Three Kids from the Mean Streets

Two weeks ago, on a Wednesday, I published a post titled "Carpools or Do Extroverts Really Have More Fun?" The next morning I immediately deleted it, but not before five of my faithful readers had an opportunity to hear me at my whiniest and most self-aggrandizing. I'd broken my rule of never posting after you've had a glass or two of wine, a lesson I learned when reading a friend's blog, that she posted under the influence of pain killers she'd taken after dental work. I copied and saved that particular blog of hers and keep it safely in my files. You can't make stuff up like she penned that day and it's there for posterity.

Anyway, kudos to my faithful five. And to the rest of you?  See what you miss when you don't check my blog site frequently?

***

Some of the old grammar schools in Chicago had little park districts attached. This consisted of the usual park playground equipment, swing set, slide, monkey bars, etc. and an adjacent small park building which had pingpong and bumper pool tables, as well as a meeting room and kitchenette. Back in the 50s and 60s, during the school year they would offer after-school arts and craft classes, music lessons or such, and when it was cold enough they'd put an ice rink out and the building became a warming center, offering hot chocolate and cheap skate rental.

The schools that didn't have the park districts offered after-school classes as well, staffed by park district employees or senior volunteers. There was even the rare grammar school that had a swimming pool and offered swimming lessons. Sometimes the full-service park district was a mile or more away, so the schools provided a nearby place for kids to hang out. It was a different era. One where Chicago municipal departments seemed to cooperate in an effort to keep children occupied in safe alternatives to the mean streets of the city. But, then came the "cutbacks…"

***

It was a warm summer afternoon. Nothing to do. Just hanging out around the swing set, waiting for the park building to open so we could play bumper pool.  Of the group of 6 or 7 of us there were two Francis's present.

Frankie had the thickest head of blond hair and bluest eyes you ever saw. He combed his hair in an Elvis-style pompadour. I had an unrequited crush on him. He came from a Irish family of 8 or 9 kids who were in and out of the local Catholic orphanage, Angel Guardian. Local authorities would find Frankie's parents derelict in some form and remove the children, only to have the court system return them when the parents had complied to whatever qualifications were imposed.

That day Frankie sat astride one of the swings, fidgeting, looking at the cheap watch he wore, given to him by one of the orphanage nuns. He'd occasionally reach out to pluck a strand of quack grass and form a whistle by placing the grass between his thumbs and impelling air from his mouth to make a piercing, haunting sound.

Frank was the tallest of our group that day. His parents had divorced, his mom remarried, but his stepfather hadn't wanted to adopt Frank, so his mother and he had different last names. It's hard to believe that kind of crap made a difference back then, but it did. At the moment, Frank was standing on the support bar, near the top of the swing set, towering over all of us. Frank was the kind of kid who moved slowly, deliberately. He didn't talk much, but when he did you could tell he'd given some thought to his words. Frank broke our silence, "Do you guys ever wonder where we'll all be in ten years? I mean, seriously, do you ever think about things like that?" Frankie looked up at him in bewilderment. Here was a kid who never knew day to day where he would sleep. "Who the heck thinks about such stuff?" Frankie's expression seemed to say. "We should make a pledge, right here and now, for each of us to meet here on this date in 10 years," Frank continued. We all agreed. But I knew, even then, that if I found my way out of this hardscrabble life, I sure as heck wasn't coming back. 

***

"I'm hungry. Let's head over to Beefy 19." Manny was behind the wheel of his 2 year-old Olds Hurst 442. It was a beautiful car he'd purchased with the money he saved working in his Greek father's meatpacking business. The car was full with three guys in the backseat and Frankie riding shotgun, with his back pressed to the front passenger door, his left arm slung over the seat back. Joking, laughing, kibitzing in the same manner he did at those all-night poker games he hosted.

"Hey, take the Bowmanville shortcut, I'm starving!" As Manny zigged across Western Avenue a truck t-boned Manny's hurst. Frankie was practically decapitated, they say.

***

When Frank was 21 and an employed high school dropout, he began dating Mary, an outgoing 17 year-old senior, with long flowing blonde locks. A classmate of mine, Mary was the oldest in a family controlled by a strict, domineering father and a devoted Catholic mother. Mary's father detested Frank from the moment he laid eyes on him. And there was that problem with Frank's surname... Her father had plans for his eldest daughter and those plans didn't include Frank, so he forbade Mary from seeing him. One day Mary came to school with her hair cut in a Twiggy-like pixie. "My father chopped it off when he found out I'd seen Frank on the sly. Oh, but you should have seen it before my mom took me to the salon to have it styled," she laughed. She had a way of finding humor in practically anything. Until it turned out that her father was too late in his ban. Mary was pregnant. I can't remember exactly how it all came about, legal rights of teens were different back then, but despite her desperate pleas, her parents arranged to have the baby given up for adoption.

Mary was never the same. Her humor must have been attached somehow to that baby girl, because you never saw her smile or laugh much after that. Frank moved out-of-town. Mary moved on with her life, graduated from high school, got a decent job. She met Charlie. They married. Charlie wanted a large family, as did Mary. But, life has it's ironies. Mary couldn't seem to get pregnant. Her fertility no longer at it's optimum, she and Charlie had to visit a specialist.

First came David. Mary adored David, but it wasn't the girl she'd been aching to replace. Back to the specialist. This time it was triplets, two more boys and her longed for baby girl. But, over time the kids were a handful, Charlie's work took him away a good deal of time. She still couldn't get over the loss of her first child. She and Charlie divorced when the triplets were nine.

I lost contact with Mary, only to connect again briefly via Facebook. After 40 years she had reconnected with Frank. They married, moved south, enjoyed visits from her brood of grandchildren. The last post I saw before I quit Facebook included a memorial to now deceased Frank, "the love of my life," was her direct quote.

***

Me? I'm retired and working on my bucket list:

1. Retire and move to the country
2. Write numerous short stories (work in progress.)
3. Begin to sew again (did some this week)
4. Refinish the head and foot boards of my husband's childhood twin beds
5. Buy local only and avoid all big box stores
6. Hike at least part of the Appalachian Trail
7. Have High Tea at the Drake Hotel in Chicago with my granddaughter
8. Purchase only the finest bourbon, wine and tequila
9. Take my grandchildren to Yellowstone in the middle of winter
10. Re-institute monthly potluck suppers with a few good friends (note the words "few" and "good")
12. Be able, again, to do some of those yoga poses that now seem just beyond my reach
13. Learn to play guitar
14. Visit Thich Naht Hahn's Plum Village in France
15. Learn how to perfect a chip shot in golf
16. Let my hair go totally gray
17. Own some chickens
18. Meditate daily
19. Take Fred to the tiny town where I was born
20. Visit Africa and/or New Zealand
21. Have a pet dog  (tried that, didn't work out so well for us and Cujo ;)
22. Remember my friend Consuelo's birthday, like she does mine every year
23. Read 52 books a year
24. Walk/run 1,000 miles a year (made 800+ this year, so far)
25. Scan and organize all of my photos

My apologies to those who read this before my edit… it was Frankie that was nearly decapitated.