Streets,^[2] the fair opened after only six months of planning. A grand opening for the fair commenced on July 20^[1] with a parade that featured such spectacles as a military marching band and a replica of a troop train, a contingent of cowboys and Native Americans, a replica of the Tom Thumb, the first American locomotive, and the spry, octogenarian widow of Casey Jones, who served as honorary Grand Master of the parade. One dollar was the price of admission, and, except food, all the attractions, displays, exhibits and shows were free. Besides the thirty-nine railroads who participated in the fair, there were more than twenty equipment manufacturers, including General Motors.^[3] The Santa Fe also sponsored an Indian Village where Native Americans sold handicrafts, staged dances, and explained the different types of lodging that were on display.^[4]

A highlight of the fair was the presence of the Freedom Train.The Freedom Train travelled the country from September 17, 1947, through Jan 22, 1949, and was at the Railroad Fair from July 5 – 9. It held many documents and artifacts from the National Archives. Available for public viewing were the original United States Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Security of the documents was the responsibility of the Marine Corps.

My grandpa went to the Century of Progress Chicago World's Fair in 1933 and bought this cane,

Hockey

I didn't play hockey until I was in college and worked at a playground that had many kids playing hockey.

I did skate at the Humboldt park lagoon once in a while, but Maplewood playground was much closer and they had a field house to warm up in. They had a "Coach", Heinie Schmidt, that made the best ice in the city. He would be out there sprinkling late at night and well into the morning when it was the coldest. We would help when he got cold. Parents brought warm drinks and the ice was the best. We shoveled the shavings at closing time so that he could sprinkle. We were not allowed to play hockey. I did go to the Humboldt Park Lagoon when they had the Silver Skate races. I had hockey skates and the serious racers from Northbrook had long racing skates and sweat suit uniforms. When the starter's gun went off, I sprinted to a big lead until the first curve, then I heard their long strides catching and passing me. I have several Silver Skate participation medals just for losing. When I started College, Coach Schmidt told me that the Chicago Park District took over the playgrounds and were going to hire part time Weekend Recreation Leaders. He told me to go to the Alderman and get a letter of recommendation. Ward Committeeman, Sidney Olson, asked me how many Democratic voters we had in my household, I said 4 and I got the letter and the job at Augusta Playground at Augusta and Kostner. That is where I got into hockey, because when I went to open the gates of the playground at 9:00 A.M, there was a hockey game going on and it was my job to kick them off because hockey was not allowed there. Kenny Wharrem of the Blackhawks rented a bungalow right across the street during hockey season. His 10 year old son, Ken, was out there with other Blackhawk kids. Including Glenn Hall's son. Soon they gave me an official Blackhawk Bill Hay stick and I was playing with them. We played until other skaters started to show up around noon. I would "Forget" to turn the lights off and lock the bathroom on Saturday nights, so they played all evening after the playground closed at 6:00.

I was lucky to meet a lot of the Blackhawks in the 1960s, Kenny Wharram was my favorite. He was a soft spoken gentleman.

When I was 20, I had a weekend job at Augusta playground where they made ice every year. Kenny Wharram rented a small house for 6 months every year from a tavern owner on the corner of Augusta and Kostner. His kid Kenny Jr was 10 at the time and sometimes several Hawk kids would be at the playground.

The neighborhood kids were really into hockey and they would climb the fence to play "Forbidden" hockey long before I got there. (Hockey was not allowed in the Chicago parks at that time. My job when I got there at 9:00 to unlock the gate was to kick them off of the ice. At the time, I knew how to skate, but I never had a hockey stick in my hands. The kids gave me a stick and corrupted me. I started playing with them and let them play until non hockey skaters showed up just before noon.

I was amazed that a 10 year old could lift a puck with a wrist shot. It took me awhile to learn that with his help. I got in trouble when someone snitched on me and told my boss that I let the kids play hockey.

Once or twice per season the Tavern owner would host a post game party for the Hawk players and wives. Those farm boys were so nice. They would sit and talk to me until I felt I was keeping them from their teammates. Glen Hall was so nice and so was Bobby Hull. Stan Mikita was a wild man until a he got married and went from the penalty leader to the Lady Byng winner.

The players were behind the bar helping themselves to their favorite beers. They all drank beer, no mixed drinks. Their wives were all together in a party room. My wife was pregnant with our first son and she was sitting next to Joanne Hall who was pregnant with her second child, Blake, so she had pregnancy advice for my wife.

After we got home, my wife asked me who was Ab Dolton because the wives were talking about him. I was a little better at understanding the Canadian language at that time, so I thought it might be Ab McDonald who was part of the Scooter line with Makita and Wharram.

One school holiday, Kenny Wharram invited me to a Blackhawk practice at the old Chicago Stadium. I rode to the practice in his car with his son. I didn't have a stick when I was out there with the Hawk sons and daughters before practice started, so Kenny Jr went down 22 stairs to the locker room and came up with an almost new Red Hay Northland stick that had one puck mark on it. He apologized saying, "Sorry Coach, I couldn't get a new one." So I skated with the kids until Bobby Hull came on the ice and took a slap shot while I was in the corner. When the puck hit the boards about 20 feet from me, I thought a cannon went off. I had heard his shot hit the boards many times when I was in the 3rd balcony and it was a non frightening boom. This sound sent me to the bench to watch from a safe distance. I watched them do a 3 on 1 drill with my chin on the dasher. Makita fired a pass to Eric "Sonja" Nesterenko (Chicago fans thought he skated like Norwegian figure skating Champion Sonja Henie) Eric deflected that puck up where it hit the dasher just below my chin. I moved to a safer place for the rest of the practice.

Tommy "The General" Ivan was running the practice for Billy Reay who was attending a funeral. Ivan put a bucket of pucks next to my skates on the bench, so I tossed a few into my skates. When I got home I thought I had some Blackhawk pucks, but I had 5 Toledo Mercury pucks that Dollar Bill Wirtz probably bought for a nickel apiece from the bankrupt team.

A week later, I brought one of those pucks to a playground game and Kenny Jr. told me that he would trade me a Blackhawk puck for that Toledo Mercury puck.

I couldn't resist that deal so he went to his house and came back with an official Blackhawk puck. I started feeling like I just fleeced a 10 year old, so the next time I saw his dad I asked him if he was missing a special puck. He told me not to worry and there are plenty more at the house. His special pucks were back home in North Bay Ontario.

When I got married and Ken was born, I started making an ice rink in my long front yard when we lived at 1009 N. Parkside Ave. Ken started skating when he was 4. When we moved to Downers Grove, I continued making Ice rinks in our back yard and the boys started playing for the Downers Grove Royals at the Downers Grove Icearena when it opened in 1970. The Ken was having so much fun so I joined the Duffers in 1971. We shared an adjustable helmet for several years until I could afford to buy him a good one. I've been Skating with the Duffers for over 40 years now. Our grandsons now play with us. Our sons, Dan and Ken went on to play college hockey/

This picture of Jeff, Dan Mike and me was taken after a game on January 3rd, 2014.

This is a picture of 5 year old Dan helping me make ice in 1975. He looks just like his son Luke.

Dan is now teaching Luke how to play.

This is our Downers Grove Ice Rink in 1986.

Our Grandson Mike is now teaching his children how to play hockey.

I got to skate with them on Thanksgiving 2014.

Stan Mikita

Stan Mikita who was one of the greatest hockey players of all time. He passed away on August 7, 2018 at the age of 78. He was the only player in NHL history to win the Hart, Art Ross, and Lady Byng trophies in the same season, doing so in consecutive seasons, in 1966–67 and 1967–68. I had the pleasure of meeting Stan in 2002 when he was signing autographs for Cammi Granato's Golden Dreams Foundation Fund raiser. I wore a Stan Mikita helmet for years while playing Duffers Hockey. He autographed my helmet at that fund raiser. I wore that helmet for the last time when I was the referee for the Blackhawk alumni game. Cammi's sister Christi Granato set up the penalty box to resemble a jail, so she asked me to arrest Hawk Bad boy, Keith Magnuson for speeding. Click here for more information on Stan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Mikita

I whistled Keith off for speeding.

Maggy thanked me for giving him a 2 minute rest.

We got a chance to talk about their Madison trip.http://lopatka.net/1-19-01.html

I collared him for speeding and he said, "It wasn't me!"

My Stan Mikita helmet sits on top of my Kenny Wharram stick.

Stan and Ken were line mates on the scooter line that helped the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup in 1961.

Stan played without a helmet for several seasons early in his career.

Coaching

I started coaching Kenny's little league teams in the early 1970s. I continued coaching Dan's teams in the 1980s. I started coaching hockey when Ken started to play Pee Wee hockey in 1974. I talked my neighbor, Rich Dzingel into letting his son Rick into joining the team. Rick had learned to skate on my backyard hockey rink. Rick went on to get his son Ryan to play mite hockey with my grandson Jeff. Ryan went on to be a NHL star with the Ottawa Senators. I coached Ken's Midget U-16 team and his Junior U-20 team in 1980. We won the State championship and went on to finish 3rd in the nation. When Ken went on to play college hockey at the College of DuPage I moved on to coach Dan's Bantam Hockey team. We won the State championship in 1986 with one talented girl on our team. That girl, Cammi Granato went on to win an Olympic Gold medal for the USA in 1998. I had the Pleasure of watching her win a Silver medal in Sault Lake City in 2002.

My final coaching experience was with St Rita High School after Dan graduated and went on to play college hockey at the University of Wisconsin River Falls. Here are some of my memories from that experience.

My son Dan went to Downers Grove South for one semester, then he got talked into transferring to St Rita to play hockey with several of his Husky teammates who lived in the city near St Rita. When Dan transferred, several other friends from the Huskies transferred to St Rita also. That was the Husky team that I coached to the Bantam State championship with Cammi Granato. She probably would have gone there too if it wasn’t a boy’s school. I was teaching at Randolph School that was only a mile away from St Rita so I was able to deliver Dan to St Rita with 2 other guys from the western suburbs. I had a 1976 Delta Olds that had a huge trunk. I was able to get 3 hockey bags, goalie pads and 6 hockey sticks in that trunk with ease.

Dan played for St Rita from 1984 till 88. The Coach at St Rita was a fiery Italian who was well known in the Catholic league and USA hockey. I helped out by video taping games while Dan was playing, but when he went off to college, coach Jim Misiora asked me to become his assistant since I had a good relationship with many of the parents from the Husky organization. I took the job and enjoyed the extra ice time after school. My main job was to calm Jim down when he got ticked off, which was quite often. I was the smooth talker to referees that hated him. I used to say, “I know he can be a jerk, but don’t take it out on the kids.” That worked once in a while. Maybe twice at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

One of my favorite memories that I have of Jim came when we were seeded 8th in the State and Fenwick was #1. We were engaged in a heated battle after 2 periods. Jim's one liners were not hitting Fenwick's coach's funny bone. Jim realized that their coach was ex-Black Hawk enforcer, "King Kong Korab", so in between periods, He went over to the officials in the scorer’s box and asked them to please stop him if he gets angry and tries to go after King Kong. We beat the number 1 team with a goal by sophomore Darcy Parsons. (I created a Webpage tribute to Jim when he passed away in 2001) http://www.lopatka.net/Misiora/index.htm

The Story

We were in the locker room getting ready to play Marist High School for the Kennedy Cup Championship at Southwest Ice Arena. The place was packed with fans from both schools and when the noise was reaching dangerous decibels, St Rita’s principal, Father Murphy, came into our locker room to tell Jim that the crowd was out of control and he had to do something. Coach Mizz calmly controlled his anger and said, “I’ll get coach Angston to kick the shit out of one of them and they will calm down.” (Coach Angston was a tough Athletic Director that nobody messed with) Father Murphy sighed and said, “Never mind Jim, I’ll take care of it” He left and The Coach went on with his pre-game Pep Talk. We went out and won the Cup that night with our second win of the 3 game series. Southwest Ice Arena was the Home rink for Marist and Brother Rice*. St Rita’s home rink was Saint Spectrum on 95^th street. We won the first game there.

*When Brother Rice played, Gary Pressy played the organ there. He went on to become the legendary organist for the Cubs for the last 31 years.

Another Memory when coaching St Rita Teenage boys.

You never know where there heads are. One time I came into the locker room before a game I heard quotes from the movie Slap Shot were being bantered about. I thought that was amazing because that movie came out when these boys were in diapers. I heard one of the boys call another player a dyke. I called the boy out into the hallway and said, “You can’t call your friend a dyke.” He put on his best sorry face and said, “I’m sorry Mr. Lopatka I won’t do that again” I went on to teach him the definition of the word. He was amazed and went on to thank me.

Another Memory from Southwest Ice arena

I knew a cousin of a Duffer who just graduated from UIC. He was the all time leading scorer for the UIC Flames hockey team. He was playing for the Chicago Cardinals (a semi-pro hockey team.) We had 10 or 12 Duffers there cheering on Cousin Joe and the Cardinals. The Arena was packed for this Saturday night game. The fact that it was 25 cent Beer night may have added a few fans to the crowd. Blackhawk stars, Dennis Savard and Murray Bannerman were featured guest and they were getting free beers. They were dressed in their finest "Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes." They had suits and ties with nice top coats. Star goalie Bannerman was introduced first and he carefully slipped and slid out to center ice and took a bow to cheering fans. When they introduced Savard, he ran on to the ice and did a baseball slide right into Bannerman and knocked him over. That collective gasp was followed by cheers and laughs when they realized that the Blackhawk stars were not injured. They got up and brushed the ice off of their fine threads.

Roller Skating

My siblings and I learned to roller skate on clamped on roller skates like the ones pictured above. You could not clamp them on to gym shoes, so you had to clamp them on to your school shoes. You tightened the clamps onto the sole of the shoe, then you buckled a strap around your ankle. You needed to bring the key with you when you skated down to the corner because when you fell and a skate came off, you needed the key to clamp the skate back on to your shoe. Those skates were tough on shoes, the sole would get pulled away from the shoe. We were lucky to have a grandpa who had a full set of cobbler tools that he loved to use. http://www.lopatka.net/Grandpas-shed/index.htm

This skill came in handy in high school when schools used to raise funds by having roller-skating parties. I am pictured above in my football letter sweater skating with my wife to be Carole and her brother Ted. I started skating on the street with roller blades in the 80s when I was teaching at Randolph School. I took those roller blade skates to a skating party that we had for our students. We had 6 teachers and several hundred students at that party. My colleagues were not crazy enough to put on skates, so they just drank coffee or pop and watched the fun from the sidelines. I put on my skates a skated with the students, they were impressed with my funny looking skates and they were well behaved while I was out there skating with them. Some of them knew that I played hockey because I had a hockey picture of my sons and me on my desk. I remember when one of the bad boy 8th graders saw that picture, he said, "I'm going to be good in this class, because you hockey players are crazy with sticks in your hands and blades on your feet!" Things were going well until the owner of the rink noticed that I was skating with roller blade skates. He told me that I would have to get off the rink with those skates, so I joined the teachers and had a coke. I was only half way through my drink when the owner came over to uns and said, "Your students are going crazy out there, I need help!" I smiled and told him that I would put my skates on and go back out there. He thanked me and waved his "no roller blade skate rule". As soon as I skated out on to the rink, I heard students saying, "here comes Mr. Lopatka!" Most of the students calmed down and started to skate safely. I made a couple of the knuckle heads go and sit with their teachers for 10 minutes. They learned what a the penalty box and a 10 minute misconduct was. We had a great time and we returned to school with no major injuries.

Christmas Memories

I started thinking about how we celebrated Christmas. Santa came on Christmas Eve and we stayed up late. All of the kids took their last drink of water before midnight, so that we could receive Holy Communion the next day. (When we got older we went to midnight Mass)

I think the grown ups took something stronger than water. I remember my little sister Pat bringing me cold water in her little miniature cups. The cup was so small that I sent her back for several more until I heard my Mom scream when she saw that Pat was getting the cold water from the only place she could reach. (The toilet) Herb e-mailed to tell me that that was my sister Mary who was serving me cold water.) My sister Mary later admitted being the waitress. Mary said, "Yes, I did give you toilet water & still remember it because of all the drama. Barbara's fiancé came once. I remember how impressed I was that he could talk like Donald Duck. I had one of those barrel banks too. Mom gave me $1.00 a week for allowance, my friend Nancy was so jealous. After 50 weeks, Mom used it for my Christmas presents."

Santa usually came to Uncle Frank's 3rd floor firstwhile their kids were down in our flat. When heard the news, we ran up to see what they got, Santa would then come to our house on the 2nd floor. The next day we had the biggest party of the year, because our grandparents lived on the first floor. We never saw Santa except when we went to Aunt Anna's house a few days before Christmas. They had an evil Santa that scared the hell out of us, because he would take his belt off and give her teen age boys and their friends a good whipping for being bad. We were sacred speechless. We were afraid to ask for anything.

Once we were old enough to find out that Santa needed money to by our gifts, my Mom bought Herb and me beautiful oak barrel banks so that we could save up money and buy our Christmas gifts for the next year.

We would wait for the Sears and Wards Christmas catalogs to come out in early November. We would then count up our savings and pick out our Christmas gifts then Mom would call in our orders. Mom ordered items from Montgomery Wards and Sears, Rowbuck many times during the year. I remember my Dad getting a pair of shoes that had scuffs on the leather soles. He looked at them and told my Mom to send them back because they looked like a farmer bought them to wear at a wedding, then sent them back. Sears and Wards were very good at accepting returned items and returning your money.

Here is where I need some help, I started counting how many people came over. Aunt Irene and Uncle Joe brought 4 then 5, Uncle George did the same. That is 14 added to our 6 and uncle Frank's 5 plus our grandparents.

Can you remember any others that were there? It was quite a scene with kids running up and down stairs playing with all of the new toys. I remember my Dad would spend most of his Christmas bonus buying gifts for our cousins some years.

My cousin Debbie (Uncle George's daughter) e-mailed me to remind me that My Dad's Sister Aunt Bella and her husband John always joined us for Christmas. That would put the count at 29. She also told me she got in trouble for feeding our dog some M&Ms.

I remember my Dad and Uncle John had a fist fight one time to settle a disagreement. I guess it was like a hockey fight, because no one got hurt. I didn't see it, but I heard whispers about it.

I had my first taste of Blackberry Brandy when I was an 8th grader singing Christmas Carols. I was an Altar Boy and we made a stop at Alderman Tom Keane's house. It was a cold night, so he gave each one of us a shot of Blackberry Brandy to warm us up. He later did a little time in the "Big House" for dipping in the City till. Tom Keene's wife, Adeline, took over his City Council seat and tried to woo the Latino Vote by announcing her support for teaching Latin in schools.

Herb sent me the following:

You got the number of kids that came for Christmas right. The kids usually drifted away from Grandma and Grandpa's and came upstairs to play with our winnings.

That toilet water thing was Mary's invention. Pat is innocent on this one.

I can remember drinking water before midnight. We'd normally have a glass but our cousin Frank would drink multiple glasses of water while holding his breath. I can remember Uncle Frank shouting, "Bunny, you're going to burst!!"

I remember being up there when Aunt Bella was visiting, I was about 5 years old. Frank had this little table and chairs and decided we were going to have our own party, so he got two juice glasses and a pint bottle of cod liver oil. He poured one for himself and one for me. He drank his and wondered why I hadn't imbibed. I told him I didn't want it, so he drank mine too. He must have had some diaper the next day. One to boast about.

He had strange tastes. In kindergarten a bunch of us were bad and the nun pulled out about 6 bars of soap and told us all to eat it. We all sat and licked it and made faces and after about 10 minutes she said we didn't need to finish, She held out a bag for everyone to deposit his soap. When she got to Bunny he didn't have the soap. She asked what he did with it and he very obediently said, "I ate it." (Herb went to Kindergarten at St. Aloysius, a German School)

Don't forget the handkerchief with 'mustard' on it story. (You will have to e-mail me for that story)

My sister Pat sent me the following:

I gave you toilet water? I thought I did that to Dad. See what you guys get for asking a little kid to do impossible jobs? How was I going to reach an actual faucet?

How about the time you and Herb tried out my new little oven and burnt the corn bread. It always smelled like that whenever I turned it on. You did this before Christmas Eve. I think trying it out was unnecessary. Admit it. You guys just wanted to play with it.

You got the numbers right. Who else would be there? I think we had enough with Uncle George and Aunt Irene's kids. Our flat was the most popular because we had the most toys. Some of our cousins got shoes for Christmas.

Pat

I remember going downtown to Marshal Fields, I don't remember buying anything because I had the feeling it was for rich people, but it was a great time just walking around and riding the escalators to all of the many levels. They also had enervators with real people taking you to the floor of your choice. Here is a link to a terrific Youtube video about the Marshal Field Store.

My son Dan sent this picture in 2010

Luke was freaked out by this Santa when he was a 2 year old, but a year later he got over his fear of Santa. When his Mom told him that he better be good or Santa would not bring him any toys. He told her, "I'm gona punch Santa in the face and take all of his toys!"

This is the Erector set that kept Herb and me busy. Building that Ferris Wheel was a week long project.

I love Family Circus cartoons because they bring back so many fond memories. This gave me a flash back to 1953 when my 8th grade teacher, a sister of Providence, talked me into going Christmas caroling to raise some money for St Mark Church and school. The one house I remember singing at was the beautiful home of Chicago Alderman Thomas E. Keane, who was once considered the second-most powerful politician in the city, exceeded only by his close personal ally Mayor Richard J. Daley. (My teacher knew where the money was) After we sang a few Christmas songs out in the cold, he invited us in to warm up. He gave the nun a generous donation after he gave each of us a shot of Blackberry brandy. Each sip was warm going down. You could go to jail now days for serving minors brandy. (20 years later, Keane did go to jail on a federal conviction on mail-fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from some questionable real estate deals.)

This cartoon reminds me of 5 year old Tommy Wijas' version of 12 days of Christmas. He sang, "Five Golden Points, 4 four falling birds, Three French Fries, Two Turtle pots and a Pot Roast in a Pear Tree. " (I used to baby sit for Tommy and his siblings. Golden Point was a fast food restaurant that was located near his house in Mt. Prospect in the late 50s.)

When my wife Carole graduated High School she was employed as secretary for an importer-exporter that dealt with food items. In 1961 they got a deal on Aluminum Christmas Christmas trees. Carole bought one for her parents, my parents and us. Several years, we took that 55 year old tree onr of the garage and set it up for our grandchildren to see. Jimmy Johnson's Arlo and Janis cartoon got me thinking about our years setting up that tree.

Listen to a 10 year old Ottawa Senator fan sing Dzingel Bells.

WWWB (When We Were Bad)

This cartoon reminds me of the time my big brother passed one of his ideas on to me. When Mom used to try to smack us, sometimes she would hurt her hand when we blocked her swing with our forearms. So when we had a spanking coming, she would use one of Dad's belts that were hanging in the closet. One day just after a spanking, while my but was still smarting, Herb told me, "You know, if We hid Dad's belts, Mom wouldn't be able to spank us." I said, "That is a great idea!" So in the next few days, I proceeded to hide the belts under the mattress. I even hid his money belt, the one that had a zipper pocket. That plan worked well for a while until Mom changed the sheets and all of the belts fell out. Herb was just like the big brother in the cartoon. He said, "Greg did it!" (he didn't admit that he made the suggestion, but Mom knew Herb was the master mind.) We got a couple of spankings to catch up. My Mom was the enforcer in our house, her biggest threat was, "wait till your father gets home, I'm going to tell him." We hated that worse than the belt. He never hit us, he just talked and talked until we were ashamed and promised never to do it again. The biggest punishment was when She made me sleep with Dad and he talked and talked and when I was dozing off, he would wake me and say, "Are you listening to me?"

This is what Dad's Money Belt looked like

We did not know that Dad used to call Mom from work and get a report on our behavior. We were always puzzled when he came home and started asking us about our antics. We would ask, "How did you know about that?" He would say, "A little Birdie told me." the next day, my brother went out in the yard and started swinging a broom at all of the little birdies.

Herb's Home Movies

My brother Herb had an 8mm movie camera that kept us busy and out of trouble. If you see some of the movies we made, you might say it led to trouble. There is one scene that shows me jumping off of the 3^rd floor porch into a milk carton of water. Actually, I just jumped off of the first floor twice. Herb started filming me from the second floor looking up as I climbed over the 3rd floor railing. After I faked a jump, Herb went to the ground on his back with the camera facing the sky. He had to hope that I missed landing on his face when I jumped from the 1st floor. When I landed, Herb stopped filming, then went up to the 2nd floor and filmed me jumping off of the 1st floor again. This time I landed on the milk carton and exploded it. That made it look like He filmed me jumping from the 3rd.

Herb created many other gems. I was filmed with my pants on fire while roasting a hot dog. He had my sister Pat tying to poison my sister Mary. He had a time lapse movie that showed the Sun setting in seconds and many more.

Children were not allowed to ring door bells

When I wanted to call my friend to see if he wanted to go play ball, I was not allowed to call him on the phone, I had to go to his house and Yell "Yo Bobby" 3 or 4 times until he came to the window. Windows were open on nice days since there were no air conditioners. On cold days when windows were closed, we had to yell a lot louder. His house had a door bell, but it was placed high enough to discourage little kids from pressing the button.

There were adults who didn't ring door bells too. Frequently you would here a car horn sounding to get the attention of a resident who was in need of a ride. Not everybody had a car, so carpooling was a common way to get to work. You learned to sleep through a beep at 6:00 in the morning. You would also hear beeps in the evening when a guy was picking up his date. If he had to beep 3 or more times, my Dad would yell out the window, "Go ring the door bell you lazy bum!"

When I was younger, my Mom would take one of my Dad's Birtman Electric uniforms and reduce it to fit me. My neighbor Bob Campbell (pictured below) got a generic uniform from his parents, but he wanted a Birtman uniform. His parents offered to pay my Mom to make him one. She did, but never took any money. Mom could get evil when you tried to pay her, and she even got uglier when you tried to refuse money from her.

When Bob "Soupy Campbell (Pictured above) had his 12th birthday, his older sister bought 7 tickets to a Cub game for him, 5 of his friends and her. The seats were located right in the first row right by the Cub bull pen. My cousin Frank, who was 16 at the time, got wind of the event and started complaining that he wasn't invited to Bob's 12 year old birthday party. Bob's sister was a saint and tried to buy another ticket in the front row, but had to settle for 2 tickets in the row behind us. We had a great time in the front row talking to Turk Lown, Dutch Leonard and the bull pen catcher Toby Atwell while Frank was complaining that he had to sit in the second row. Half way through the game, a low line drive just missed us and hit Bob's sister in the leg. The ball landed right next to Frank's shoe so he picked it up and went home with a souvenir off of the bat of Hank Sauer and Bob's sister went home with a welt on her leg and learned that no good deed goes unpunished. We did get to see player/manager Phil Cavarretta take practice swings. We were impressed at how he could spit chewing tobacco out and hit it with his swinging bat. He would then wipe his bat off on his white uniform between his legs. After that game, I practiced and finally mastered hitting a loogie (sputum, a mixture of phlegm and nasal mucus) whenever I could cough one up.

Phil Cavarretta played with my dad during the depression for St Michaels semipro team. They each got paid $5 per game during the Great Depression and they played at Lincoln Park in front of hundreds of fans. There was a lot of money that was bet on those games. Cavarretta was drafted out of Lane Tech high school. My Dad batted 4th behind Phil and would have played professional baseball but minor league teams were out of business.

My Dad worked here. Birtman Electric still has the name on the building, even though they have been gone for years. They made Vacuum cleaners, mixers and blenders for Sears. They also made airplane parts during World War II. When I was in High School, my Dad was faced with losing his job at Birtman Electric or moving to Minneapolis. My Dad decided to stay in Chicago and become a mailman. Her retired from the United States Postal Service when he was over 65.

That is my Dad on the far left, he was a supervisor at the Fullerton Ave. Plant during the War years when they shifted from making vacuum cleaners to airplane parts. When I was 16, Dad got me job at the Spaulding Ave. plant where we made Kenmore mixers and blenders. 10 weeks in a factory was the best education I ever received, because I went from a C student, who spent all of my spare time at Humboldt Park or Maplewood Playground playing any sport that was in season, to a B student that started reading required books and doing my assignments. (My improvement was helped a great deal when I started going out with Joyce, she studied every night, so I started going to her house with my my books) I couldn't see myself working in a factory for 52 weeks, so when I graduated high school, I started thinking of a way I could play ball for 4 more years. The Chicago Teachers College had a basketball team and a baseball team, so I applied and took the test. The Guidance Counselor looked at my test results and suggested that I look for a job, because she gave me a 100 to 1 chance of graduating college with my English skills. My Math scores were good, but English would do me in. I thought about getting a job, but I had flash backs to my summer at Birtman Electric and said, "I'll take those odds, sign me up." I had one thing going for me, I was dating Carole, the women I married 3 years later, and She was an English wizard. Remember, there was no spell check in those days, and I was always the first guy out in the spelling bee. I misspelled the word even if I knew it, so I could go to my seat with the other goof balls and make funny sounds with my arm pit. When I was in College, I tried hard to get passing grades, so that I could play on the Basketball and Baseball teams. Carole was my savior, because I could hand her a sheet of scribbled misspelled notes and she would type a beautiful double spaced masterpiece.

My Brother Herb

My English education got off to a bad start in my first week of High School. I came back from the playground on a nice fall evening and remembered that I had a composition due for Brother John in the morning. My brother, who was a senior, asked me what I had to write about. When I told him my composition title was, "My First Impression of Holy Trinity", He said, "Give me a pen." He wrote the funniest story I ever heard, so I went with it. I copied it over of course in my own handwriting, because those Brothers of Holy Cross were sharp and always on the look out for cheats. I turned it in and forgot all about it until the following day when Brother John Kuhn stepped to the front of the class, with my paper in his hand and a disgusted look on his face and said, "This gentlemen, is an example of what not to do. It is written with a leaky speedball pen with barely litigable handwriting." (My penmanship was extra messy to cover my poor spelling) Brother John went on to read my paper, while everybody in the class, except for me and Brother John, was laughing hysterically at every sentence that my witty brother composed. Herb started the composition with, "When I went to my locker on the first day, I had to remove a moldy old jock strap with a pencil that I later washed." (We didn't throw anything away that was still usable) The composition went on to make fun of the teachers and principal. He talked about the disgusting food in the lunch room. I was finished in the first week of school, everything I did was unsatisfactory, so I flunked my first year of English and had to get up every morning at 5:30, catch a bus, then transfer to another bus, so that I could be in English Summer School at St Mel High School for a 7:00 AM class. 40 years later, I went to a golf outing and a guy that was called cream puff when he was a little underdeveloped, freshman. Spotted me in the parking lot, He came in from Colorado and I hadn't seen him since graduation in 1958. He was yelling, "Moldy old Jock strap" My brother's literary gem made a life time impression on him. In High school, average sized guys picked on him, because they could. I was one of the bigger freshmen, so I felt sorry for him and I was able to get those guy to leave him alone. That turned out to be a good thing in more than one way, because I stopped growing and Cream Puff graduated at 6 feet 3 inches and He was always nice to me, but he paid back some lumps to the guys that picked on him in his freshman year.

This is the way we got around town. El trains (elevated trains) like this shook our house every 20 minutes, because the Humboldt Park line was only a few houses away. It was noisy, but we got used to it. Sort of like that apartment in the movie The Blues Brothers, but not as bad. We could get to the "Loop" or Wrigley Field in 25 minutes.

(Above) This is my Brother Herb, when he worked at the U.S. Postal Service in the 1960s, He also did some time with "Dark Green" Marshal Fields, before getting his degree. When I was young, I could send a post card for one cent! A letter needed a 3 cent stamp. In 1962, the post office came out with an eight cent Air Mail stamp that would get your mail to California in a day or two.

Image result for airmail stamps

A Penny Post Card would cost you 1 cent.

This half Penny post card was before my time. Imagine buying 10 post cards for a nickel.

When the cost of stamps went up to 4 cents, people were complaining that a raise from 3 cents to 4 cents amounted to a 25% increase.

My brother Herb got his truck driving experience when he was in the Marine Reserves. He sent me this memory after I shared a story about my former student, Brian Milner pictured above, who was a Air Force Jet pilot.

I almost did that too. While in basic training they called about 10 of us out who had IQs over 120. They needed 6 volunteers for flight training. A couple volunteered but they wanted six so they told me I was volunteered. I took the written exam and passed the flight physical. I was called into a colonel's office where he shoved a document toward me with instructions to sign. I was tempted but it required a 5 year enlistment so I slid it back. He grumbled, "Why did you volunteer?" I told him I didn't. I was volunteered.

It was a good thing that I didn't sign that because we were flying the A4D Skyhawks which was the type John McCain was shot down in. At that time they were getting prepared for Viet Nam. Who knows, McCain and I might have been roommates at the Hanoi Hilton. Then I could run for Senator.

Later they needed Explosive drivers which required passing the flight physical. Lucky me, I got volunteered for that. It was OK, just had to make sure rockets were loaded sideways. Can't have them pointed fore or aft. 15 mph was the top speed and most people didn't know where the ordnance was stored so I could take my time.

When I was in Yuma I saw some cars and a limo at the control tower so I pulled over to see what it was. I didn't have the ammo yet. Barry Goldwater jumped out of an F104. He did a lot of his campaign travel at the expense of the Air Force Reserves.

This is my truck when I was in California. That was Mark and my friend Ed Sanders. His family came out to say hello.

My parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck, or maybe it was Sears AND Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died. Dad never golfed until Birtman Electric had a golf outing, (My Dad bought a used set of golf clubs for $5.00 I still use those clubs once a year when Holy Trinity has a golf outing) Here is a picture of the McGregor 5 iron, Mashie, with 2 swastika symbols hammered into the club. The swastika is an ancient religious icon in the cultures of Eurasia that was used as a symbol of divinity, spirituality and good luck until the 1930s when Hitler used it as an emblem of Aryan race identity and as a result, was stigmatized by association wit racism and anti-Semitism.

Here is my Dad's baseball swing with that club.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never heard of soccer. Mom wouldn't let us have a bicycle, because it was too dangerous. My next door neighbor let me ride a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).

Television

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 7. It was, of course, black and white, but we bought a piece of colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day. We also bought an enlarger (Big magnifying glass that made the 7 inch picture look like a 9 inch TV. The problem with that was everybody had to sit squarely in front of the TV. When Grandma and Grandpa came up to see Bishop Sheen, Wrestling and Milton Berle, we had 4 rows of chairs (2 chairs in each row)

The 7 inch Motorola pictured below was our first TV, I remember Dad saying he paid $200 for this beauty. In the Fall of 1951, The Baseball playoff game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants was televised from the Polo Groungs. I never dreamed that a game in New York could be seen on my TV in Chicago, so I was listening to it on the radio. When Bobby Thompson hit the shot that was heard round the world, my Dad called home to ask me if I saw the historic blast. I was puzzled by his question and answered, "I heard it on the radio, how could that picture get to our TV?" Many years later, when I heard the Lionel Cartwright sing, "I saw it all on the radio" , I thought about that moment. I have since seen replays of that homerun many times and that is pretty much the way I "saw" it on the radio.

motorola_vt-71.jpg (18132 bytes)

My brother Herb sent his memory of the year we got a TV.

It was1947. Dad bought it at the Fair Store downtown/ It was $200 plus something like $20 for the antenna. They installed it so I don't know if that was extra or not. $200 then was big money. New cars were around $1500 and wages were around a dollar an hour. I think Dad was getting around $300 a month.

A 7 inch Motorola.

Ever wonder where those names come from? In this case, a small company was formed to produce car radios. At the time, the "ola" stuck on the end of a brand name was really cool. There was Victrola and Radiola, so a radio on a motor car should be called Motorola.

This TV was still in my Uncle Frank's parlor when he died. (That is what we called the living room. Sometimes we called it the frontroom) This is a Stromberg Carlson TV, it quit working in the 60s, but Uncle Frank thought it was too pretty to trash. (Or maybe it was too heavy to carry down from the 3rd floor) After Uncle Frank passed away, the person who rented his apartment told me I could leave it there.

This was our new 12.5 inch Sonora TV in 1954 it replaced our 7 inch Motorola.

We got a Zenith a few years later it was an inch or 2 bigger and we got rid of that indoor antenna when Dad put the antenna on the roof. My sisters Mary (Left) and Pat is in the chair. Dad is on the couch and my legs are showing on the right. This picture was featured in Reminisce Magazine in 2008.

Reminisce Magazine sent me this 57 Chevy for the article.

Sometimes this test pattern was the only thing on TV.

We watched Kukla, (Russian word for puppet) Fran and Ollie (Oliver J. Dragon) , every day. My Mom made us Kukla and Ollie puppets so that we could be Burr Tillstrom the puppeteer and the creator of Kukla, Fran and Ollie. Other puppets on the show were Beulah Witch, and Fletcher Rabbit.

My brother Herb added these details to our TV history.

Dad bought the 7" Motorola in 1947 from the Fair store downtown. WGN-TV started in 1948 which gave us 2 channels. Originally all we had was WBKB on Ch 4 which later moved to Ch 7 then was taken over by WENR-TV which also was ABC. Our second TV was a 12.5" Sonora. Dad bought it because it was made by RCA That's what Uncle Al told him.

When we got the Motorola the store set up an antenna on the roof. I made an antenna to get WGN-TV then Dad and Uncle Al went on the roof to attach another antenna to the mast that was there.

There was a Channel 1 on the Motorola dial but there was a lot of interference on it so they just dropped Ch1 on later TVs. I remember Zenith using Channel 2 to experiment with a scrambled signal for Pay per View. That lasted about a year.

The B/W photo below was taken by my brother Herb. He turned a closet into a photographic dark room and started developing pictures there until my Mom found developer fluid on my Dad's dress shirts. Herb was not deterred, by the eviction from the closet, He just turned our whole bedroom into a Darkroom. I went to sleep on the top bunk many nights with a red light glowing. Herb's photography hobby came in handy when we wanted to hide our fire crackers from Mom. We hid them in empty Kodak photo paper boxes. My mom once opened a box of photo paper and she ruined the light sensitive paper and it cost her $3 or $4, so from that day on, our stash was safe from Mom. We started hiding fire crackers after Mom flushed all fire works down the toilet. Mom did that after my 4 year old sister Pat was hit by a roman candle that backfired into her face at Uncle Joe Wijas' 4th of July party.

That is me in Herb's Dark room, taking a break on my Brothers bed, I had the top one at night. The only time I went to sleep in Herb's bed was on December 31st, 1956. My Brother was out on a date with the brand new 1956 Buick Century. I was 2 blocks away at Chuck and Dolly Wolf's House*, so I had special permission to be out to midnight to celebrate the New Year. Herb was given an hour or so more since he had the car. (Yes, we only had one car) At 12:30 A.M., I tipped toed up the side of the stairs, where they did not squeak, so that I would not wake my Grandma, who slept in the bedroom on the first floor, beneath the stairs. When I got in our house, I quickly got into Herb's bed, knowing Mom would be checking to see who came in. I few minutes later, Mom peaked in, I was facing the wall in Herb's bed, she assumed Herb was home and the car was safely in the garage. I heard her go back to bed and tell my Dad, "You can go to sleep now, the car is home." Herb came in undetected much later and climbed into my bed. Mom was a little confused in the morning when I got up and Herb was still in my bed.

The following summer, I finally got to take the 56 Buick out on a date. The car was so big, I asked 2 of my friends to make it a triple date! We had my date and me in the front and 2 couples in the back. We went dancing at the Melody Mill, where Resurrection Annie was seen many times. She was a ghost that would dance the night away with some poor sap, then jump out of his car on the way home and disappear into Resurrection Cemetery. We went to a Drive In restaurant after the dance and we had the Radio playing some WLS Top 40 hits with the head lights on and the engine off, to save gas and protect the environment from that giant V-8. We ate and sang until it was time to get home and avoid my Mom's wrath. You guessed it, I ran the battery down and the car would not start. It had a Dino Flow automatic transmission, so we would have had to push it (in our suits and ties) to about 30 MPH, that was not an option, so I made the dreaded call to my home. (one thin dime in the pay phone) Mom picked it up on the first ring, She would have answered sooner, but her hands were wrapped in the Rosary Beads. She was probably expecting a call from the police with some tragic news, so when she heard my voice, she was relieved and reassured that the Rosary still works, but she was still mad at Dad for letting me take the car out of the garage that night, so She let him have it, She yelled to wake up my Dad, "Go get your car!" My dad figured that I must have wrapped it around a pole, so he was relieved when I told him it was only a dead battery. He got the keys to Uncle Frank's Nash Rambler (That is the one that was banned from Dive in Movies, because the seats folded down to make a bed) When My Dad arrived at the Drive in Restaurant with jumper cables, He was not in the bad mood that I expected, He was joking around with my friends, telling the girls how nice they looked and giving me a lecture about car battery care. I knew that day, what I always suspected that he was a saint!

*This 16th birthday party picture was sent to me by Dolly. Her twin brother Chuck was next to her. I brought a date to the party. It was informal, so I was dressed in a suit without a tie.

This Family Circus cartoon reminds me of the time I was on the roof of our 2 story building in Chicago around 1965. I was up there installing a TV antenna when our 3 year old son Ken was playing in the yard and I had a ladder in the alley. I heard Carole screaming to me, so I came over to the ladder and to my shock and awe, Ken was at the top of the ladder, 2 stories above the alley. I grabbed him and pulled him onto the roof and wondered what I would do next. A neighbor climbed up and put Ken on his shoulder and carried him down to the safety of Carole's arms. Ken got out of the yard by crawling under the gate and then climbed up to be with his Dad. I don't know how he got up that high without falling, because he had mittens on and his little hands could not even reach half way around the rungs of that old wooden ladder. Boys can sure find trouble.

Some of my memories as a teacher

I started thinking back to 1962 when Ken was born. I just graduated college and accepted a 3^rd grade teaching position at Beethoven School that promised a starting annual salary of $5,000. Our first apartment at 1942 N. Keeler is pictured above. Kenny was born while we lived there. Carole was working as a receptionist down town at the time, but she left that position to give birth to our first child. I was working as a driving instructor that summer that gave me nightmares, but not much income. We had the family over to celebrate Ken’s christening in late August at St. Philomena's church. I went to a liquor store at Keeler and Armitage to get some beer. I didn’t have much money so I was happy to see that they had Bullfrog Beer on sale for 10 cents a quart. I was not a beer drinker at the time, so I thought beer was beer so I bought 20 quarts for 2 bucks! When Carole’s dad saw that I was serving Bullfrog beer, he made a sour face. Carole’s Mom pulled me aside and told me not to worry because after 2 beers, they won’t know what they were drinking. She was right. The next week, I started teaching 3^rd grade at 47^th and State street with 48 students in my class. I was happy to hear that we got a raise. My new starting salary was $5,250. We did not have medical benefits until a few years later when we got union representation. My first 2 week pay check was $199.00 after taxes and pension contributions were deducted.

I sent the following letter to Rick Talendar when he wrote an article about the movie Caddyshack:

Dear Rick,

When I was a young teacher at 47th and State in the 1960s. They were drafting everybody except Dads and teachers. We just had our first child then, so I didn't need to be teaching for a draft deferment, but I spent 4 years at Chicago Teachers College learning how to teach, so I stayed another 39 years. We had a few men working there before the war broke out, but after the war started, we had Lawyers and other professional men suddenly wanting to become teachers and since there was a huge Teacher shortage at that time, we gained 7 men on our faculty. One of them was Harold Ramis. He had lunch with some of us male teachers every day. We were soon called the filthy 5 by some of our female friends, who loved to sit near us and laugh at our stories. Many of the stories shared at that table showed up in Harold's movies. Especially Stripes and Animal House.

When you mentioned "varmint poontang", I had a flash back to when my 10 year old son was using that term when we had a house full of grand parents and relatives. I grabbed him and said, "Do you know what poontang is?" He said, "no I just heard it in Caddyshack" I said, "Don't ever use that word again." At the time that Harold Ramis was teaching at Beethoven school, the kids there were using poontang as a synonym for a female body part.

Harold stayed with us for a while and he lucked out when our librarian took and extended sick leave and he became our librarian. I used to get him a Bell and Howell 16mm projector and some movies whenever I could. Our principal was not too happy with Harold, because He had long hair and played war protest songs on his guitar and had the kids singing along. At that time, the principals were just happy to have a person in the room that could keep the kids from tearing up the place, so Harold got a satisfactory rating.

In the late 70s, I worked at a Chicago Public Schools camp for inner city kids. I was sitting near the dinning hall waiting for the high school counselors to bring their campers to dinner. There were a lot of ground squirrels that the kids liked to chase. On this occasion, there were a dozen 11 year old boys in hot pursuit of one of the little rodents. They had him surrounded and as they closed in on him he disappeared into a hole. One of the boys was so angry, that he got on his knees and yelled into the hole, "Yo Mama!" I called the boy over and had a little heart to heart talk with him. I always preached the "Golden Rule" so I told him, That little squirrel is probably down there crying his eyes out and telling his friend, "That boy was talking about my Mama." the boy told me he was sorry as I stifled a laugh.

Another Camp Memory.

When I bought 3 bags of manure for my garden. It reminded me of a time when I was working in the CPS Outdoor Ed program in the late 1970s. I was at a YMCA camp in Lake Villa. It was a great program for inner city kids. One day. the horses got out of the grazing area and they pooped all over the place, so during our PE period, I got a wheel barrel and some shovels and spotted a few boys who were not participating in the game that was going on, so I asked them. "Anyone want to hep me collect Manure?" All 5 of them jumped up and volunteered. So I let them take turns maneuvering the wheel barrel as we went looking for horse manure. One of the kids asked me what manure was and I replied that I'll show them when we find it. Shortly after I said that, we came to a "Street Apple" as my dad used to call horse poop. I grabbed the shovel and scooped it up and tossed it into the wheel barrel while saying, "Gentlemen, this is Horse Manure!" One kid said, "That looks like Dooky." I said that what it is and it makes plants grow better. We continued on our hunt and each boy got a turn "working" the shovel. When we filled the Wheel barrel, we headed over to our garden. On the way to the garden, Don, the maintenance man stopped us and asked, "What do yall have there?" My boys all answered with their new vocabulary word, "That's Manure." Don said, "That looks like sh** to me." I tried to keep Don away from the kids.

A year or 2 later, after I totally forgot about my manure lesson, I was at a school showing slides of all of the fun filled activities that we have at camp to students, parents and teachers. (We did that for schools before they were scheduled to come to camp) Things like our pool, dinning hall, games etc. After my presentation, I asked the audience for questions. One boy raised his hand and asked, "Can we collect manure when we come up there?" I was amused and embarrassed and replied, "we can do that if you are really good."

Radios

My Dad won this Zenith TransOceanic radio at the St. Mark Carnival. It was introduced in 1951, establishing a basic dial design that would last 11 years, until Zenith quit making tube-powered TransOceanics in 1962. It had a plastic Wavemagnet with suction cups that you could stick onto a window and pick up Short Wave signals from around the world. This "portable radio" with its 5 pound battery weighed over 10 pounds. Before my Dad bought our first TV, I "watched" all of the Cub games on the radio. In 1959, I "Watched" Harvey Haddix pitch 12 perfect innings on this radio in a game against the Milwaukee Braves; the Pirates lost the game in the 13th. I picked up the signal from Milwaukee. Read more... There is a great song by Lionel B. Cartwright - I Watched It All (On My Radio) - You can listen to it on YouTube.

Recently, Andy Pafko passed away and my brother sent me a you tube link to Bobby Thompson's pennant winning home run. Andy was playing left field that day and watched that ball fly out of the Polo Grounds. I "watched" that famous home run on my radio. Dad just bought our family a TV in that year and that game was televised, but I never thought that a game could come to our TV all the way from New York, so I never put on the TV and I listened to it on the radio. My Dad called from work and asked if I saw the home run and I said that I listened to it, but never dreaming that it could be on TV.

Andy Pafko lived in the Cragin area after he retired and my Dad ran into him a few times when he was making Special Deliveries for the Post Office.

Saturday Morning Cartoons were on the radio so that you could read along with the announcer if you were lucky enough to have the Sunday Paper.

Wally Phillips came to Chicago when I was in high school and he had a big influence on me and many Chicagoans. When Wally passed away on March 28, 2008, I recorded some of the memories that I had of him below.

My memories of Wally Phillips

Wally Phillips and Bob Bell were recruited by Ward L. Quaal to bring "Quality, Integrity and Responsibility to the WGN audience." WGN TV could use the services of Ward Quaal again to get rid some of their scum bag shows like the Maury Povich Show and Pusycat Dolls.

I was in high school when Wally Phillips first came to town. I first heard him on WGN when he had a late night (9:00 PM was late back then) radio show. He was very funny and his show was a favorite with teenagers. I got to meet him several times when he was the Host of Bandstand Matinee on WGN TV. This show was a Chicago Version of Philadelphia's American Bandstand. I was a member of the St. Mark Church teen club and our adult sponsor, Hank Janicki, got us a spot on the show one afternoon. We all showed up in our finest clothes. Suits and ties for the boys and Easter parade type outfits for the girls. We rode a charter bus to the WGN TV studio, where we danced and had a great time. The powers at WGN were impressed with our group, since we fit in with their push toward bringing "Quality, Integrity and Responsibility to the WGN audience." We even had boys that danced with the girls, thanks to our Friday night meetings, where we drank 6 ounce nickel Cokes and danced to the latest hit records. Hank used to drag reluctant boys out onto the dance floors to get them started. Our club, "The Lionites" must have been put on the WGN "A" list, because we were called several times when they needed a last minute group for the show.

I got to do a live commercial with Wally one time.

He had me sit in front of a big bowl of chocolate ice cream with a spoon. I was told to sit there and look hungry until he read the commercial. Then I could take a spoonful and act delighted. I didn't have to act, I was a teenager who loved ice cream, so I started to dive into the Ice cream before Wally was through with his message, so he grabbed my arm and prevented the ice cream from reaching my lips. He gave me a friendly humorous reprimand, and continued on with his message. The temptation was way too much for me, so I tried again and Wally was right on top of my attempt and delivered another humorous rant. The kids were laughing hilariously, as was the cameraman. I tried one more time, producing more laughter. Wally finally finished his paid message and he let go of my arm and I devoured that ice cream like the hungry teenager that I was. During the next song, I was still eating the ice cream when Wally came over and told me what a great job that I did. He mentioned something about putting me in his future commercials, because it was much better than the lame banter that some ad man wrote up for him to read.

A St. Mark Grad sent me the following memory after reading the above.

I have a memory of being on his show and I danced with someone and received 2nd prize. I am trying to think of his name but it's not coming to me. (MANY things don't come to me these days) I too, was speaking in a commercial. When Wally gave me a signal I was supposed to say "BUY IT AT WALGREENS" but what came out was BLY ( rhymes with buy) IT AT WALGREENS. That was the end of my commercial career.

Joyce Pecka

Wally Phillips helped me help my students

I started teaching at 47th and State in 1962 and many of my students from the Robert Taylor Homes, had a hard time finding clothes that were suitable for the Chicago winters. I called Wally up one time to share a funny story with him. (It was the dog ate my homework story) I was a rookie teacher, so I had never heard it and Wally loved it. We started talking about the physical needs of my students and one of his listeners set up a "Drop Off Box" at a Jewel store in one of the northern suburbs and a week later, I had enough warm clothing for all of my students and many more. Coach John McClendon, who was working with Converse at that time, gave me hundreds of Converse Gym shoes shortly after that.

Wally Phillips got Ernie Banks off of the Bench

When Leo Durocher took over the Cubs in 1966, Leo was not happy with Ernie Banks' friendly demeanor. He tried to make him mean, by benching him for a while. I loved Ernie, so I called Wally on a Saturday morning and vented my feelings about Leo's actions. Wally got a flood of calls that lasted until he cut it off at 11:00, saying, "We got the message, Ernie Banks should not be on the bench." Ernie was back in the starting line up on Sunday afternoon!

Cars

My Dad had a car that he used to drive the Nuns around town. He traded this one in for a brand new 1952 Chevy with a Power Glide automatic transmission that quit going in reverse in a year, so Dad traded it in for a new 1953 Pontiac with a stick shift. I took my test for my driver's license in that car in 1956, because my Dad wanted me to get a license with no restrictions. Back then when you took your Driving test with an automatic transmission, you got a restricted drivers License. I did knock some chrome off of the Pontiac when I was taking a lesson with my brother. My saintly Dad was good about it and Herb talked the guy, who's car I scraped, out of pressing charges. As soon as I got my license, Dad bought a 1956 Buick Century that I couldn't drive for a long time. I bought a 1950 Desoto from my brother for $100 when I was a senior in college. My Brother got that car from my Father in law a year earlier for $100.

Our 1952 Chevrolet with a Power Glide Automatic Transmission and fender skirts.

This is My Dad's 1956 Buick, Century. It was big, heavy (4001 pounds) and Fast, (Zero-to-sixty took less than ten seconds, with the quarter-mile times of around 17 seconds and a top speed exceeding 110 mph.) even with the "Dyna Flow" Automatic Transmission!

My 2004 Toyota Prius weighs 1111 pounds less.

This was my first car, a 1950 Desoto that I bought from my Brother for $100. It was his first car too, He bought it from my Father in Law.

This is my 1976 red Cutlass with a white vinyl top. It had a 6 cylinder L engine with a stick shift. It cost around $5,000.00 (No Air Conditioning) It had a CB (Citizen's Band) radio that let me keep track of the convoy of school busses that carried students from the West Side Chicago Schools to Camp Ravenswood in Lake Villa Illinois. The building behind my car was the Camp Office, where I slept when Camp was in session. (usually 30 weeks of the 40 week school year. I was the camp Naturalists in 1975 until I was promoted to the Camp Coordinator from 1976-1980 when the program ended.) We traded in our Yellow 1965 Mustang for this car. *Correction: My son Dan sent me the following e-mail when he read this:

Dear Dad,

In your car section you state that you traded in your 65 Mustang for the Red 76 Old's. Are you sure you traded in the 65 Mustang for your 76 Olds? I don't think I was around when you had the Mustang and I remember you had a F-85 Gold Oldsmobile that I cried when it got towed away from our house. That was the car that you had to hold the button in while closing the door for it to lock, and I remember trying to do that at Doerhoffer Park and slamming four of my fingers in the door. I was about four years old then. When I was born you probably had to get rid of the Mustang for your Gold Olds for more room. Darn kids always costing you money.

You are right Dan, I traded my my 1965 Mustang in for a 1967 Gold F-85 Oldsmobile that I drove for 10 years until the rust clamed it.

Here is your first car. Tour brother Ken built it for you using the frame from Debbie's Volkswagen pedal car. He used cedar siding scraps. It even had sparks in the rear engine section that opened.

This was our first new car, it was a 1965 Ford Mustang.

In the year 2000, I bought this 2001 Toyota Prius pictured above in front of my Mom's house in Chicago. (Our grandchildren Jeff and Michelle are on the porch sweeping up some leaves) I sold that car to my son Ken in 2004 when I bought a 2004 Prius. Ken has 250,000 miles on it in 2012 and it is still going. That car was one of the first Prius cars in this country. The VIN number shows that it was number 32. I bought a 2011 Prius in 2015 and Ken bought one too. My grandson Mike's wife bought a Prius in 2018.

This is my son Ken's Car, it can do a quarter mile in less than 11 seconds!

"FENDER SKIRTS"

A term I haven't heard in a long time and thinking about "fender skirts" started me thinking about other words that quietly disappear from our language with hardly a notice like "curb feelers"

And "steering knobs." (AKA) suicide knob

Since I'd been thinking of cars, my mind naturally went that direction first.

Any kids will probably have to find some elderly person over 50 to explain some of these terms to them.

Remember "Continental kits?"

They were rear bumper extenders and spare tire covers that were supposed to make any car as cool as a Lincoln Continental.

When did we quit calling them "emergency brakes?"

At some point "parking brake" became the proper term. But I miss the hint of

drama that went with "emergency brake."

Didn't you ever wait at the street for your daddy to come home, so you could ride

the "running board" up to the house?

My Grandfather had a Ford. He called it a "Machine."

That was before my time, this is my Uncle George getting a ride on the running board with My Grandpa at the wheel.

Grandpa Z on his first floor porch. We lived on the 2nd floor and my Mom's Brother Frank lived on the 3rd floor with his Wife Emma and children, Frank, Josie and Marcy. (Emma was my Dad's sister)

My grandpa Ignatius Z. gave me advice from time to time when I was growing up. I remember telling him that I wanted to be a cowboy when I grew up and he suggested that I get another option if I want to make enough money to buy a home. I suggested being a baseball player, but he said that they don't make much money either. When I was older, he told me not to buy a single family home. He went on to tell me to buy a 2 or 3 flat so that I would have rent income when times got tough. He told me that having the 3 flat saved him during the Great Depression when he lost his store and lived off of the rent until he was able to get a job in the Gutmann tannery by the Chicago River as a collaborator. I took his advice and bought a 2 flat at 1009 N. Parkside Ave when our son Ken was a baby.

Tanned leather in Marrakesh

Tanning is the process of treating skins and hides of animals to produce leather. A tannery is the place where the skins are processed.

Tanning hide into leather involves a process which permanently alters the protein structure of skin, making it more durable and less susceptible to decomposition, and also possibly coloring it.

Before tanning, the skins are unhaired, degreased, desalted and soaked in water over a period of 6 hours to 2 days. Historically this process was considered a noxious or "odoriferous trade" and relegated to the outskirts of town.

There was a shrimp joint on Cortland about two blocks away called Joes Fisheries right on the river. My Dad would bring a bag of fried shrimp after bowling on Friday night. We would have a party with a quart of soda, big bag of Blue Star potato chips that had 2 staples sealing the bag. I remember biting into a potato chip that had a staple on it.

Grandpa's Basement Treasures

When you walk into the basement, the first thing that you see is my Grandmother Josephine's stove (above) and Grandpa's counter from his store.(below) Visit My Grandpa's Shed webpage.

This old laundry tub finally sprung a leak when it was 90 years old.

The coal shed still has some coal that grandpa used to shovel into the furnace that heated the water that traveled to the radiators on the first floor. My Dad put in a hopper with a stoker with a worm drive that carried the coal to the furnace. When Grandpa got a gas permit, my Dad installed a gas furnace that is still in use today. The system uses gravity to pull the cool water from the radiators to the furnace. It has no pumps or fans!

This is my Brother Herb pedaling my grandfather's tool sharpening wheel. Grandpa made this!

This is Grandpa Z'z hand made wooden shovel. I laughed at it at first, then I tried it and it was so light weight, that I started using it to scoop up yard waste.

My grandpa Ignatius and Grandma Josephine had a grocery store on Diversey Avenue. They were forced to move out in 1923 when my mom was 10. They bought a store at 1530 N. Paulina Street for $3500. They ran a profitable store there for 10 years until times got tough. My grandparents continued to give food on credit during the Great Depression* until he was out of money. He closed up and sold the store in 1933.**

He moved his family into the first floor of the 3 flat at 1622 N. Rockwell street that he bought for $8,000 during the roaring 20s when times were good. My mom used to go there to collect rent from all 3 tenants when she was a high school student at Holy Family Academy that was located on Division Street right across the street from Holy Trinity High School where her brothers and sons graduated.

My mom got married a few years later and moved into an apartment that was a block away. My brother was born there in 1937. When the second floor on Rockwell street became available in 1939, My Mom and Dad mowed in with my brother. I was born in 1940 when the USA entered World War II. My Mom's older Brother Frank and his wife moved into the 3rd floor a year later. They raised 3 children there and Frank was in great physical shape from climbing 3 flights of stairs until he died at age 96.

**One of my grandpa's customers came back a few years after the depression and offered to pay my grandpa for the groceries he got during the depression. My grandpa thanked him and gave the money back to him. He told him to buy his wife a coat.

My grandpa lived well into his 90s and was sharp until the end.

*Great Depression was the stock market crash of 1929, which unfolded over a series of days in late October. Starting on Oct. 24, prices on the New York Stock Exchange plummeted, and investors chased the falling values, selling some 13 million shares. “One of the wildest scenes in the hectic history of the New York stock exchange occurred in the last fifty minutes of trading this afternoon, when terrified investors jammed a total of 2,600,000 shares of all descriptions into the pit for emergency disposal,” the Chicago Daily Tribune reported later that evening. One estimate pegged single-day losses at $4 billion.

My Grandpa Rudy Lopatka

My grandpa Rudy died just after I was born. My Mom told me that when he held me when I was a new born weighing 11.25 pounds, he said, "Now that's a baby!" My brother Herb told me. "Rudy was a policeman during the first world war. Dad peed in his father’s Keystone Cop hat when he was 3.

Rudy cane here with 2 brothers. One worked for Heineman bakery, another made half the church windows in San Francisco. I think he had a younger brother that stayed there and was killed in WWI fighting for the other side.

My sister Pat recorded after a visit with his brother John. Pat wrote,

"Rudy got a divorce and left his children in an orphanage. Dad was only four when he was put there. He was separated from his sisters and could see them once a day, separated by a fence. The orphanage was outside the city and it wasn't easy to get there. I remember Dad saying that Uncle Otto would come to visit him but he never mentioned his dad visiting him.

His brother John was the baker ( He baked me delicious little cakes when I went to visit him to talk about the family tree.)and Edward was the artist that did the stained glass windows on Grant Ave. in San Francisco. ( I'm sure they've been smashed by looters by now) Franz I guess stayed in Germany. He was an engraver. Rudy had two sisters. I think Marie lived in Chicago. She lived with her brother John before she died. I remember going to her funeral. Anna went to California to seek her fortune and was a governess to Robert Stack, the Eliot Ness guy.

Their father, our great grandfather, was Frank Lopatka. He was a taylor and had blue eyes and blond hair. In Bohemia, he made uniforms for public officials. He was born in 1842 in Ciretz and he died in Chicago in December 1925. He is buried in the Bohemian National Cemetery"

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the dining room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line. My wife didn't have a phone until she was 19. When I wanted to call her, I had to call her aunt Angie next door and she would tap on the window with a curtain rod and pass the phone over.

Pizzas were not delivered to homes, But milk was. We went to the dairy for fresh milk in a gallon glass jug. When I was about 10, I remember hauling one of those jugs 4 blocks and then up 2 flights of the back porch stairs. When I got to the top stair, I banged it and a gallon of milk started a white "Water Fall" that formed a puddle on the landing. Mom gave me some more money and sent me back to get another gallon, as soon as I mopped up the mess.

That story reminds me of another stair climbing night mare that took place about midnight as we were quietly returning from Aunt Anna's house. Her kids were older than us, so they always gave us neat toys that they had outgrown. This night I had a huge steel cookie tin that was filled with hundreds of beautiful glass marbles (Called Knicks by my Dad) we were tip toeing up the front stairs that went right over my Grandmother's bedroom. I got to the top stair where the railing ends and the stairs take a left turn. I shifted my load and dropped the tin. That started a flow of marbles that made a loud noise on each stair as each one slowly made it's way to the bottom. The noise lasted about 60 seconds and finally ended when the last marble hit the bottom. We did wake up grandma, but she was such a saint, she never complained about it.

In June of 2010, the young lady who rented my Mom's apartment, dug up part of the yard for a garden and she found these 2 marbles. Katie put them in an envelope with the July rent.

In July of 2012, Katie dug up another treasure from the past. She found this 1937 penny. That was the year that my brother Herb was born, so I sent it to his grandson Chris who collects coins. I sent him the following letter of explaination:

Dear Chris,

The lady who rents the 2^nd floor on Rockwell Street was digging in the yard where your Grandpa and I used to play. She found a penny that is as old as your grandpa. It is pretty beat up, because back in those days, boys played a game of skill and chance called “Penny Pitching”. It was a game that you could make some money if you were a good pitcher. 2-6 Guys used to stand on a concrete side walk and pitch a penny at the line that separated the 2 concrete slabs. The guy that pitched the penny closest to the line would get to keep all of the pennies that he beat out. The copper pennies got pretty beat up as you can see.

Uncle Greg

All newspapers were delivered by boys and most boys delivered newspapers. I never delivered newspapers, That job stunk! You had to get up at 4 AM six days a week. On Saturday, You had to collect the 42 cents from the customers. Some customers gave you 50 cents and told you to keep the change. Some customers were never home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in movies. I don't know what they did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them. The Catholic Church had a news paper called "The New World" they rated the movies. I remember the Movie called "The Moon is Blue" got the "Condemned" rating.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

Here is our St. Mark Church that was in the basement of our K-8 School.

Boys on one side, girls on the other side.

Thanks to my Brother Herb, he had special permission to take pictures in church.

Pastor Father Dunne at Sunday Mass. The priests gave sermons back then, not homilies.

(Above) Father Faucher taught me how to play basketball. He coached our 8th grade team to a championship.

(Below) My sister Pat was the May Queen at St Mark in 1957.

For more St. Mark pictures go to: St. Mark

I went to Holy Trinity High School from 1954-58 at 1444 West Division Street in Chicago, about a mile and a half from my house. My brother and I usually walked to and from each day. My uncles went there in the 1920s. I also had 7 cousins and my wife's brother Ted attend there in the 1950s. I posted some of my Year book pictures on my web site.

Click here to read more Holy Trinity Stories

Grade School Fights

Someone asked me if I got into a lot of fights, I was one of the bigger guys in my class, so I seldom had someone challenge me. When they did, I just laughed and walked away. I don't like to fight, although I may have a fighting gene in me somewhere, because my Dad had some brawls when he was a street kid. I did have a few tussles while growing up. I remember popping a relative at a Communion party when I was about 7, I don't remember any of the details except I was forced to apologize and I had to act like I was sorry. One thing we learned to do in Catholic School was apologize and look sincere.

In 4th grade, Jim Schmidt and I got into a "Fight" over something that I can't remember. We wrestled each other to the ground, (no punches were thrown) then he noticed his school pants had a tear on the knee, so he started to cry and so did I. I sat next to him and put my arm around him as we both cried. (7 years later we were tough football team mates at Holy Trinity and we tried never to cry)

See Jim's nickel memory of me below.

In 7th grade, I got in another fight with George I.

It was a fight at recess I don't know what he did to provoke me, but I don't remember throwing any punches, but I did feel I won the tussle. I was worried that Sister St Helen would come down hard on us for fighting, but she told me later that She was glad that I taught him a lesson, because he needed it.

The following summer, I was working at the St Mark Carnival in a booth with Mr. Janaki when Joe K., a bully from the class of 1953, was giving me a hard time. I was afraid of him, but he reached into the booth and grabbed my white shirt and ripped a few buttons off, so I lost it! I jumped out of the booth, grabbed him and dropped him with one punch, Mr. Janaki loved it and called me Joe Louis from that day on. Joe is on that Lionites Softball picture on my St. Mark webpage He never gave me a hard time after that punch. When I told Ray, a classmate of his, this story, he laughed and said Joe was never a bully with his class.

We don't fight when we play hockey, we just laugh. Once in a while some of the younger guys get heated, but we remind them why we are here and why we let them play with us.

Music

Music was a big part of our life. My mother Adeline (Second from right) was a piano and accordion teacher. My siblings and I took piano lessons and my brother Herb went on to play the violin.

My Mom and her sister Irene are pictured in the May, 2016 Reminisce Extra magazine on Page 13. They were looking for articles about talented Moms. I sent them an article with colored pictures of the crocheted dolls, hangers and blankets that Mom created. I also sent the picture above and that is the only one they used and they mislabeled the picture stating that she was the one in the front row second from the right. That was her sister, she is the one second from the left.

My Mom had all four of her children take piano lessons from a sister of Providence in the St. Mark convent. I lasted 3 years. I was like Billy in the cartoon above. I didn't want to practice piano when my friends were outside playing ball. I remember going to the convent with and envelope that had some cash, but I don't remember how much was in the envelope. I remember going for a lesson with a sprained finger that was in a splint. The Nun took the envelope and gave me a tour of the convent since I couldn't play the piano. I remember seeing a nun in her room without her head dress (Habit) She looked at me and I looked at her and both of us gasped as she closed the door. I remember being terrorized by the annual concert where we had play a song in front of a packed church hall. My godmother, Aunt Irene, walked a little over 2 miles to be there. I remember finishing my song when I was in second grade and I was walking off of the stage while my eyes were searching the audience for my Mom and Dad. As I walked, I was headed right toward a potted tree and I turned my head away from the audience just in time to see the tree and correct my path and miss the tree. The audience gave a collective sigh of relief as I took a quick left turn to miss taking down that tree. I got a bigger hand for missing the tree than I did for my performance. I remember my Dad offering me a bribe in 3rd grade to learn a popular song and play it at the concert without letting the Nun know. I told him the Nun would beat me and excommunicate me, He disagreed and told me the place would go wild when they heard a lively song instead of the boring ones that the kids were required to play. I didn't take the money and when my 3rd grade concert day arrived, I worked myself into having a fever caused by fear. A fever was the only thing that my Mom would accept as an excuse to miss school or a concert. I was able to stay in bed and miss the concert. My fever was gone as soon as Mom took my brother Herb to the concert. My Dad was happy to stay home with me and my sisters. My brother Herb taught me to rub the thermometer real fast to have friction raise the temperature enough to get you a day off. One time Herb raised it to 104 so he had to shake it down before Mom came back. My sister Mary remembering one recital where she played a waltz so fast that it sounded like a polka.

My brother Herb stayed with the lessons then switched to the violin. He played that well into high school. Herb volunteered to play his violin at the high school talent show when he was a senior. I was a freshman then and was in the audience when he started playing a classical song. When he got through the first verse, he tipped his violin forward and marbles started rolling out and bouncing on the stage as the audience went wild. Herb just kept playing as the audience calmed down, he tilted his violin and more marbles came rolling out. When he lost all of his marbles, he tilted his violin to the side and a mouse fell out of the trap door that he made. This was his cracked back up violin, so he inserted a pipe that contained 10 marbles that rolled out on command.

My finger points to the opening where the marbles came out.

We listened to music that was on 78 RPM records that broke when you dropped them.

In 1952, my brother Herb bought a new RCA Victor 45 RPM record player that had no speakers, and had to be plugged into a radio or TV that had RCA jacks that tapped into the speakers. We had to call on our Tech expert Uncle Al to wire up our radio. Herb paid $10 and got 8 free records for the RCA player. My Dad told him he got robbed and those big hole records will never catch on. A few years later, you couldn't buy a new 78 RPM record.

This is what our CDs looked like, they rotated 45 times every minute.

You could put your name on it when you went to a party

They came separately or in Boxed sets like this that had two records with 2 songs on each side where you got 8 songs!

A few years later, they came out with LPs (Long Playing) records that rotated 33 times per minute.

When I was in college, I got a Reel to Reel tape recorder that would play hours and hours of music. I used to tape my speeches and listen to myself before class.

Then the 8 track tapes came out in the 70s. You could listen to 12 -15 songs.

There were 4 stereo tracks that would play over and over. You could jump tracks by pushing a button. Our 1971 station wagon had an 8 track player built in, and my 1976 Cutlass gave me a choice of the new Compact Cassette player, but I chose to stay with the 8 track player because all of my music was on 8 track tapes. Our children spent many hours recording music on CC Tapes. Our 1988 an 1989 Chevrolet Berettas had a Cassette tape players. My 2001 Prius came with a CD (Compact Disc) player.

We had a Neil Diamond 8 track with the song "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" Our 10 year old son Dan would take the 8 track tape cassette and push it under his leg as if that was a Tape Player. He would then start singing the song. When he got to the line, "Pack up the babies And grab the old ladies", He would sing" Pack up the babies And crabby old ladies". We would all laugh at his version.

Compact Cassette tapes became popular because you could record music from your radio and play it back on a small player that allowed you to take it with you almost anywhere. Sony came out with the Walkman player in the late 1970s.

In 1982, the Compact Disc (CD) came out and made it possible to take your music with you in a smaller player. CD players became the music player of choice for the next 2 decades until memory sticks came out and made music players even smaller.

The Wrigley Field Scoreboard had all 16 teams displayed. The Cubs just beat the Brooklyn "Bums" Dodgers. The St. Louis Browns and Philadelphia Athletics had the day off. Picture thanks to my Brother Herb.

Debbie and Dan appeared in the January 2017 issue of Reminisce Extra.

Some other Blizzards that I remember well.

Fishing

One summer, we got into fishing. We went fishing at the Humboldt Park Lagoon almost every day, my brother Herb did not like the feel of worms, so he used pliers to put them on the hook. We caught all kinds of fish that we used to carry home in a bucket. We tried our best to keep them alive in an aquarium, but they never made it through the summer. (We didn't have a pump or a filter) One summer I raised 2 tadpoles and when they sprouted legs and crawled up out of the water, I became an expert fly catcher. When I was 8 or 9, I saw my 90 year old Great Grandpa Klemm catch a fly that was on his mirror with one quick swipe of his hand. He squeezed his hand until the fly was crushed, then washed his hands. From that day on, I tried to catch every fly that I saw. When I was successful, I didn't like crushing them, because I didn't like washing my hands, so I just threw the fly to the sidewalk and stepped on it. When I became a frog parent, that skill came in handy. I started feeding the flies to my frogs. I later learned that I could catch more flies by sneaking up on them with a wide mouth mustard jar. (I learned that they would fly away if your shadow went over them) Once I captured some flies, I would cover the jar and drop it in to my frog terrarium then quickly cover the top with the screen. I then watched the frogs stalk their prey. Sometimes a frog would jump out if I didn't cover it quickly, so that would keep me out of trouble for a while. Those frogs got fat on my flies and lived a long life.

We also went to lake Michigan to catch lake perch with our long Bamboo fishing poles. We used to see many fishermen at Montrose Harbor in the early spring when the Smelt Fishing season began. That looked like fun, so several of my friends, Jim Cowley, Chuck Wolf and Herman the German) pitched in and bought a smelt net, line, pulley and anchor. Herman dropped out of school when he was 16* and got a job and a car, so he was able to drive us to the Lake. We went to the Lake right after school and got a great parking space. (There was free parking in those days) I started tying the anchor on the the line and got distracted, Chuck Wolf came by and swung the anchor around and sailed it out to the lake, it was a great toss, but the line was still in his hand. We made a quick collection then Jim and I jogged a mile and a half to a bait shop to buy another anchor. (We didn't want to give up that parking spot) By the time I got back, the line was tangled and we spent an hour getting it untangled. When we finally lowered the net into the water on the pulley, it was time to go home. We never caught one Smelt. They are only about 3 inches long, so you need a bucket full to have a meal. I never had a meal from the fish that I caught until I took my son Ken to Canada when he was 12. That event has a lot of stories that I should record when I get time.

The Smelt that got away

*There was another kid that emigrated from Germany, Karl Marx dropped out of school also and got a job. He had a nice orange Mercury Convertible. I can't blame them for dropping out of school, because when they came to this country they were 15 and knew very little English except the words that they learned on the playground, so they were placed in 1st grade until they could read the "Dick and Jane" books, then they moved up to second grade. I remember asking them what they did at recess with all of those 6 year olds. Herman said, "I would just light up a Lucky Strike and puff on it until the bell rings.

Herman the German and Chuck Wolf with me in Mom's Kitchen. Notice the Servel Gas refrigerator that our Dad bought, so that he could replace the oil burning stoves in our apartment with clean natural gas burning stoves. (lower left corner) Back in those days you needed a permit from Peoples Gas to have gas heat, but if you had a gas refrigerator, you got a waver. Herb and I were happy when Dad got gas heat because we didn't have to carry a 5 gallon oil can up from the basement every few days.

When I was a young teacher in 1972, I took my son Ken to Canada where we fished for a week with my teacher friends, Jack Geider, Bill Wittkamp and Fred Rosen. Fred brought his son David who was close to Ken's age. This was my second fishing trip with my friends. I was so amazed by Herman, an American Indian fishing guide that we were able to hire for one day. Fred told me to buy some Mepps fishing lures before we go, because you can get them at K-Mart for a dollar, but the lodge owner will charge you $5. Herman uses them and he catches the most fish. I took his advice and bought several Mepps lures as did Bill and Jack. When we were fishing with Herman, he snagged his Mepps lure on a log and he worked for a long time to free it up. I asked him why he didn't just cut his line and put a new one on since I was sure that the owner of the lodge would give his most in demand guide free lures, or at least a discount. He said, "I have to pay what you pay." When I got home, I wrote a letter to the Mepps company to tell him that their best salesman is Herman. I sent some pictures and told them how many lures we bought because of Herman. A week or so later, I got a thank you letter from a Mepps executive and they sent him a case of Mepps products. I hope the greedy owner gave the package to Herman. Herman had great stories if you asked, and I did ask. I asked him about fishermen getting hooked in his boat, He had several, but the most memorable story was about a guy that hooked his friend in the butt. He tried to remove the treble hook, but he had to pull the guy's pants down to work on getting the hook out of his friend's butt. He was not having much luck because his friend was moving in great pain. One of those moves caused one of the other hooks to get lodged in his finger. Herman started the motor and headed the boat back to the lodge. THe guy pulled his pants up with his friend's hand hooked to his butt. Whenever Herman's boat comes in, he draws a crowd to see how many fish he caught. They were shocked to see 2 fishermen struggling to get out of the boat with one guy's hand inside of the second guy's pants. They were taken to the town doctor. That would have been a viral video of those guys standing in the waiting room of the doctor's office, but back then, 8mm movies were all we had.

I asked Herman about hook removers. He told me about a guy that had a fancy chrome hook remover that probably cost 15 bucks. He finally got a chance to use it when he caught a small fish that swallowed the hook. He took out his fancy hook remover and quickly removed the hook. He held the fish in one hand and the hook remover in his other hand and proudly showed it to Herman. He then tossed the hook remover overboard and put the fish in his tackle box. The fish was flipping like crazy until he flipped out of the tackle box with several lures attached to it. Herman tried not to laugh.

Family Tree

(Above) My Great-Grandma Anna and Great-Grandpa Heinrich Klemm. (He was the father of my Dad's Mom, Anna Laura Klemm who died December 12, 1925. My Dad's father Rudy died when I was a baby, so I didn't know my fraternal grandparents.) My great-grandfather's father, J. Ferdinand Klemm, was born October 16,1828, in Freiburg-Breisgau, Germany. He immigrated to Boston in 1852. He moved to Milwaukee in 1855 where he established a furniture store on lower East Water Street. In 1877, He opened a tavern at the same location which he operated successfully for many years until he retired and moved to Chicago for a year and traveled for a year. In 1886, He opened a store with wallpaper, school supplies and toys on the west side of Milwaukee. He and his wife Maria raised 3 children, Herman, Sophia* and my great-grandfather Heinrich who was a master barber who made enough money cutting gamblers' hair on Mississippi River boats to open his own barber shop on North Ave just west of Damen Ave in Chicago, Illinois. He had 10 barbers working for him. They would give you a shave with a straight razor and even pull a bad tooth for you. A shot of whiskey was the only pain killer that they used for a tooth removal. I remember visiting his shop and was impressed with the long row of chairs and the red, white and blue barber shop pole.* My Dad took us to visit him in his apartment that was a located above the fire station on Damen Ave just north of North Ave. He lived just a block away from his barber shop.

*Sophia Married John Seeger and they had a son Herbert who worked at Wrigley Field selling scorecards, pencils and sometimes beer. The Chicago Tribune interviewed Sophia when she was in her 90s and when asked for the secret to her longevity, she said, "Be a Cub fan and do your own cooking."

Barber Pole
*The red, white and blue stripes in the barber shop pole are meant to represent blood, bandages and veins. For thousands of years, barbers didn't just cut hair and shave beards -- they performed surgery, dentistry, and more.
These barber-surgeons, as they were known, practiced everything from tooth-extractions to bloodletting. After sopping up the blood with white cloths, the barbers would wash the cloths and hang them out to dry.

I remember vividly watching him catch a fly on the mirror with one swift move. He then crushed it in his hand and showed it to us before tossing it out the window before washing his hands. He then gave us money to buy some ice cream. We came back with a pint of chocolate chip ice cream and his wife, Anna would not eat it. He said, "She thinks it has bugs." The woman in the picture was his second wife, whom he married to care for his children after his first wife died. He didn't find out that she was a lot older than he until she died when she was approaching 100 years of age and he was just 90. He was ticked off that she never told him her age. Anna was born in Germany. She went to England as a young woman and worked as a housemaid to earn her passage to the United States. While there, she purchased a large, heavy platter, the one we used at Thanksgiving. She carried that with her to the States. (Pictured below with a wine glass that she gave us) I guess she didn't believe in traveling light.

Anna's first husband was a gambler. One evening when he was down on his luck, he gambled his wife's earrings away. That was more than she could take, so she divorced him. She must have been a tough cookie because divorce was very difficult back then. Later she met my great-grand father, who was a single dad trying to raise 3 children. She told him that he needed a wife to care for his kids. He agreed and they were married until she died.

(Left) My great-grandpa Klemm gave me this sawhorse and saw in a bottle that is an amazing piece of work that was assembled in a 4 inch tall Peoria medicine bottle. The sawhorse was also called a sawbuck and that became the nickname for the U.S. ten dollar bill when it featured an X (Roman numeral for the number 10). My Dad called a 20 dollar bill a double sawbuck. The twenty dollar bill had XX. (Below)

My Dad also called a 5 dollar bill a fin. The old 5 dollar bills featured a V (Roman numeral for the number 5). If you look at the bill upside-down, the V looks like a shark fin.

My Dad could speak more Polish than German, even though his Mom was German and He said his Dad was Bohemian with roots in Austria.

One of my old football teammates, Fred Grygiel sent me an e-mail from New Jersey when he heard that some of the Holy Trinity High school Grads were going out for lunch. He wrote, "Na zdrowie pan Lopatka", so I replied the following:

Dear Fred,

I assume that is a toast in Polish.

My dad who was German and Bohemian used to say Osham Nossha (Misspelled number 18 in Polish) He played ball and partied with a lot of Poles, so he knew just enough Polish to tick my Mom off. He could swear real good in Polish.

Thanks to the Internet, I just learned how to spell 18, it is OSIEMNAŚCIE. I can't believe he picked up 18 as a saying for a toast. Those guys must have really pounded them down. After CZTERY(4) or PIĘĆ (5), I'm ready for bed.

The Polish -English Dictionary had no translation for "Na zdrowie pan" Help me out. He later replied that "Na zdrowie pan Lopatka" was Cheers Mr. Lopatka!

My Dad always got a laugh when he said "a Bohawk was a Polak with 2 pair of pants."

Did you ever hear the one about the Polish lady who was looking for size 7-8 undies at Goldblatts? She held up a pair and said "SIEDEM and OSIEM" the sales girl said, "sure, you can sh** in them and wash them."

This is me fishing for perch with Bill Link and his Dad. I just got the new rod from my Mom's cousin Mike Wigas. Our Wigas cousins gave us lots of cool things. Like lead soldiers that they made by pouring hot molten lead into the molds that they had. A small box of those soldiers weighed 80 pounds.

How I Met My Spouse

I love those pony pictures. I'm so glad my Mom reached into her budget cans and parted with the price that may have been a dollar. My Mom had 8 cans that were the same size with a coin slot on top. They were labeled to keep her money straight. She had one for rent, one for food, one for music lessons, one for tuition, one for repairs and I'm sure she had one for chocolate.

1946 photo of Carole in front of her house at 1220 N. Maplewood in Chicago, IL

1946 photo of Greg Lopatka in front of 1622 N. Rockwell in Chicago, IL

Carole in 3rd grade

Carole's Parents, Edmund and Genevieve. Brothers Edward and Thaddeus.

Edward, Carole and Thaddeus

Carole's Dad with his siblings. Marie, Max, Edmund, Stanley, Theresa, Barney and Ted

(Back Row) Angie, Ted, Carole's Mom Genèvieve and a friend

(Front Row) Carole's grandpa Stanley Kopyto, Her brother Edward, Carole and her brother Ted.

(Standing) Carole's Mom Genèvieve, Wally, Marion and Estelle. (Sitting) Ted and Angie

Ted, Susan, Carole, Greg, Judy and Ed

Carole and I lived only a half mile away from each other, but our paths never crossed, even though she went to St Fidalas School that was 2 blocks from my house and I went to St. Mark School that was 2 blocks from her house. We went to a Church Teen Club Picnic at Cedar Lake in Northern Illinois in the summer before our senior year of high school. We entered an egg throwing contest at the picnic with the hope of winning the one dollar prize. The guys were lined up on one side facing the ladies. Some guys moved down the line so that they could team up with their girl friends. I was just looking to team up with someone who could catch my tosses. I looked at the gals and gave up trying to maneuver, so I just let fate take over.

I was paired up with Carole by chance. I did not know her and she did not know me. Each guy was given a raw egg and was instructed to toss it to his partner, who was about 10 feet away. After the first toss, several girls broke the egg by snatching at it or missing it completely. We moved 2 steps back and then the girls tossed the eggs to the guys. Several more partners were eliminated after that toss. We backed up 2 more steps and tossed the eggs back to our partners and I was very impressed at the way Carole caught that egg. She pulled her hands back just as the egg touched her hands and gave the egg a very soft landing. 2 more teams were out. One contestant had egg on her face. We backed up again and Carole tossed me a very catchable egg and we were in the final 4. We backed up some more and now we were about 20 feet apart. I tossed that egg to her and held my breath. She caught it with out any problems. 2 of the remaining 4 ladies failed to make the catch, so we were in the finals. We backed up again and the eggs were tossed. Again Carole made a good throw that I was able to catch, but our opponent was not as lucky. He had scrambled egg on his pants and shoes.

We were the winners, so I tossed one more just for good luck and she grabbed it like a pro. We each were given a dollar and at the award presentation, I felt that I should ask her what her name was, since she helped me win the big prize!* That was it, I went off and played in the softball game where I slipped rounding first (I was wearing my converse All Stars that were good for basketball, but not softball) My Dad told me, "Why didn't you have your spike shoes on?" I laughed and said, "Dad, you can't wear spike shoes to a picnic." I never saw Carole again until the next Friday night when our teen club had a dance. We danced and soon we were dating. We played tennis and she was good at that too. We went bowling many times and she was real good at that. I had a 180 average, but she beat me many times. A few years later when we were 20, she wanted to go bowling and I didn't feel like going bowling, so I asked her to marry me. She said yes and when we were 21 we tied the knot. We had a boy, 2 girls and a boy in the next 10 years. 48 years later, we had four granddaughters, four grandsons, two great granddaughters and one great grandson.

(Left to Right) Chester and Arlene, Rich and Jackie, Brother Vincent, Bob and his date, Greg and Carole, Joe and his date.

*you could buy 20 bottles of Coke or 4 packs of cigarettes with a dollar. (I never smoked because it was too expensive, but I did down a lot of Cokes) When I started teaching, I used to have a word problem for my students, where they would try to calculate how much money I saved by not starting to smoke when I was 13. One pack a day for 10 years was almost $1000. Now when I go to lunch with my classmates, all of the guys my age who smoked have passed away. Please don't start, it will kill you!

The above is a picture of a lead pipe that was removed from my Uncle Frank's flat in 2009. My grandson thought I was Superman when he saw me bend this pipe with just a slight grunt.

Uncle Frank was drinking leaded water for 95 years, he passed away when he started drinking unleaded water in a nursing home. When I pick this up, I know what a lead pipe cinch is.

When I saw this Family Circus cartoon. I immediately thought of the day in grade school when my teacher, Sister Veronica Ann, asked us if anyone had a washing machine. My hand shot up, because we had an electric washer with a power wringer that my Mom slaved over.

Less than a week later, my Mom was washing curtains and other things for the good nuns. * After Mom washed the curtains, she had to stretch them out to dry on a curtain stretcher. (Pictured below) Mom had it located in the narrow hallway that connected the kitchen and dining room. The stretcher had hundreds of sharp needles that held the curtain in place. When you walked or ran too close to the stretcher, you went away with a bloody leg that Mom would treat with Mercurochrome or a tincture of Iodine. (either one caused more pain than the cut)

My brother told me that Dad was able to get a washing machine for the nuns at St. Mark. Here is is account:

Dad went to Birtman Electric and asked about a washing machine and was told no. Some how word got to the president, Mr. Butz, who was religious and had a priest and nun in the family. When he heard it was for the Church he ordered it done. I think Dad paid for it with a loan on his profit sharing plan. From then on he had an in with the convent. He could get plenary indulgences at a discount or for just driving the nuns around. Even Father McCauley knew Dad then. We could never get kicked outa school forever. Mom was the happiest after that move, since she just had to wash close for her family of 6.

(Above) Needle filled Curtain Stretchers could be adjusted to the size of the curtain. Mom also had steel Pants Stretchers (Pictured Below) that would put a crease in your pants after they dried

* My wife told me that she volunteered her Mom to do some washing for the Nuns at St Fidalis, only her Mom did not have a washing machine, she had to use a wash board and tub. When you washed clothes like that, you soon developed "Washboard Abs"

When I did an image search for a washboard, several pictures came up with guys showing off their "Washboard Abs", but they had to go to work out at the gym to develop them.

X-Ray Over Exposure

We had a shoe store that was located just around the corner from our house. It was on North Ave, just west of Rockwell Street, next to the "Dime Store", That's what we called the Woolworth Store. Whenever we walked past the shoe store, we would go in and ask the guy if we could x-ray our feet, he was a friendly guy and always said, "sure, go ahead." We would take turns putting our feet in and we would look at the bones in our feet!

Shoe-Fitting Fluoroscope (ca. 1930-1940)
Basic Description The shoe fitting fluoroscope was a common fixture in shoe stores during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. A typical unit, like the Adrian machine shown here, consisted of a vertical wooden cabinet with an opening near the bottom into which the feet were placed. When you looked through one of the three viewing ports on the top of the cabinet (e.g., one for the child being fitted, one for the child's parent, and the third for the shoe salesman or saleswoman), you would see a fluorescent image of the bones of the feet and the outline of the shoes.
	Donated by Purdue University, courtesy of Paul Ziemer.
According to Williams (1949), the machines generally employed a 50 kv x-ray tube operating at 3 to 8 milliamps. When you put your feet in a shoe fitting fluoroscope, you were effectively standing on top of the x-ray tube. The only “shielding” between your feet and the tube was a one millimeter thick aluminum filter. Some units allowed the operator to select one of three different intensities: the highest intensity for men, the middle one for women and the lowest for children. Most units also had a push button timer that could be set to a desired exposure time, e.g., 5 to 45 seconds. The most common setting was 20 seconds. Thanks to Oak Ridge Associated Universities in Oak Ridge Tennessee for the above information

The whole neighborhood smelled like burning leaves. (I liked that smell) My Mom's Uncle Joe used to pay Herb and me to come over to help him rake and burn leaves in the Fall. He also paid me to help him paint his cyclone fence with a brush. He was on one side painting as I was on my knees painting the other side. My face was speckled with silver dots when we finished. I got a turpentine facewash when we were done. Herb remembers Uncle Joe's brown leather jacket. He said, "You made it look like the fuselage of a jet fighter. I guess you guys should have spaced yourselves or something. I miss that smell too, darn environmentalists."

I mentioned Mom's painful treatment for cuts. (Mercurochrome or a tincture of Iodine) Pictured above is her treatment for most ailments that did not include blood. The rubber bottle was filled with hot water then wrapped in a towel to make it feel better and insolate it and keep it warm longer. It was used for ear aches, stiff necks and many more injuries. She never used ice to treat any injuries.

Lost Words From Our Childhood
Murgatroyd! Do you remember that word? Would you believe the spell-checker did not recognize the word Murgatroyd? Heavens to Murgatroyd! The other day a not so elderly lady said something to her son about driving a Jalopy; (Old Car) and he looked at her quizzically and said, "What the heck is a Jalopy?" He had never heard of the word jalopy! She knew she was old ... But not that old. Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory after you read this and chuckle. About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included: Don't touch that dial, (Before TV remotes, that phrase was spoken before a commercial started) Carbon copy, (Carbon paper was needed to make a copy) You sound like a broken record, (When a music record got scratched, it would repeat that part of the record over and over) and Hung out to dry. (Grandma used to hang clothes out to dry before clothes dryers were invented.) Back in the olden days we had a lot of moxie. We'd would straighten up and fly right. Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Holy Moley! We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley; (Radio program) and if you did something stupid, you might be called a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China! Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the D.A; of spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes, and pedal pushers. Oh, my aching back! Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore. We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" Or, "This is a fine kettle of fish!" We discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed omnipresent, as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards. Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We blink, and they're gone. Where have all those great phrases gone? Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did it. Hey! It's your nickel. (uttered when you called someone from a pay phone) Don't forget to pull the chain. (We had a toilet with a copper lined wooden box that was filled with water tat would flush the toilet when you pulled the chain) knee high to a grasshopper. Well, Fiddlesticks! Going like sixty. I'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any wooden nickels. Wake up and smell the roses. It turns out there are more of these lost words and expressions than Carter has liver pills. This can be disturbing stuff! (Carter's Little Liver Pills are gone too!) Leaves us to wonder where Superman will find a phone booth... See ya later, alligator! You'll notice they left out "Monkey Business"!!! WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE FABULOUS 40’s and 50'S ... NO ONE WILL EVER HAVE THAT OPPORTUNITY AGAIN .. WE WERE GIVEN ONE OF OUR MOST PRECIOUS GIFTS: LIVING IN THE PEACEFUL AND COMFORTABLE TIMES, CREATED FOR US BY THE "GREATEST GENERATION!"

Thanks to Beernuts for sending this e-mail written by anonymous

Black and White TV

These are Duffer Friends of mine.

Harvey-This is my friend.JPG (172230 bytes)

Life was better in black and white!

You could hardly see for all the snow,

Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.

Pull a chair up to the TV set,

"Good Night, David. Good Night, Chet."

Dependin'g on the channel you tuned,

You got Rob and Laura - or Ward and June.

It felt so good. It felt so right.

Life looked better in black and white.

I Love Lucy, The Real McCoys,

Dennis the Menace, the Cleaver boys,

Rawhide, Gunsmoke, Wagon Train,

Superman, Jimmy and Lois Lane.

Father Knows Best, Patty Duke,

Rin Tin Tin and Lassie too,

Donna Reed on Thursday night! --

Life looked better in black and white.

I wanna go back to black and white.

Everything always turned out right.

Simple people, simple lives...

Good guys always won the fights.

Now nothing is the way it seems,

In living color on the TV screen.

Too many murders, too many fights,

I wanna go back to black and white.

In God they trusted, alone in bed, they slept,

A promise made was a promise kept.

They never cussed or broke their vows.

They'd never make the network now.

But if I could, I'd rather be

In a TV town in '53.

It felt so good. It felt so right.

Life looked better in black and white.
I'd trade all the channels on the satellite,

If I could just turn back the clock tonight
To when everybody knew wrong from right.

Life was better in black and white!

MEMORIES from a friend:
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to "sprinkle" clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old.

How many do you remember?
Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes!
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

My dimmer switch went bad on my 1950 Desoto, so I installed a new one that worked until I drove the old tank to the junk yard. I had a 53 Chrysler, so I removed the dimmer switch, Radio and a few other parts that would serve as replacements for my Chrysler. I was removing the Radio around midnight when a Chicago Police car pulled up next to me and and looked in. He pulled up a few car lengths and I waited and started sweating, even though it was a cold winter night. I kept removing the Radio, what else could I do, I was a block from home. Then He drove off into the night. I took my parts and went home.

The Land of Sandra Dee

Long ago and far away,

In a land that time forgot,

Before the days of Dylan

Or the dawn of Camelot.

There lived a race of innocents,

And they were you and me,

Long ago and far away

In the Land of Sandra Dee.

Oh, there was truth and goodness

In that land where we were born,

Where navels were for oranges,

And Peyton Place was porn.

For Ike was in the White House,

And Hoss was on TV,

And God was in his heaven

In the Land of Sandra Dee.

We learned to gut a muffler,

We washed our hair at dawn,

We spread our crinolines to dry

In circles on the lawn.

And they could hear us coming

All the way to Tennessee,

All starched and sprayed and rumbling

in the Land of Sandra Dee .

We longed for love and romance,

And waited for the prince,

And Eddie Fisher married Liz,

And no one's seen him since.

We danced to "Little Darlin'",

And Sang to "Stagger Lee"

And cried for Buddy Holly

In the Land of Sandra Dee .

Only girls wore earrings then,

And three was one too many,

And only boys wore flat-top cuts,

Except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams

Did we expect to see

A boy named George with Lipstick

In the Land of Sandra Dee .

We fell for Frankie Avalon,

Annette was oh, so nice,

And when they made a movie,

They never made it twice.

We didn't have a Star Trek Five,

Or Psycho Two and Three,

Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty

In the Land of Sandra Dee .

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold,

And Chester had a limp,

And Reagan was a Democrat

Whose co-star was a chimp.

We had a Mr. Wizard,

But not a Mr. T,

And Oprah couldn't talk yet

In the Land of Sandra Dee .

We had our share of heroes,

We never thought they'd go,

At least not Bobby Darin,

Or Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal,

And life was yet to be,

And Elvis was forever,

In the Land of Sandra Dee .

We'd never seen the rock band

That was Grateful to be Dead,

And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson ,

And Zeppelins were not lead.

And Beatles lived in gardens then,

And Monkees in a tree,

Madonna was a virgin

In the Land of Sandra Dee .

We'd never heard of Microwaves,

Or telephones in cars,

And babies might be bottle-fed,

But they weren't grown in jars.

And pumping iron got wrinkles out,

And "gay" meant fancy-free,

And dorms were never coed

In the Land of Sandra Dee .

We hadn't seen enough of jets

To talk about the lag,

And microchips were what was left at

The bottom of the bag.

And Hardware was a box of nails,

And bytes came from a flea,

And rocket ships were fiction

In the Land of Sandra Dee .

Buicks came with portholes,

And side show came with freaks,

And bathing suits came big enough

To cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles,

And skirts came to the knee,

And Castro came to power

In the Land of Sandra Dee .

We had no Crest with Fluoride,

We had no Hill Street Blues,

We all wore superstructure bras

Designed by Howard Hughes.

We had no patterned pantyhose

Or Lipton herbal tea

Or prime-time ads for condoms

In the Land of Sandra Dee .

There were no golden arches,

No Perriers to chill,

And fish were not called Wanda,

And cats were not called Bill.

And middle-aged was thirty-five

And old was forty-three,

And ancient were our parents

In the Land of Sandra Dee .

But all things have a season,

Or so we've heard them say,

And now instead of Maybelline

We swear by Retin-A.

And they send us invitations

To join AARP,

We've come a long way, baby,

From the Land of Sandra Dee .

So now we face a brave new world

In slightly larger jeans,

And wonder why they're using

Smaller print in magazines.

And we tell our children's children

of the way it used to be,

Long ago and far away

In the Land of Sandra Dee.

I remember it well. What happened to that world?

Older Than Dirt Quiz:

Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about! Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (Olive-6933)

12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16 Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18.. Mimeograph paper
19 Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
2! 2. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!

I might be older than dirt but those memories are the best part of my life.

"Senility Prayer"

"...God grant me...
The senility to forget the people I never liked
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do
And the eyesight to tell the difference."
Have a great week!!!!!!

Go to some Olden Days Family Pictures

Some High School Stories

Grade School Stories

Put your birth date in the pop up window after you click on the link below. What happens is pretty interesting. Click on the link below:
Age Gauge

To E-mail Web master, just click here! g.lopatka@concast.net

Mom's 95th Birthday Party

Mom's Cook Book

Mom's Homes

Scanned Slides from the 1970s

Aunt Irene's 100th Birthday

Thanks to you, Greg, for being not only the great historian but the recorder of life for all of us. My mother thanks you; my father thanks you; and my brothers thank you; and Father Faucher and Father Rochford and Father Byrne and all the people of St, Mark, living and gone to heaven. Jerry and my Mom and Dad (who has gone to heaven) and my brothers, Bob and Rick.

Jerry P

Your memories are interesting and funny. I enjoyed reading them.

Reminded me that my first car was a '50 Chrysler. That's what every teen in Chicago wanted--a '50 Chrysler ;) I think we paid $300 for it.

Joe W

Hey Greg

As I recall watching you play end for Holy Trinity's football team, using weights on your legs was a good idea. However, you did have pretty "good" hands.

Your Cuz

Rich Zimny

1950's version of an E-Mail

I have no idea who put this together, but it is wonderful!!

Long ago and far away, in a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan , or the dawn of Camelot.
There lived a race of innocents, and they were you and me,

For Ike was in the White House in that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn.

We longed for love and romance, and waited for our Prince,
Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one's seen him since.

(My Mom upgraded to this modern pink phone)
We danced to 'Little Darlin,' and sang to 'Stagger Lee'
And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Only girls wore earrings then, and 3 was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see
A boy named George with Lipstick, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie, they never made it twice..

We didn't have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.

We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T,
And Oprah couldn't talk yet, in the Land That Made Me, Me.
We had our share of heroes, we never thought they'd go,
At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,
And Elvis ;was forever in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We'd never seen the rock band that was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson , and Zeppelins were not Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkees lived in trees,
Madonna was Mary in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We'd never heard of microwaves, or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed, but they were not grown in jars.

And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and 'gay' meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never co-Ed in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We hadn't seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag.

And hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Buicks came with portholes, and side shows came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee,
And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had no Crest with Fluoride, we had no Hill Street Blues,
We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea

Or prime-time ads for those dysfunctions in the Land That Made Me, Me.

There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were not called Bill

And middle-aged was 35 and old was forty-three,
And ancient were our parents in the Land That Made Me, Me.

But all things have a season, or so we've heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline we swear by Retin-A.
They send us invitations to join AARP,
We've come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made Me, Me.

So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they're using smaller print in magazines.
And we tell our children's children of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far away in the Land That Made Me, Me.

If you didn't grow up in the fifties,
You missed the greatest time in history,

The Complete Poem follows:

The Land That Made Me Me

Long ago and far away,
In a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan,
Or the dawn of Camelot.

There lived a race of innocents,
And they were you and me,
Long ago and far away
In the Land That Made Me Me.

Oh, there was truth and goodness
In that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges,
And Peyton Place was xxxx.

For Ike was in the White House,
And Hoss was on TV,
And God was in His heaven
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We learned to gut a muffler,
We washed our hair at dawn,
We spread our crinolines to dry
In circles on the lawn.

And they could hear us coming
All the way to Tennessee,
All starched and sprayed and rumbling
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We longed for love and romance,
And waited for the prince,
And Eddie Fisher married Liz,
And no one's seen him since.

We danced to "Little Darlin",
And Sang to "Stagger Lee"
And cried for Buddy Holly
In the Land That Made Me Me.

Only girls wore earrings then,
And three was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts,
Except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams
Did we expect to see
A boy named George with Lipstick,
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We fell for Frankie Avalon,
Annette was oh, so nice,
And when they made a movie,
They never made it twice.

We didn't have a Star Trek Five,
Or Psycho Two and Three,
Or Rockey-Rambo Twenty
In the Land That Made Me Me.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold,
And Chester had a limp,
And Reagan was a Democrat
Whose co-star was a chimp.

We had a Mr Wizard,
But not a Mr T,
And Oprah couldn't talk, yet
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We had our share of heroes,
We never thought they'd go,
At least not Bobby Darin,
Or Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal,
And life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever,
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We'd never seen the rock band
That was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson ,
And Zeppelins weren't Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then,
And Monkees in a tree,
Madonna was a virgin
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We'd never heard of Microwaves,
Or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed,
But they weren't grown in jars.
And pumping iron got wrinkles out,
And "gay" meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never coed
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We hadn't seen enough of jets
To talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left at
The bottom of the bag.

And Hardware was a box of nails,
And bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction
In the Land That Made Me Me.

Buicks came with portholes,
And side show came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough
To cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles,
And skirts came to the knee,
And Castro came to power
In the Land That Made Me Me.

We had no Crest with Fluoride,
We had no Hill Street Blues,
We all wore superstructure bras
Designed by Howard Hughes.

We had no patterned pantyhose
Or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for condoms
In the Land That Made Me Me.

There were no golden arches,
No Perriers to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda,
And cats were not called Bill.

And middle-aged was thirty-five
And old was forty-three,
And ancient was our parents
In the Land That Made Me Me.

But all things have a season,
Or so we've heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline
We swear by Retin-A.
And they send us invitations
To join AARP,
We've come a long way, baby,
From the Land That Made Me Me.

So now we face a brave new world
In slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they're using
Smaller print in magazines.

And we tell our children's children
Of the way it used to be,
Long ago, and far away
In the Land That Made Me Me.

Author: Unknown

I saw this old picture of Jimmy Buffett looking cool with his Pink Phone, so I got my Mom's old pink phone and snapped this picture. Mom was cooler than I thought.

Our 47th Anniversary Party.