Diversity is a street between Belmont and Fullerton. More precisely it is smack dab in the middle (2800 north in Chicago navigational parlance) of several streets between Belmont (3200 north) and Fullerton (2400 n.) . And, as long as we are being truthful, it is Diversey and not Diversity. Tell that to all the El train conductors who used to announce the next stop along the way after the Fullerton stop to give those of us in the 1960’s a chance to switch to a B train. Of course, nowadays the human conductor has been replaced by an authoritarian robotic command. Regardless, herein lies the irony.
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Tag: growing up in the 50s
Back To School
My good neighbor and friend on the second floor of our condo building told me to come downstairs and take a look at something he wanted to me to see. I immediately grabbed a couple pieces of candy and followed suit knowing I would be greeted by his two youngsters as soon as he opened the door.
The older of the two, the seven year old boy, took a look at me and without batting an eye, said: “I want candy.” He was quickly admonished by his father. “That’s not the way to ask for something.” Begrudgingly, the boy added, “please?”
While offering one of two choices, I asked him if he was now going into second grade and he acknowledged as such. Actually, he shrugged as if to say, “what of it?” or in today’s parlance, “whatever!” He didn’t seem to be put out that he was giving up two months of summer freedom that allowed him to get up whenever and watch his pleasure on television until day camp started. On several weekends, the family went to their cottage in Michigan by the beach. In his mind, I guess, there is only so much of the good life that one can take before going back to prison.
The girl, however, was a different story. Five years old and fully aware that she was leaving the safe haven of kindergarten and now going on to the mean streets of first grade where you had to sit at a desk and pay attention to the teacher.
She said, “I’m not going to first grade. I’m going back to nursery. I don’t even know how to read!” Her brother threw in his two cents (with inflation, I guess it is now five cents) and said that she couldn’t go backward and had to face the music. She said, “un, uh! I’m going back to nursery and that’s that!”
My mind raced back- it being a long trip- to 1957 when it was time for me to go to school. I had not gone to nursery, although I think my older sister might have. We attended a private school and it required taking a school bus a distance of a little more than a mile and a half.
A year earlier, she had surreptitiously abandoned our daily playing in the apartment while Ma did her house chores. It usually meant- for us, not Ma- jumping up and down on the green sofa-turned-bed while we watched Liberace dressed elegantly in tuxedo on television play the piano. Now I had to jump alone while my sister mysteriously went off each morning on an orange bus and came back later in the day bragging how she was getting smarter and smarter.
I was intrigued as she would usually return with construction paper filled with her crayon drawings and paintings. Not only that, but she could recognize letters in a book. This had possibilities but I was concerned about the hours one had to commit to this.
But in the fall of 1957 I did not go to kindergarten school because of a technicality. I was not quite five years old when class began. I missed the cutoff by two weeks. I was not so lucky come January when the second semester began. It was time to go and I was dragged to school literally by Ma.
She brought me into the basement of the mansion where kindergarten class was held. I was crying hysterically until I turned and saw a vision of loveliness- my teacher. All of a sudden my desperation turned to acquiesce. If I was going to be taken down, it was okay as long as she was along for the ride. It was as if I was assigned a second Ma.
As it turned out, school wasn’t so bad after all. We got to color with crayon and paints, sit in a circle and sing songs and even take naps whether we were tired or not. I learned, however, that the girls got preferential treatment. In any dispute, the girl classmate was always telling the truth and not the boy. Once, I was sent to another room and told to stand in a corner for what seemed like hours. Go fight city hall, right?
For the rest of that school year, I took the same school bus as my sister. She was an upperclassman, being in first grade so she didn’t want to sit next to me. I didn’t care because this was an opportunity to make new friends. Besides, the bus smelled like puke which encouraged the rider to carry the same feeling and it was also a time when motor vehicles were powered by manual transmission. It seemed as if the driver would attempt to shift gears every thirty seconds. The herky-jerky movements of the bus added to the nauseous feeling creeping up inside our little bodies.
The following year, we abandoned the broken down bus service and for the next two years until we moved within a half block of the school, we took daily taxicab rides back and forth. But, that’s another story.
No Soap, Radio!
One of the first “clean” jokes I learned in high school in the 1960’s from a new group of friends was the “no soap” radio joke. It was a small step up from those annoying “knock, knock” jokes. The idea was to start telling a humorous story that seemed to be directed to a punch line but then instead of delivering it, the teller would say “no soap radio”. The recipient of such stupidity instantly acquired a feeling as if two minutes of their life had been wasted. It is akin to what all Cubs fans experience while watching a Chicago Cubs game where they are leading in the 9th inning only to witness the so-called closer walk the bases loaded and give up the winning runs. You think to yourself, “why bother?”
The thing in listening to the joke was that you knew it was coming to an illogical conclusion but you still laughed because you thought it was supposed to be funny but were maybe too stupid to get it. Sort of like an initiation within a cabal of lunatic friends.
I did a search on the Internet and found a plausible suggestion that the expression at one time had to do with listeners being upset that the show they wanted to hear was not on the airwaves but instead a boring, soap opera. Thus, “no- (it’s) soap radio!” The idea being was to laugh it off and think that at least older folk would be happy because they could hear their favorite dramatic soap opera. The ones who would be frustrated would be those attuned to the half hour sitcoms starring Jack Benny, Eddie Cantor, Fred Allen, Burns and Allen, Amos and Andy, and the list goes on.
Baby boomers, of course, were mostly born after World War II as the beginning of the decline in network entertainment radio occurred. When I came aboard, television was in its infancy but already stealing away audiences from radio. I grew up on the stars mentioned above, but while watching them on their television shows. I didn’t even know that they had a previous career on the radio dial. Sort of like kids today finding it a hard time to believe that their grandparents had black and white television sets that required an antenna and offered at the most six channels in the larger cities.
One day in the early 1970’s Dad discovered a Chicago radio station that found its niche by playing reruns of so-called Old Time Radio. His enjoyment of these shows rubbed off on my kid brother and me. More than fifty years after these shows stopped broadcasting first run, they still provide entertainment. Now, instead of waiting to hear the one Chicago station that still plays old shows at midnight, I go on the Internet and click websites such as:
http://www.streamingthe.net/index.php?v=8&genre=Old+Time+Radio&s=N%2FA&c=USA
StreamingThe.Net is also a useful site to find just about any radio station format in the world. No soap, radio!
Life is Grand- I Mean, Great
Recently a sister felt it was time to brag about her grandchild to all her relatives who email with her. This was in response to another sister whose daughter-in-law sends out daily video and pictorial releases of the first child/grandchild.
I don’t have a problem with receiving their daily missives. Not at all. Keep ’em coming. What bothers me is what I supposed to call their kids? My siblings are grandmothers. But, I am in the prime of my life and don’t want anyone to add the word ‘grand’ as a title when addressing me. I’m the great uncle, not grand uncle- see? I’m a great uncle besides that. The objects of affection are great nephews and nieces- not grand nephews and nieces. Got it?
So, my sister- or should I call her granny?- related the following story about her oldest grandchild who is now about 4 years old, I think. Heck, I don’t even remember his name. I always nod when she mentions it, knowing very well that it is not sticking in my memory bank.
The boy received surgical stitches the other day. He fell on a toy and got a large cut above his eye. His mother- whose name I don’t remember, either- said: “He was such a trooper! We all kept talking to him during the process to keep him occupied…here are a few things he said on the exam table, while he was being stitched…
(Ed. Note: I promise you that this will all make sense later on. Let me know when you are finished reading. Ok?)
Dr.: Do you want ice-cream after we fix you up?
Boy: yeah
Dr: Which flavor?
Boy: RED!!!! (with tears streaming down his cheeks)
Dr: You mean strawberry?
Boy: no, cherry!!!! OUCH OUCH!
A couple of minutes later..
Boy: It hurts it hurts! I want a cherry on top! I want cherry ice cream with a cherry on top so they are twins! (sob sob)
later..
Boy: I want apple ice cream!
Dr: Do you mean apple ice-pop?
Boy: NO!!!!! I want red apple ice-cream!
Mother (what’s her name): When mommy and daddy were little, we also got big boo-boos and went to the doctor to get stitches.
Boy: And after a lot of days and nights, Dr. Sammy took them out?”
My sister’s daugther-in-law continued: “I realized later that Dr. Sammy’s prize box was empty, so that’s why he was telling me so that I would give him ice-cream. In the car on the way home, he said, ‘Mommy, we should get Dr. Sammy more prizes ‘cuz he doesn’t have any more!’
He noticed on his own! LOL!” (Don’t you love it when people laugh at their own humorous observations. [Ha, ha])
Dear reader, if you’ve stopped rolling your eyes, I’d like to point out the significance of this vignette. You see, when anyone ever looks at me after I say something stupid- which is usually about every fifteen minutes- someone will invariably say to me,” hey, did somebody drop you on your head when you were a kid?”
I’d then usually nod and say, “not quite but my sister brained me with a large metal spinning top when I was three and she was four. I don’t remember much about it other than being told I was taken to the doctor who stopped the bleeding and stitched up my skull.”
I don’t recall as well receiving any gifts to help make the hurt go away. I didn’t get even with her but my sister got her comeuppance a couple of years later and this I do remember- she came running home from playing next door with our neighbor who lived on the same floor in our apartment building. She was screaming hysterically because a wire hanger was caught in her head and couldn’t extract it. I think she had to get a tetanus shot because of the metal breaking the skin. Served her right.
Oh, and this is not one of the sisters who are grandmothers. Yeah, I guess you can say I hit the trifecta in female siblings. Well, nobody is perfecta.
An Autobiography is Not Henry Ford’s Account of His Life
It’s not coincidence that the words ‘library’ and ‘liberty’ are closely related by root. Despite what some people think, the more one knows, the better he or she is. Reading books gives one knowledge that frees the mind from stupidity. Of course, there are those who might say that I am confusing knowledge with smarts.
Ever since that game Trivial Pursuit was introduced in 1979 it seems as if our culture has put a premium on all types of knowledge, even insignificant data that won’t help pay for a cup of coffee or a bottle of water.
Regardless, I’ve always respected anyone who is weighed down with mounds of trivial facts on obscure subjects. After all, I’m the guy who will tell you to make three right turns instead of a simple left turn. I have a need to let you know that there is more than one way to skin a cat. On this latter subject, don’t ask me- check it out through using a web browser.
Growing up in the 1950’s on the West Side of Chicago, my first exposure to a storehouse of knowledge and information was the Legler Regional Library Branch near the northeast corner of Pulaski and Wilcox. Being quite young at the time, I only recall Ma holding me by the hand as we walked up a whole bunch of stairs to the library front entrance.
A few years later, I remember visiting the Austin Branch Library just north of Lake Street and west of Central on, I believe, Grace. During this period, I finally received a library card and was made to understand the importance of taking good care of it as well as returning books back on time in lieu of paying a fine.
Attending college at Northeastern Illinois University in the early 1970’s, I became quite impressed with the non-book materials available at the campus library such as micro fiche and microfilm rolls of old newspapers and magazines.
By the mid 1970’s, it became more important to spend the energy on finding a decent career or at least the stepping stones to building a career. When not working, I was playing sports during evening time.
Come the new century and my body had a talking with my mind and said I had to quit the extra curricular activities. I now had more time to devote to refueling my mind with insignificant but enjoyable and entertaining data. I started the path back slowly by going once every two weeks to a book store and leafing through the discounted material section. I also decided not to waste time reading fiction. After all, life itself was strange and more often ironically funny. I didn’t need to read someone else’s made up stories. I concentrated on books of fact and information as well as biographies.
I learned that the best stories about people’s lives were the ones that the subject matter wrote himself. After all, if one is going to tell a good lie, I’d rather here it from the person who fabricated it than from someone looking from the outside in.
After a while, it dawned on me that I was wasting precious money at the book store and was better off going to the library and reading books for free. A year ago, I started by visiting every other week to borrow two biographies to read. Now it seems as if I go twice a week. The one dread is that I run out of interesting non-fiction books that tickle my fancy and am forced – gulp- to start checking out the fiction section.
To reshape a phrase spoken by Lieutenant McGarrett on Hawaiian Five-O: “Book It!”
Hanna Barbera and Baby Boomer Cartoons
By Larry Teren
Enjoying cartoons is one of those things a person never outgrows, right? It must be- Matt Groenig’s The Simpsons has been around for more than twenty seasons of new-run episodes and still going strong. The 1930’s and 40’s have Walt Disney, Max Fleischer and Leon Schlesinger. The 1950s and 60s have Hanna Barbera. I and most baby boomers will take that ex-MGM animation team, Hanna Barbera, thank you.
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Ice Cream, Ice Cream, We Don’t All Scream For Ice Cream
Things ain’t what they used to be- especially for baby boomers. There used to be special places to visit in Chicago back in the 1900’s- that sounds so quaint- that are no longer around.
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My Mama Done Told Me
I got my masters in the discipline of causing trouble by spending several years observing two seasoned pros- my parents. Dad would be sitting down at the table as Ma brought him a bowl of soup. He’d take one slurp, pound his fist on the table and shout to no one in particular, “hot, hot, bitch, bitch, bitch.†And he’d finish it off with, “why did you have to make it so hot?†to Ma who would thrust his parry and reply with, “aw, go to hell.†And then Dad would counter with, “show me the way.â€
Of course, if any innocent bystanders would smirk, Ma would quickly look at us and say, “what’s your problem?†and we would try to hold off falling on the floor from laughing so hard or it would have turned into the other extreme.
Then there would be the time my kid brother would visit from out of the country, he in his thirties by then and me in my- never you mind. Gary would stay at Ma during his visit so I would come over and we would be having a glorious dinner and the two of us would start in needling each other until it rose to a crescendo. At that point Ma would shout, “stop it you two, or I’m going upstairs!†After we waited the necessary five minutes to keep our collective mouths shut, we’d start up again and Ma would say, “can’t you two ever get along?†Of course, what she didn’t want to acknowledge was that it was our way of getting along- she just found it annoying.
I’ve been told by Ma’s younger brother that when they were kids, she organized a gang of two- them. They would go around beating up other kids who refused to play ball with them. Literally- I mean, she would beat them up if they wouldn’t let her play in the ball game already going on.
In the late 1950’s, when it was just my older sister, a younger one and myself hanging around the house, if one of us got on Ma’s bad side, she would vent her anger. If one of us stood behind her laughing at the sibling taking the brunt of her wrath, she would quickly turn around and say, “you want a piece of this, too?†And this from a lady who tells me when I chauffeur her around now that I need to to take anger management.
A couple of years ago, I invited to her house a family who lives near me to expand on her friendships – the father, mother, son and daughter. At the time, the daughter was twelve. We were eating a fancy meal in Ma’s dining room and I was goofing off as usual, so Ma threw me a wicked slider and said for all to clearly hear, “stop acting like a baby. Can’t you grow up already?†Naturally, since then that twerpy teenage girl throws that line in my face as often as she can. But again, when we used to play one-on-one basketball in her driveway, I never showed mercy and beat her off the dribble too many times. She won’t play ball with me anymore, so who’s the baby now, huh?
Cheap Thrills
By Larry Teren
When we were baby boomer kids in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Dad would find the least expensive way to provide us entertainment and get us some fresh air at the same time. Usually this meant going to a handful of choices. Continue reading “Cheap Thrills”
Always in the Middle
I am not a middle child but the second of five. I don’t often take the middle ground unless it is to get someone else to compromise toward my way of thinking. I am middle aged, I guess, unless I live to 120, which is possible.
One thing I enjoyed being in the middle of was the streets I lived on as a kid. Between 1955 and ’59, home to me was Jackson Boulevard in the West Garfield Park Chicago neighborhood between Kostner on the right (or east) and Kilbourn, to the left or (west). Situated in the middle of the block gave me an opportunity to roam a little further every year with more confidence in each direction without adult supervision. The moment my feet touched the sidewalk of our block on a return trip from elsewhere I already felt as if I was on the stairs leading to our first floor apartment. The only time I crossed to the other side of the street- the north side- was with my parents when the car was parked there. I was too young to play with a ball on the sidewalk out front so there was not even a chance of me running out onto the roadway to grab an errant throw.
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