From mountain trails to martial arts mats, my hobbies have shaped who I am today in unexpected ways. Drunks on the streetcorner, bears across my path in Yellowstone. Working toward my black belt with folks who are old enough to be my kids, some of whom could be my grand kids. Lessons learned from homeless shelters and compassion for rich folks who can't appreciate all they have been given.

Lessons from people: great, good and in between

Delores T. ; Delore, Mom

Can You relate? 1926. Just before the great depression. A first-generation Polish girl marries a first-generation Polish boy. Both sets of parents came across from Polish Silesia and somehow arrived in Chicago. I’m thinking about them as I compose this article. Immigrants. Polish immigrants. Read Upton Sinclair’s book, “The Jungle” and you’ll get an idea of the way these kids were raised. Five miles away from downtown must have been as far as five thousand miles from name the place. Little Joe and Johnny trudge to the railroad tracks as a daily chore. Nope, they weren’t playing railroad, they weren’t there hopping freights. They weren’t there trying to see if a railroad dick would fill their ass with a pepper gun- these were the days before rubber bullets. Their job was retrieving, stealing, obtaining; call it what you wanting, coal off the side of the tracks, so that the three rooms of nine kids and two parents could heat up to 60 degrees during a chicken on a car and a car can’t go. That’s the way you spell Chi-ca-go winter. OK, I can’t help myself; what goes around comes around. 2026. Any connection? Immigrants? Different language, strange culture?

1930. Early Great Depression. A girl is born. Not in a stable. In a three room flat above a grocery store owned by Mrs. Duda. On a table in the same kitchen where matka Anna would hold chickens, ducks, turkeys- whatever she could gather, over the gas stove flame in order to sear the feathers off before she began making soup.

English as a second language. I’m not too sure about D’s early years, but her name must have been a reflection of her upbringing. See, Dolores is a Spanish name, sometimes used by eastern Europeans with the meaning of “Mary of constant sorrows.” Truer words were never written.

From what I could learn from the old folks in my family, D learned English in a Polish Catholic school, St. Boniface, on Augusta and Noble street, where the teachers were Franciscan nuns who whose age put them about a year out of high school and whose demeanor yelled “Watchet kid.”. Positive reinforcement was arriving at home without red welts on your left hand because you were using that devil’s digit to write your name. No one uses the Devil’s hand. D became ambidextrous thus saving the welts on her hand for bruises on her knees; kneeling on dried peas when the bath tub was not cleaned well enough tends to do that. Progressive education coupled with the early theory of “Tough Love”. I’m writing this and I’m thinking that maybe D’s mom, my grandma, was an educational pioneer. Ya think?

The best I could learn was that D got her nickname early on. See, Grandma Anna, who was loved by the whole neighborhood, gave the world another progeny. Danny. Yup, on the same oak table where his sister was birthed and where the chickens were dismembered. That’s another story, but suffice it to say, that Delores became “My son, the priest and my daughter the bitch” early on. Truth time- Danny didn’t go away to seminary til he was 12, but the bitch part is accurate.

You can’t make this stuff up unless you grew up in an immigrant city during the depression. D attended Immaculate Heart of Mary Girls High School and graduated in 1947 or thereabouts. Grandma Anna, the educational pioneer deduced that Delores didn’t need any more schooling, and according to the old folks, she learned typing and was not really a stellar scholar, so “let’s get 'er making something of herself”. The Palmer House on Monroe Street welcomed D with a job as a receptionist.

Lesson Learned:

Your family is just an a

accident of birth.

Old St. Mary's

St. Boniface

Delore: part 2

I never really knew too much about D after she graduated high school. Once in a while I heard stories from the old folks about sitting on the curb of Walter’s dad’s bar smoking Chesterfield unfiltereds and sipping Manhattans til sun up. I heard the myths about good old days when you could walk down Chicago Avenue til you got to the lake front. From there you could watch the boats at Navy Pier, get hot dogs, or gobble fried clams from Al’s Fish Shack right up at the water’s edge on Fridays. Joanie and Johnny Zawilla provided the hilarity, Walter kept the momentum going and according to Uncle Johnny (not blood but just as close, a Chicago thing), it was the time to be in your 20’s. Delores fell in love with Johnny Maczech but Matko Anna, remember her? Said “NO!” Period! Amen! To D getting married at 20.

These were the days right after WW II. The days as the Korean War was just beginning. Innocent. Foolish. Fun. Eventually, Korea happened. Guys either enlisted or got an I love you letter from their Uncle Sam. Walter worked identifying dead bodies and according to Uncle John, he was pretty good at picking up stray parts. Who would’ve thought that this would turn out to be a good apprenticeship. Uncle John carried a rifle. The girls worked at the canteen, USO club. Delores eventually met Al.

Al was a sullen, serious drinker, as I came to find out 10 years later. His background was, let’s just say, not nice. We were never sure what nationality he was because my mom and all the old folks kept that a secret. Best I could figure out, his dad was a Polish cab driver and his mom was an Italian something or other. Back in the days when poor kids couldn’t afford hotels…. Al was born on August 23, 1930. Rumor has it that his name from home, I guess, was Travinski.

His momma left him off on the door step of the Rose family. “Helen, could you watch the baby for a while, I gotta work today.” Kind of thing. Momma Al never showed up again; she must have just kept on working. Maybe she forgot she owned a kid. The Rose family was stuck. Big Al and Helen were either too dumb or too compassionate to put the baby kid in an orphanage. They raised little Al as if he were one of their own. So little Al grew up right at St. Boniface like the old gang, but he was never really a part of the crowd of Casey and Walter and Joanie and the two Johns.

Al and Delores got friendly at different Canteen dances and they became an item. D drank Manhattans and Al drank Seagram’s and Schlitz. Everyone was in the Army, again, so Al and D saw each other sporadically. At some point a neighborhood guy confronted Al and told him that he wasn’t really a Rose. Travinski means turnip in Polish, I think. Hmmm…See, back in those days, the last thing you EVER told anyone was that you were a bastard orphan. The Roses kept Al’s secret. They just raised him as one of the kids. Well anyway, when 20 year old high school dropout Al found out, let’s just say he went nuts. I’m not a shrink, but the stories I heard were consistent about Al going off the res after that. He earned a master’s degree in the pleasures of Seagrams, any time, any place.

I don’t know anything about the courtship of my soon to be parents, but I do know that Matko Anna told D, “If you’re knocked up, I’ll kill you”. I didn’t think folks spoke like that in the old days, but growing up around Anna made me pretty sure that the quote was accurate. D wasn’t “knocked up” and Al was straight enough. They got married.

From the pictures I have; three or four black and white poses, Al was a handsome dude whose dark skin showed the Italian mom, and whose tough nose meant that he knew how to take a punch. When you see the photos and you see the expression on D’s face and the dark eyes showing Al’s torment, you get the distinct impression that D was happy to get away from Anna and Al was happy to be anyplace but Korea.

The next generation of Roses took off. I don’t know anything about Al and D as newlyweds. D kept the CIA secrets so to speak and took them to her grave at St. Aalberts. Al spoke about as much as the Italian statue in old Columbus Park, off Central Ave.. Polish secrets. When you weren’t arguing you sat and stewed. Lessons I learned.

Two things for sure, Al could draw and he could hold his liquor. The drawings of his Korean times say a lot about what he was thinking. Ordinary colored pencil images of life in the city, girls with dark features.

Somehow Al got a job with Commonwealth Edison as a Cable Splicer. Forty later I learned that he had wanted to be a sign painter. I got that from the undertaker in Scranton PA where Al ended up after he ran away from D the three kids. That’s for another story.

It seems that Al must have known somebody who knew somebody who had a guy- if you’re a Chicago kid you know what I mean. If not, imagine. That got him a job at Commonwealth Edison. Great job for a kid who didn’t get past junior year at St. Stan’s High School. Al worked his way up from jackhammer jockey to cable splicer helper. My guess is that holding 20,000 volts was less intimidating than digging up landmines.

One thing about Al, he was a good provider. We never went hungry, til he drank and gambled himself out of a job and ran away to God knows where. Skid Row sounds about right.

Al and D moved to Cicero which was a nice Polish, Lithuanian starter suburb west of the city. The kids moved in with Autie Kate and Uncle Jake. Kate worked in a box factory and Jake was an insurance man. I came to learn later that Kate was the mom D wish she could have had. Kate was the mom that D deserved. At least those were the rumors.

D did the after Korea baby boom mom thing, rented flat, upstairs of course, washing clothes in a ringer washer, feeding Gerber formula to me speaking lots of Polish and cooking as many starches as Al could eat. Between all that, D had two miscarriages and two live babies.

The mother’s club at St. Valentine was the sowing circle of the neighborhood. Evidently all the new moms gathered to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, complain about their kids and generally hang out.

Auntie Florence, Auntie Alice, Jean; none of these ladies were blood, but God forbid if one of their kids caused trouble. Everybody in the neighborhood was either an Auntie or an Uncle. You’d have four, five Aunties kicking your ass right before dad got home and took off the belt. It was actually good times.

D had more to hide than most of the other moms.

Lesson learned: Loose lips sink ships.

Delores/D: Part 3/Epilogue

Who knows which way the wind’ll blow? I’m not sure if D had mother’s intuition or that the Sydney Omar horoscopes are really accurate. Al wanted to buy a house out west of the city in Streamway. D wouldn’t go along with it because she was afraid that they couldn’t afford the payments. At least that’s the story I heard from Auntie Alice (Remember the St. Valentine’s mother’s club?) Al didn’t say anything. He drank. D said nothing. She kept secrets. It wouldn’t surprise me if Matko Anna had something to do with D’s fear for survival. Neither Al or D ever lived in anything except an upstairs flat over a grocery store. In any event, no house out west Streamway.

Al (who will now be referred to as “the old man”, drank.

I’m not sure what caused him to go off the deep end. Maybe learning he was a bastard took a toll. Truth be known, he WAS a bastard, but that’s an editorial comment. A ten-year-old kid isn’t quite sophisticated enough (big word) to understand what goes on in an adult guy’s head. Was it finding out he was a Jesus drop me on the doorstep kid? Was it his need to prove himself? He never hit D that I can remember. She never yelled at him that I can remember. You might say it was a cold war.

Me and the old man did have some times. I thought taking a ride and selling TV’s from your car’s trunk was something every boy did with his old man. It was pretty cool to know where the ID mirrors were when you went to a tavern on Sunday before opening time and the bartender let you in because “yous is a regular”. I learned quick that copper from the job site was pretty valuable and that cash for copper was king- without Coppers. The old man taught me to stand up for myself- and him- when we came home from Sobies and he couldn’t walk straight. One of my chores was to “Go get your father” from Sobies on Thanksgiving so we could eat. The other part of the chore was watching D serve Thanksgiving with shakey hands. I wonder if that’s why we never ate soup.

As things got a little…..use your own adjective…D's brother, the priest- remember my son the priest, my daughter the bitch- took care of relieving D’s stress by giving the kids and herself, a trip to Boston. Fabulous trip. Fun. My first kiss.

We got back to Cicero. Walked upstairs. Opened the back door. The flat was completely empty. I can still see the picture in living color as I write this. Everything from the rugs on the floor to the pictures on the wall. EVERYTHING. Needless to say D was more than a little shocked. I’m pretty sure she knew about the old man’s gambling. How could she not admit his drinking ? Secrets kept.

D figured it out. “Kids, we’re in this together. It’s just you and me. We have to help each other out.” Those words were some of the bravest ideas I have ever heard from any person. One thing D learned from Motko Anna was the hard work ethic. “You work, you don’t ask questions. Shut up and work.”

Mom got a job as a school crossing guard thanks to having “a guy”. Our Alderman Mike Lingissi made sure that someone helped ma get us on food stamps. The neighbors “loaned”, read “gave”, us furniture and beds, Mrs. G, our landlady, told ma not to worry about rent for a while, Thanksgiving was celebrated with a real live turkey roll, and Christmas came with food baskets, St. Vincent De Paul clothes bin clothes.

I was gifted with lessons in life. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Who do you think you are, that shit don’t happen. Work harder. Your life might suck right now, who’s to say it always will. Don’t be afraid, what good does it do?

Swore to God that I would NEVER eat turkey roll again. So far, I haven’t. Thank God that I haven’t had the need to, either. I make sure that I donate at least a few cases of soda to the homeless shelter every once in a while, as the Food Stamp Nazi at Baltunas grocery store said that soda was not on the list of accepted food items. Neither were cigarettes, Christian Brothers or toilet paper. I say a prayer for Mike Lingissi every time I vote. And, yes, I ask Mike who he wants me to vote for. Thirty some years after he died, Mike still tells me “Vote democrat, kid”.

Epilogue

Delores, D, mom, ma, raised three kids. Nobody went to jail. One became a Commodities person at the Board of Trade; one became a world wide executive. I became a teacher. D lived to see it all. She lived to have me put my head in her lap when I was 45 and told her I was in love and I was afraid to get married. D whispered, “I knew couples who were married for 50 years, after they spent one weekend together before he went off to the war.” 32 years later, D was right. As usual.

Yup, D lived hard, drank too much, ate a pound of Fanny May chocolates every two days, let Diabetes get the best of her, gave up on life. Right before she went into palliative care D told me about her cancer and how tired she was and how “It hurts down there” Two weeks after that she moved into the British Home. The only home she ever lived in. I got to hold her hand when she was finally in never, never land -there’s something to be said about morphine. I told her, “mom it’s OK. You did good. You can go now.” I’d bet my life and two mortgage payments that she squeezed my hand as she said, “good bye sweetheart”.

The old man? He came around twice. First time “I’ll come next week and take you to the circus”. I’m still waiting for next week, but I am a circus history fan. Hmmm. Second time, he was drunk, covered with sores and asking that D take him back. I didn’t see him as I was serving 7:30 mass at St. Valentine. My brother answered the door, got mom, and heard D say, “Leave me and my kids alone or I’ll call the cops.” We didn’t know the old man died till mom got his death notice in the mail, from Social Security. Those were the good old days when guys could run and not get tagged for failing to pay child support. Not one penny. When I turned 55, I went on a quest to find the old man. He moved to Pennsylvania, lived in a trailer, worked as a sign painter and, according to his undertaker, was a “nice guy. He liked to drink beer at the VFW and tell war stories.” I never asked if the war stories were about running from loan sharks or dealing with land mines.

Barely finished high school. Abused. Twice. Three life successful kids, fucked up kids.

Any old Chicago Firefighter would appreciate this high compliment. "D was a tough old broad".

Life lessons:

Face your burning buildings, everybody else might run out, you run in.

Every day is gravy whether you believe it or not.

Laugh like a hillbilly.

Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke.

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