Ignore Pfleger and His Stunts - Keep Civil. Keep the Peace and Pfleger Loses

The Dan Ryan March gambit is only one incendiary in fiery Pastor Pfleger's arsenal. It is not a a nuclear bomb.  It is a a sparkler meant to put out the eyes of fair-minded people.

Getting fair-minded people blinded is what Michael Pfleger is all about.

Once people are blinded to his motives (accumulation of power, money and media focus) they depend upon others to lead them about in the darkness.

Fair-minded people blinded by Pfleger's sparklers go silent to his most egregious deeds and words and say things like, " Well, Father Mike really cares and has done great things for his people."

Name two things?

Thought so.

This latest stunt is meant to force politicians to bully business and philanthropy to peel off a few more millions for projects with Pfleger's imprimatur - nothing more. Pflger might even toss Base a bone, because Cardinal Kilroy Was Here got behind Blond Jesus again.

Full disclosure, I know Michael Pfleger and you can have him.   He is a brilliant, calculating Munchhausen.  If you were as 'afflicted and assaulted' as much as Pfleger, you would be pretty secure. No is after him; never were.

I have known the pastor of the Faith Community of St. Sabina  since July 1996, when I went to work for Leo High School, just east of his fiefdom that includes the Great Auburn Gresham Community Development , senior residences, real estate holdings on 76th Street and other Michael Pfleger Industries.

Leo Principal and CEO Bob Foster sent me over to meet with Pfleger, my first week on the job.  We met in the St. Sabina rectory.  Pfleger told me that he was more a "prophet than a priest."  I could not supress a laugh and Michael Pfleger redened to purple - meeting over.

Foster agreed with me.  He is a dangerous guy.

While at Leo High School, I learned exactly who Michael Pfleger is and what he is all about - Michael Pfleger.  In my time at Leo High School, Pfleger

• Co-opted the Chicago Sun Times ( Kathleen Falsani and Editors) into creating a controversy where none existed - the Southwest Catholic Conference, while Cardinal George was in Poland. 
• Covertly worked with the Jesuits to establish an independent school on the site St. Killian's Parish to construct a Christo Rey knock-off unique to the African American community 
• Pfleger and ABC Channel Seven created a story that 'Cardinal George wanted to make Michael Pfleger' President of Leo High School and Pfleger told NPR's Tavis Smiley and Cornel West that 'Leo could not survive' without him  

In case Pfleger denied any ill-will toward Leo.  Leo President Bob Foster is the only man alive who could make Pfleger blush and run out of the room in shame.  Foster did just that by directly confronting Pfleger with proof of his back-handed schemes and attempts to take over the school.  

Foster did not threaten.  He confronted Pfleger with evidence - a business prospectus that included Pfleger's salary demands and personal governance rubrics.   The document was given to Leo High School by a Roman Catholic nun working on the project.  

The second time was in a governance meeting at the Office of Catholic Schools, which Pfleger had absolutely no stake in concerning the future of Leo High School and had no business being at the meeting.  Members of Leo 's Advisory Board were present and Dr. Nick Wolsonovich, former Supt. of Catholic Schools received a lesson in how to handle an arrogant and shameless opportunist. 

Bob Foster noted Pfleger's past attempts to harm Leo High School and the activist jumped up and stormed out of the meeting. 

Pfleger's march on the Dan Ryan is not about guns, deaths of innocent people, or bringing people together.  The march is intended to get one white (Caucasian) person to do or say anything that might provoke violence. A full-blown race riot would be just the thing for Michael Pfleger Industries. 

Pfleger wants hate mail

Pfleger needs anger.

Pfleger wants no peace.

With peace, justice and love, Pfleger gets no checks from banks. big business and do-gooder 501(c) 3 foundations.

Michael Pfleger has never drawn an un-calculated breath in his life.  He will not change - there is no percentage in it.

Pfleger is not aiming his march at Rahm Emanuel. Were that the case, Phleger would shut down Navy Pier, or the Skyway that Daley sold off.

Pfleger wants angry white people to overreact.  

Give him your love and your back. 

Ignore the phony Pfleger.

Boycott, the media that pumps him up.

Ridicule the politicians, priests, bishops and poltroons to dance to his tunes.

Maybe some Pfleger-sparkler blind people may recover their sight and start working against real racism, bigotry and injustice. 

Have a lovely weekend!

2018 - Already? Always on the Eights?

2018, already???????

Silly question.

Time does not fly; it bolts by.

•  In, 1958 I was in 1st Grade at Little Flower Grammar school
• In 1968, I was a junior in high school, dropped out of baby-priest school ( St. Augustine Minor Seminary), working at Chicken Unlimited and dating gorgeous young ladies
• In 1978, I was in my third year of teaching at Bishop McNamara and dating the woman who would actually marry me and carry all three of our children - Mary Elizabeth Cleary
• In 1988, married for four years with a three year old, I resigned from Bishop Mac and took a job at La Lumiere School in LaPorte, Indiana
• In 1998. I lost my lovely pal, partner and guiding light to a lousy brain tumor
• In 2008, I was working at Leo High School as Director of Development and struggling with my demons thanks to a loving family
• In 2018, I am back in the classroom at Brother Rice and still chasing away the demons - with three grown and successful children, a gorgeous granddaughter and a patient, lovely woman

That's a lot of blood under the bridge.

2018!  Let's see what you got, Big Boy!

• I need to pray all day. 
• Watch my temper.  
• Put disappointments in proper perspective.  
• Remember it is not all about me 
• Try and help others.  
• Avoid "Irish Alzheimer's”  the disease where an individual forgets everything except the grudges. 
• Get my hair cut
• Vote in the GOP Primary on March 20, 2018 and louse up Bruce Rauner's comfortable life
• Watch more high school sports
• Save money
• Eat more greens
• Listen to more great music

The eights were always pretty heavy.

Heavy lifting in life, requires bending the knees.

Let's see how it goes.  

Common? Not a Bit; a Most Singular Man in Our Cookie Cutter Culture

I see Common is in a new movie. I will see it.  Common is a great actor.

Common is the name of a Rap artist and very solid actor. He is a south side kid from Calumet Heights, under the Skyway and over by the Avalon Theater, around 87th. and Chicago Ave. sliced by Stoney Island.

Rap, Hip-Hop and Gangstah Rap is not to my tastes.  However, no genre is all bad or all good and true genius emerges unexpectedly from music panned by old timers, just as novelty pop had been in my 1960's era- Alley Oop is no novelty tune; it is the swagger of American manhood: " He walks thru the jungle tearin' limbs off a trees/ Knocks BIG monsters flat on their knees." Q.E.D. Look at that caveman go!

Every American male should be baptized in this song*. The cats don't bug him, because they no better/ He's mean-motor-scooter and bad go-getter.

In the first decade of this new century, roughly 2006, I bothered Leo High School's Executive Assistant,Miss Natasha Adams, almost daily about a tune that was played on WGCI 107.5 FM.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6mnKNr2Tiq8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

" 'Tash, who does that song again?" I would ask. . ..every time I passed Miss Adams' desk.

"Common."

" Who are they?"

"Common is one man."

"Common what?"

" Just "Common," Mr. Hickey, like Cher?"

"Is that his real name?"

" No, he has a real name and he graduated from Luther South."

" I like that song. What's it called?"

" Corner"

"Corner, by Common?"

" Yes."

" One word?"

"What?"

"One word - he got a thing for one word?"

" Songs over, Mr. Hickey.  Scat!  I must type these letters for Mr. ( President) Foster."

"Why one word?"

"Ask Mr. Foster."

" Thing for one word.  Weird."

" Hickey! Go raise money and leave me alone, please."

"One word - Hickey!  Like Common."

"No, not like Common!  Go!"

I got.

I liked Corner.  I did not care for most Hip-Hop, but this was authentic and deep and included the OGs of the genre The Last Poets.  I was introduced to the Last Poets just before I began teaching in Kankakee, IL and teachers like Dave Raiche, Jim Frogge and Nick Novich were most hip to the Last Poets.  I loved Jazz and Nick Novich pointed out the jazz nuances reflected in the scatting and percussive hammering of inages by The Last Poets, a la Sun Ra and Rashan Roland Kirk.

I next became steeped  in Common watching that wonderful tale of the transcontinental railroad Hell on Wheels.   He was riveting.  Common played the role of a recently freed black man as a tower of dignity and fierce intelligence.

The young man is no screaming Samuel L. Jackson minstrel show player. He uses his powerful and studied voice like the musician he is and paints the vocal tower of singular poise that matches his physical grace.     <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XcbaXH2PN8I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> See what I mean?

Also, Common never manages to make a complete goof of himself and presents youngsters with a solid image of a centered man.  He is not a media creep and political weasel like Chance the Rapper seems to be, nor is he a knuckle head with a death wish like Chief Keef AND  HE DOES NOT SCREAM AT THE TOP OF HIS VOICE ABOUT NONSENSE LIKE SAMUEL L. JACKSON@# Dialit down.

Common exudes dignity.

Few actors can carry this off - Spencer Tracy and Anthony Quinn come to mind. No notices anyone else when they are on screen. Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe and Common are about the two best examples of this quality today.


* alternatives:

•  Expressway to Your Heart - Soul Survivors
• The Joint is Jumpin' - Fats Waller
• But It's Alright - JJ Jackson
• It's a Shame - The Detroit Spinners
• Cook Jerk - The Capitols
• In Crowd - Dobie Gray and Ramsey Lewis
• Love is a Hurting Thing - Lou Rawls
• Ain't Peculiar - Marvin Gaye
• Young Blood - The Coasters
• Um,umm,mmm.mmmm - Major Lance

  

I am Having a Ball in the Classroom at Brother Rice High School

I am hardly back in the saddle again, but for the past two weeks I have had more fun than a man deserves serving as a substitute teacher at Brother Rice High School.

I began teaching English in 1975 and continued joyfully for twenty years, but obligations as father and husband required that I leave the classroom for the more lucrative position of Director of Development.

This is a new position in education and rather important one at that, particularly in private and Catholic education. The Director of Development  is generally the chief fundraising officer answerable to the President and the Board of Directors. bring in new streams of cash from grants, individual donations and sometime special events.  I ran  two special events at La Lumiere School, one a success and the other barely broke even, one special event at Bishop Noll Institute that brought in  $10,000 when the goal was $20,000 and no events at Leo High School that could be termed 'special events' in the traditional sense - elaborate dinners, or Star focused concerts. Thank God and Bob Foster, my CEO for fifteen of my twenty years at Leo.

I write a good grant and I can be a pretty good person to put the bite on a person with the capacity to make a difference,

I was a Department of one at Leo.  I tracked gifts, wrote letters, appeals, went out to call upon donors, researched new sources, courted new sources and hit on news sources - sometimes with success and more times than not received the " while your mission is a truly deserving one, at this time, we would like you and your mission to help young urban men receive a faith-based education in a safe environment to go and . . ."  Stuff like that, or a nicer version.

Leo High School has a unique culture that is male, honest, uncompromisingly straight-forward, tough, results oriented and proudly successful. Fools might be suffered gladly, but will have only a blink on their resumes and CVs, if Leo Men have any say in the matter.

There is no BS, so don't attempt any.  BS is largely the domain of Director's of Development in too many schools and DDs, or IAs,* do all pie-chart and Stephen Covey fog-horning all too often, net work for new jobs and then job hop all over the philanthropic landscape - many ending their days as consultants with Institutional Advancement companies.

To me the job was an extension of my vocation as a teacher - do my homework, try to explain what exactly needs to get done and remain honest, help the students first, the parents second, the Alumni next and of course myself.  I had a ball.  I raised some money. I started boilers on winter mornings and drove a van and picked up students as well. Sold Beanie Babies and Ty Warner Products as well as sweatshirts, T-shirts, hats, blankets and do-dads to the Alumni.

I missed teaching. I asked my old high school Buddy Kevin Burns to give me a shot and he did.  Kevin is President of Brother Rice.  Thanks, Kev!

Now, I am trying to get my sea-legs back.  You do not plunge back into a room full of adolescent males going through four stages of human growth, as well as academic placements, five to six periods a day, at age 64 and expect to greeted as Good Old Chips!  When I was 22, I needed to earn the trust and respect of young people only a few years minor to me and that was a job of work.

I have witnessed career "re-treads' give teaching a try after successful careers in management, sales and engineering and most ended with middle aged men and women running out the door with their hair on fire and a shout of "Mail Me my Damn Check!"

Teaching is and should be a bitch and a half.

Come prepared - do your homework, expect to be challenged about everything, remember that these are kids and not your own and that you're here to teach something - not change their lives or add to your Face Book friends trove.

Kids smell fear and BS from a great distance.  Be afraid, a healthy anxiety is a good thing, but never try to BS your way through anything.  If you do not know something, admit it and tell them you will find out and then deliver immediately.

I have taught English, History, Spanish and Band to no ill effect.  Frankie, Antonio, Reggie, Packy, Liam, Josh and Mr. Veal** have yet to take offense to my methods, or my  lessons.

I have been blown away by the wonderful manly deportment, friendliness, general knowledge and musicianship of the young Crusaders.

The band is something else and reminds me of the Bishop McNamara music program when it was under the direction of Kevin McNulty and Joel Hawkinson.  Concert band, Philharmonic, Choral and beginning band are all in task and on message.

The halls are empty of students when class begins and I have yet to witness any tardiness, absenteeism, or ungentlemanly behavior whatsoever.

I took a number of photos with my Old Guy phone and they have yet to appear in my e-mail box.

Safe to say.  I will need Frankie, Antonio, Reggie, Packy, Liam, Josh and Mr. Veal to give me a hand. I had to use stock photos on this go-around -sorry. I love teaching again.

Thanks Crusaders!


* DD - Director of Development; IA Institutional Advancement person

** Mr.Veal is a trumpet man who broke his left wrist in last week's Loyola game.

Mr. Harold Green - Leo Hero: Facta Non Verba

When Leo High School welcomes Moms, Dads, Students and Staff, the bags of Mickey D's cast-off paper and plastic, battalions of styrofoam trays with chicken bones, legions of Frito-Lay parcels, squads of empty pints of Bumpy Face Seagrim's Gin, scraps of Sun Times Redlines and wet matted bits of penny saver coupon bundles are no where to be seen on the grounds.

Elves must pick up and toss the detritus of modern urban thoughtlessness and 'disappear it' into City of Chicago waste bins on our 79th Streetcape.

This morning I traveled from my home in Morgan Park six miles to the south and west of Leo High School, up Western Avenue (plowed and somewhat salted), east on 87 Street (plowed and somewhat salted) and north on Racine ( unplowed, nor salted) to 79th Street east ( (plowed and salted) and into the Leo Parking Lot ( unplowed at 4:45 AM).

I got out of the Malibu and said my morning Leo Memorare and noticed that the sidewalks and pathways around the school were already cleared.

When snow blankets the pathways and sidewalks, some miracle men must have bolted from their quilty blankets in the Sixteen Degree frost of the morning and cleared  our winter waves of white stuff.

No, my dears, Mr. Harold Green and Army veteran and a family man with the strength of eight lesser mortals did that.

Harold shoveled all of Leo's campus and then cleared the CTA benches for people who wait to swipe their hard-bought Ventra Cards for travel to work and school - not in Harold Green's job description. With all of that done - Harold will drive to Beecher, Illinois, South Holland, Roseland, Brainard and back to Leo High School with twelve students.  Now, some mincing person might offer, " Well, that's his job."

Mr. Harold Green gets to work at Leo High School at around 4AM - rain, shine, snow and trouble: Never late, never absent. During the day, while perched on my rump in the Development cubicle, I see Mr. Harold Green haul, lift, fix and fetch in and out of the school - 'Go to Menards: Get coffee for visitors; Jump Start my Car . . .' and ,one day, just prior to Leo's Annual Veterans Observance I received this inter-office memo :

Pat,

1.  Harold Green will pick up coffee.

3.  Harold Green will set up 3-4 rows of chairs.

4.  Harold Green will set up podium and sound system.

5.  I spoke to Mrs. Latifi and she will have NHS students greet and help older veterans cross the street.

7.  Mrs. Hill will have 1-4 students sing the National Anthem.

Thanks,

Well, it is his job, after all.

Yes, it is.  Have a nice day, Cupcake.

Mr. Harold Green is the Leo High School go-to-guy that educators and most otherwise nice people rarely notice.

I'm not so nice.  I notice.

Harold Green is my idea of a mythological Titan.

Harold Green expects to do his work.  That is all that Harold Green needs to say about it.

This is My Friend Sharon J.and She is Welcome Any Day

Miss Sharon J____ kept me happy while I parked cars for the Stanley Cup visit to Leo High School - Leo's North Lot (09/15/2015)

On the day, the Chicago Black Hawks Organization and our great Defense Man #7 Brent Seabrook brought the Stanley Cup to Leo High School, I was busy outside of school building arranging parking and security for the event with officers of the Sixth District and Leo High School seniors who volunteered.

I ran back forth between the faculty and visitor parking lot on the southwest side of 79th & Sangamon and the big student/parent/visitors lot on the northeast side of the street.

One person who helped keep me centered and happy through the day is a little lady who became my pal seven years ago,  Her name is Miss Sharon J----.

Sharon has had a tough life, but is a remarkably chipper lady.  She walks all over the 17th Ward and lives in a small apartment near 87th and Carpenter.

Sharon graduated from the now closed Visitation Girls Catholic High School in the early 1970's and went to Jackson State University where she became friends with the great Chicago Bear legend Walter Payton. Like Payton Miss Sharon is a Mississippi gal and her chats with me always segue to 'homecoming'  near Columbia with all of her cousins.

Miss Sharon's nephews went to Leo High School and she is always asking me if I came to know so-and-so, or knew what they were up to.

Sadly, Miss Sharon is out of touch with some in her family.  After Jackson State University, life went off the rails for Miss Sharon.  Miss Sharon is neither down, nor out.  Miss Sharon struggles.

Her very sweet and thoughtful heart was never damaged by anything that harmed her otherwise. Some people say heartless things about and to her.  That is all too human. Aldermen, State Senators and even school teachers can thoroughly rotten bastards who would take the last chair, or the parking spot of a disabled person and say some of the warmest and nicest things. Some people never see past the resume, the title or the human tinsel. I like to tear into gifts, be human or boxed.  I get excited about opening new gifts and enjoying old ones.  I love the gift of speech.   I like words.  I like deeds better. Me, I take people as they act toward me and Miss Sharon is and has been my pal.

On the day, of the Stanley Cup Visit, Miss Sharon refused my offer to escort her into the event.  " No, thank you, I don't want upset anyone.  One teacher told me 'Stay away, Crackhead,' one morning, 'the boys don't need to see you hanging around.'  I don't want anyone upset."

Miss Sharon and I stayed out and had some laughs.

I wish I knew who said that to this lady, or anyone.  Miss Sharon is always welcome.

Brent Seabrook and Lord Stanley at Leo High School - Hawks and Lions: One Goal

Leo High School Plans Television Production Studio ( WCHI NEWS)

Leo High School begins its 90th year of serving Chicago with a new opportunity - a television production studio.

A donor has provided a studio ( WCHI NEWS) and all of the equipment to begin giving Leo students the chance to learn television production skills in front of and behind the cameras.

This digital television production studio will eventually be directed and operated by Leo students and advisors from the school and colleges like Columbia College, as well as media professionals from Chicago.

President Dan McGrath and the donor conducted a series of meetings this summer to discuss feasibilty and implementaion of the gift.

 Chicago Actress Kara Zediker with Bill Figel (Leo '73 and President Dan McGrath ( Leo '68)

On August 18th McGrath's Committee met in the Leo Board to set immediate goals. Leo Alumnus, retired Sun Times Sports writer and PR executive William Figel*, Chicago based actress and Columbia College Alumna Kara Zediker **and Editor John Weeks of WCHI News offered counsel.  This committee agreed after two hours that the month of September provided our students with three big school events for student reports.

It was determined to immediately get equipment into the hands of the students and begin shooting footage with the goal of having enough skills to cover three events in September

• Chicago Sports Team visit ( as yet must be kept secret)  at Leo September 15th
• Entrepreneur and scion of the Jackie Robinson legacy, David Robinson’s Visit September 16th
• West Point Cadet and Leo Boxing Event September 19th

Students will begin shadowing WCHI's John Weeks and other tech savvy pros in the editing. sound mixing and animation in production.

 Leo High School  will begin the process of resourcing student talent from Columbia College, who will supervise students along with a moderator from Leo High School, as interns gaining academic credit for hours served. Interns will help Mr. Weeks in training cameramen, sound and animation production, lighting gaffers and script production and editing.

With footage and some practice in editing our goal will be to have a basic quality product to show prospective parents, use in recruitment, put up on You Tube, and attach to grant requests.
 Leo VP, football coach and father figure Mike Holmes showed the Media Resource Center to John Weeks being constructed in the old Leo library at the moment.

This is an opportunity that comes at no better time in the proud history of Leo High School. .

* Mr. Figel teaches Leo's Journalism Course - pro bono.

** Ms. Zediker appeared recently on NBC's Chicago PD and may soon grace the small screen on Chicago Med. 

Inside Out - Leo High School and a Little Flower Learning Moment Killed by PC

 

Little Flower Lancers: 1966-67  15 - 11   Palos Hills District Champions     
                             Thanksgiving Tourney Champions                             District Scores                                Semi-final Beat Stagg 85-42                             Title Game Beat St. Francis de Sales 69-66                             Oak Lawn Regional Tournament                                        

I am here at Leo High School every morning with the chirping of the birds, sometime between 4 AM and 5AM,depending on my duties to attend, or my level of laziness. This is a good time to get some work done and to write down ideas for development that might benefit this great old school.

In the winter months, I go directly to the boiler room and start up the furnaces.  It does not take long to heat up this well-constructed ninety year old gem and in the summer months my windowless inner cubicle gets hotter than the hinges of Hell.

Please, remember that I am talking about the building, a four story 32,000 square foot pile of concrete, ree-bar, wood, conduit, pipes, carpet and furniture.  It is not a school until at least one scholar arrives to learn and another to teach. Only then, does the place I drive to each morning become a school.
A school is a gathering of scholars usually disciples and a master, or masters.  From the Middle Ages all the way to the day John Dewey destroyed the notion of shared truth, students were called discipuli and the teacher magister. Latin was the langiuage of scholarly discourse.

In my lifetime, I witnessed the euthanizing of Latin and the Death of God by academics and churchmen.  Latin was deemed irrelevant, the vernacular ascended to Parnassus and the Vatican dome.  That is too bad.  The mystery of learning has gone the way of sacred liturgy -no mystery and no beauty.  Education means punching one's ticket for entry to something else.

Good teaching only comes from good scholars.  These days, paper means scholarship. Teacher certification is the stamp on the back of one's hand to the very special velvet roped section of Club Career marked education.

A good teacher has some capacity to articulate the facts, opinions, concepts and skills mastered over number of years in schools, or other occupations.  Two men who would recoil, if one called them scholars gave me a special learning moment. A young self-absorbed priest more concerned with social justice and artificial peace killed that moment.

I was in eighth grade when Little Flower High School Basketball was making a name for itself.  Parish founder and beating heart Monsignor McMahon was placed on Emeritus status and replaced by a nice guy, who allowed John Cardinal ( Louisiana Fats) Cody to systematically destroy the parish which featured a magnificent campus comprising the church, rectory, a fruit orchard grammar school and high school.  The grammar school was free to parishioners and high school almost free ( my 1969-70 tuition was $ 80).  We had many good teachers who volunteered their time, or received an almost invisible stipend for services - some were not even Illinois State Certified.

In my eighth grade year, we went to the community center in the high school - a state of the art gymnasium - to watch the Lancers on the hardwood.  These were athletic and graceful young men who had been coached by Tom Spatz (Leo '58) and Jim Dolan ( Leo '54).  They were magnificent human beings and they worked long and hard hours with us.

We (8th graders) were spazes. Uncoordinated bones and skin attached to undisciplined brain pans.

These two men, the  best PE teachers I ever had in all of my years of schooling,  made all of the boys in our class learn close order drill. Veterans Jim Dolan and Tom Spatz attempted to de-spaz thirty or more eleven year olds, by combining commands and movements: "Step with your left foot, Hickey! Your other LEFT!  Jesus Christ, did you have polio when you were younger, or are you deaf?"

We were awkward (spazmodic), graceless, distracted and chaotic, as all boys are, until we learned to keep pace, time and balance on command.

One the assistant priests, at Little Flower, a social engineer of the Msgr. Reynold Hillenbrand stamp complained that Spatz and Dolan were turning us precious little boys into goosestepping storm troopers and the weak pastor bowed to political correctness.  Close order drill no more, Mr. Dolan de-volunteered and Mr. Spatz stuck to basketball.

We went back to spaz. In four years, Cardinal Cody sold the filled to capacity and debt free Little Flower High School and Community Center to the Chicago Board of Education.  The parish closed in 1993.

Father Cupcake saved us from the goosestep and Msgr, Go-Along made nice with Louisiana Fats.

Thus, a school activity that was deemed irrelevant by a person not engaged in the activity, whatsoever, was legislated out of existence The rise of the pest, the pain-the-ass in the vernacular, had dawned.

Good teaching has nothing to do with State Certification, Inquiry, or political correctness.

Just saying.

Blackhawks ( Management and Team) Prove that Good Guys Can Be Champions . . .Often

I have no Blackhawks jersey, but I really like Chicago's Champions.  From Rock Wirtz to the hoary old man Brad Richards ( a year younger than Marion Hossa) the Blackhawks Tribe is comprised of nice people. Like Duncan Keith and his pal Cammy.




John McDonough, the architect of this sports dynasty and General Manager, visited Leo High School earlier in the school year.  Leo High School students tend to be Arfican American young gents and not given to wearing Hawks Jerseys.  It seems that African Americans are not huge hockey fans, but the do seem to like basketball, or so really smart people like Spike Lee and Rachel Maddow would lead us to believe.

I am a bit of cynic.

John McDonough was impressed by the insightful and sharp questions the Leo student body posed to him at the assembly more than few months back.  In fact two Leo juniors pressed, Mr. McDonough after the students were dismissed.

Mr. McDonough invited both young men and their families to join him in his Blackhawks Skybox for one of the games in the early part of the season.

He did not need to do that.

That is what constitutes a good guy.  Doing something thoughtful and nice for people who do make any impact on one's life, whatsoever, just because one can do that.  It did not cost John McDonough anything.  Not nickle one.

Now two Leo seniors are loud and proud Blackhawks fans, who closely follow the Hawks and the game of hockey.

That is how Championships are made;not by loud, obnoxious, in-your-your-face mega-millionaire mesomorphs, but by good guys who never forget that they share the same oxygen as everyone else.

Chuck Goudie Smears Leo High School

Chuck Goudie makes a very good living off of smearing people.  He works for ABC, the network that will feature a sit com developed by Dan Savage, (a violently hateful Anti-Catholic bigot who parlayed sexual preference into a sitcom) and operates what he calls the ABC 7 I-Team.

I began work at Leo High School in 1995, four years after the Irish Christian Brothers refused to send teachers to this school in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.  The Irish Christan Brothers taught and operated Leo High School from 1926, until 1991.

In the late 1990's, the priest-pedophile scandal knocked the Catholic Church to its knees, where it remains trying to undo the damage of homosexual and some heterosexual child stalkers who used the Church to prey on children.  This scandal swelled to epic proportons because bishops listened to lawyers.

They still do.  Problems do not go away, but the Irish Christian Brothers did - at least here at Leo.  In the wake of the abuse scandals, Leo High School was asked to provide any and all information it might possess concerning the abuse of youngsters by members of the Congregation of Christian Brothers. I joined the President of Leo High School on two depositions concerning the class action lawsuit against the Congregation of Christian Brothers.

From what I gathered, there were more cases in the United States and Canada of physical abuse allegations, than sexual overtures and triumphs by Brothers to students in their keeping.

The Congregation of Christian Brothers is bankrupt.

That does not mean that lawyers can't find some coin. Hence, Chuck Goudie's I-Team smear.  Chuck, who violated crime scenes in the past ( Miglin Murder), decided to smear Leo High School, even though Leo has no affiliation with the Congregation of Christian Brothers other than history and has helped lawyers bring claims against pedophile hiding behind hard collars.

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The ABC7 I-Team looked into claims by nearly 100 alleged victims of sexual abuse in metro Chicago that the archdiocese and some of its schools are keeping dangerous secrets.

Leo High School is keeping dangerous secrets?  Here they are Chuck !

• Educational experiences for Leo students include speakers of note and field trips.
• One-half of the individuals that work at Leo are Leo graduates.
• No student who wants a good education is turned away. Leo expects its students to succeed and to be the best they can be, as do parents who have a financial obligation.
• Leo’s tuition is $7,000 a year, but no one pays this amount. 50 hours of volunteer work by parents over the course of the school years will lower tuition down to $5,000.  Alumni are also very generous, bringing the average tuition cost down to $4,000 per year. This is in contrast to $15,000 actual cost at Leo High School to educate one student.  Based on 2014-15 published tuition rates, the average tuition of South Side Catholic Schools is $10,000.
• Leo does face competition from other charter schools.  There are five in the 17th ward.
• Leo provides a rigorous college prep program.  Although no direct subsidies are received from a religious institution (Leo does have a chapel), Leo benefit from the Big Shoulders Fund that supplies support to Catholic schools in the neediest areas of inner-city Chicago.  Big Shoulders performs prep work free for Leo students.
• There is a very supportive and interested alumni, loyal and dedicated, who often show up at Leo unannounced. This year’s alumni banquet attracted 700 Leo grads and guests.
• Although the Leo high school building is structurally old and lacks the frills and attractiveness of school buildings located in more affluent areas, the structure is solid and was built to last.  Upkeep and maintenance costs are therefore kept at a minimum.

Chuck Goudie is very well paid and he is not very truthful.

He says this to close Investigations, " The I-Team left numerous messages at , Leo and . . . Schools, but never heard back."

Not true, Chuck.  One lovely young African American single mother of two answers, or takes down every phone message, every e-mail and every carrier pigeon missiive that come to Leo High School, where it has been since 1926 at 7901 S. Sangamon Street 60620, ph.(773) 224-9600 ex. 208 (for me) and fax at (773) 224-3856. E-mail come to admin@leohighschool.org. Also, every commnication with regard to Leo High School goes through a genuine journalist and newsman, Leo President Dan McGrath.  This inquiry, Chuck, would not be Dan McGrath's first rodeo.  We got nothing from ABC, Channel 7, or the I-Team.

Nothing from I-Team and nothing from Chuck. So, that is a smear - saying we do not return phone calls, much less keep "dangerous secrets."

Unless Chuck Goudie is prepared to call a lovely young African American single mother of two a liar, I'd say Chuck should crawfish on his report in a very public manner.

In a really nice world, a Leo Alumnus who has a very public record of going to court and righting public wrongs should give Chuck Goudie an old school legal ass-kicking.

Another Leo Class of Men Set to Graduate, Because of Mr. McGrath, Coach Holmes and Miss Latifi!

Leo High School President Dan McGrath wil J. Robinson 2018



Coach Mike Holmes raises us up!

The Lion Queen, math teacher Miss Aurora Latifi


These are the final examination days for the Leo High School Class of 2015.  
Latrell Giles will go to St. Joe's in Renssalaer, Indiana - million miles from 37th & Rhodes.

I am going to miss these fine young men - one gent will be going to the United States Coast Guard Academy and another will study and play football at St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana where Leo Legend Jimmy Arneberg once coached and Chicago Bears held their summer work-out camps.  All have been accepted to at least one good college, or university.  The 2015 Valedictorian wants to opt for the skilled trades, probably the stationary engineers - great trade and vocation that.

Leo Men will go on to proud lives.  These are proud people around this school - proud Alumni, proud leadership, proud parents and families and proud students.

I'd like to credit this pride to three individuals: Leo President Dan McGrath, football coach and Father Figure Mike Holmes and the Lion Queen, Miss Aurora Latifi.

I can think of no trio people who have done more for each and every member of the 2015 and for Leo High School's traditions of commitment and courage.

Dan McGrath spends every waking hour anguishing over Leo High School and young men it serves.  Dan is at every Leo event - academic, athletic or social.  Not an hour goes by that misses a Dan McGrath moment for each and every student under this roof, all the while bringing his many talents to the onerous tasks of meeting payroll, strategic planning, correcting a student's prose, or reaching out to new money.

Mike Holmes raises up young men. Mike takes every student to his massive heart with a father's pride.  He is the most positive, joyful, fierce and sweet-hearted man our young men will ever meet in life.

Aurora Latifi commands love and respect in the math classes she teaches and in halls she patrols. Leo graduates know algebra, calculus, geometry and basic math when they accept a diploma at graduation, because a pretty girl from the mountains of Albania would not allow failure.

Our young men succeed because Leo expects that of them.  No three people set that bar higher than Dan McGrath, Mike Holmes and Aurora Latifi.

Anthony Burgess: Not Good Writing, Great Writing

                This Leo HS Sophomore is my personal Guidance Counselor


Mr. Apple*..... is a sophomore at Leo High School.  He has a magnificent brain wired to tangle of behavior circuits in need of some minor adjustment. In short, if a pane of glass, left leaning against a locker,  gets smashed, the search for the culprit is not an extended one.  He is a healthy adolescent male.  That is how we roll.   The man is working on his 16 year old impulse control circuitry, I'll say that for him. If I had half of his brains, I'd have one.  His academic chart is only now beginning to reveal an arrow pointing up to what some people might call achievement.

Since, Mr. Apple . . .happens to hold a past record of low-achievement due to his manly impulse to do whatever he feels like doing at the moment and has thickened his disciplinary jacket to RR Donnelly proportions, as well as remains  in possession of the one of sharpest minds on campus, I sought his counsel about my return to the classroom.

I presented Mr. Apple. . .. with a copy of Ralph Ellison's " King of the Bingo Game" and asked him to read it over the weekend.  I told him that it was an example of great writing in prose.

We talked about classroom management (consistency ) and agreed that students act up when bored with a teacher.  When they get bored with a teacher, the subject gets the same treatment.  It ain't pretty.

" Teacher'll says 'This is a great book' and leave it at that," my counsellor told me and added, "Well, it ain't great . . .it's boring. and then he/she gets mad  and says 'take out some paper it's quiz time.' Just because it's in a book don't make it great."

My Man!

Mr. Apple. . . .,  asked me about the difference between good writing and great writing.  I said, "You. "

What you bring to the reading of the book must meet what the writer who wrote it in a way that knocks you backwards.

Here is the best example that I know of in one paragraph.  This is from a brilliant short novel by brilliant guy -Anthony Burgess.

Outside, the main doors behind him, he was hit full in the chest by autumn. The doggy wind leapt about him and nipped; leaves skirred along the pavement, the scrape of the ferrules of sticks; melancholy, that tetrasyllable, sat on a plinth in the middle of the square. English autumn, and the whistling tiny souls of the dead round the war memorial.  from The Doctor is Sick

How's your forward motion?  We'll take a look at this paragraph tomorrow, Kids.  Read and see why I dare call it great writing.

* Fearless defensive back in football, a chess master , two time Gold Honor Roll Student  and undisputed King of Detentions!

Beauty and the Priest - Leo Board Member Tamara Holder and Francis Cardinal George

 Great souls by instinct to each other turn,
Demand alliance, and in friendship burn;
A sudden friendship, while with stretched-out rays
They meet each other, mingling blaze with blaze.
Polished in courts, and hardened in the field,
Renowned for conquest, and in council skilled,
Their courage dwells not in a troubled flood
Of mounting spirits, and fermenting blood:
Lodged in the soul, with virtue overruled,
Inflamed by reason, and by reason cooled,
In hours of peace content to be unknown.
And only in the field of battle shown:
To souls like these, in mutual friendship joined,
Heaven dares intrust the cause of humankind. Joseph Addison The Campain (1704)

I took this photo of Cardinal George and lawyer, advocate, Leo Board member, Fox News Legal Analyst and easy on the eyes tough Jewish Chick, Tamara Holder in 2011 at Leo High School.

Tamara Holder no longer lives in Chicago full-time, because her talents require that she spend more time in the Big Apple, where she works for Fox News and runs a sports analysis site, as well make stand-up comedy appearances.  Tamara continues to offer legal, financial and marketing advice as a member of Leo Advisory Board.  Tamara is Jewish and proudly practices her faith.

In May of 2011, Francis Cardinal George became the first Archbishop of Chicago to visit the young men of Leo High School, since George Cardinal Mundelein blessed the corner stone this school on 79th & Peoria wing of the school in 1926.

Our Advisory board consisted of Irish and African American males blessed by God with talents and faces for radio, until Tamara accepted Leo President Dan McGrath and Board Chairman Bob Sheehy's challenge to serve.  Immediately our Board's looks improved.

Tamara meets Cardinal George:  in the backdground from the left Big Shoulder Fund Tom Zbierski, Advisory Board Chair Bob Sheehy and Leo Hall of Fame Alumnus and Teacher Bill Hession.

Cardinal George and Tamara took to one another immediately - both are very smart, honest and good-hearted persons.  Joseph Addison had it right - great souls by instinct to each other turm.

These pictures make me smile at a very sad time.

My Neighbor is Home with Christ- Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.

Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me.
Saint Patrick

 No man lived for Christ like Francis Cardinal George, O.M. I., Archbishop of Chicago.  I witnessed this simple, but tough, priest.

Cardinal George had a powerful intellect, but never allowed his gifts to smother questions, doubts, or take advantage of the follies of other people.  He was not a big shot and therefore never became a media darling.

He was tasked by our Church to lead a huge and very combative Archdiocese that had lost a favorite shepherd in Cardinal Bernardin.  Upon assuming his duties, Cardinal George knew that he had a tough act to follow and did not presume Brotherhood with us.  Rather, he introduced himself as Our Neighbor.

My brother and sister know every grain of dirt beneath my fingernails, every weakness and every gap in my armor, because they have lived with me and not near me.  My neighbor knows of me and will only get close enough to me as I will allow.  My neighbor does not presume to cross the property line without an invite.

I invited the most powerful American Bishop to be my brother and he was not too busy, too big, too disinterested to take up my call.

In fact, Cardinal George called me.

Shortly after he, Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago, was inducted into the College of Cardinals, a friend was unceremoniously and very publicly removed from her role as Principal of a Catholic Girls High School, where she has raised enrollment, student and faculty morale, spiked fund-raisisng and elevated the status of that school in the public eye.

The religious order operating that school decided to take another direction.   Bob Foster, then President of Leo High School, hates bullies and injustice and asked me to write a couple of letters to the editor for the Daily Southtown.  I did.

In the letters, I asked Cardinal George to look into the matter.  Cardinal George was in Washington D. C. leading the American Conference of Catholic Bishops.  The letters appeared through the week.  On Monday, I was told that I was to be fired.  Bob Foster lit into the powers-that-be in the bureaucratic branches of the Chicago Archdiocese - on the phone and with his characteristic force and rhetoric.

The Archdiocese is a Corporation - a Public Person - and that person's feelings were hurt by the Director of Development for Leo High School.  Leo High School is a school of Archdiocese of Chicago. Most people assume that Leo is independent of the Archdiocese, like St. Rita, Fenwick, Brother Rice, or St. Lawrence. The fact is Cardinal Mundelein ordered the building of Leo.  Irish Christian Brothers never sponsored Leo, only operated it and were long gone.

From the moment, the Christian Brothers bailed out of any responsibility for Leo, Bob Foster and the Leo Alumni paid down the debts, raised tuition, secured the grants and initiated the on-going campus expansion and all without subsidy from the Archdiocese. Therefore, Bob Foster would not allow "policy," a changeling tool for the unimaginative, to dictate on a technicality.

Lawyers, crumbs and money, to paraphrase a rock and roll tune had other ideas.

My youngest was in third grade at St. Cajetan's and had come home with the flu. As a single Dad, I remained home with her keeping the possibility of losing my job to myself.

At around, six o'clock in evening I got a call on my cell phone.
 " Hello, is this Pat Hickey?"

" Yes, It is. . . ?"

" This is Cardinal George."

I though for a moment. It was Bill Gainer*, who had pulled that gag on me before, " Up Your's Eminence!"

There was genuine laughter on the other line, " No, really, Pat.  This Cardinal George.  I understand that I fired you."

" Gainer.. . ."

" Relax, it is the genuine article, Pat.  Now tell me why I fired you. This is the first I have heard of it. It's something about some letters you wrote to the papers?  I have this note, but I have not even heard about the firing of the Principal.  Fill me in, please."

I explained the chain of events and of my request that the Ordinary -Archbishop of Chicago - look into the capricious removal of a great Catholic woman as principal of girl's high school within the Archdiocese.

The Cardinal laughed and said, " Easy for you to say.  The religious order as a corporation can fire any employee.  It is not right, or just but certainly is legal. Look, I'll go over there and talk to the parents, staff and people representing that Order. Why are you home, by the way. Did Bob Foster suspend you? That does not sound like the man I know! Ha, ha, ha,. . ."

Again the genuine humor from a man who did not need to call an employee about a matter that put him in the middle of a controversy of another's doing.  Yet, here he was.

" No, Your Eminence, I am taking care of my little girl who is down with the Flu."

" Poor baby. Is she school age?"

" She goes to St. Cajetan's."

" Would like me to speak with her?"

I took the phone to Clare and she and the Archbishop of Chicago chatted about school her up-coming First Holy Communion and Hannah Montana from one end of phone anyway. The Cardinal gave Clare a blessing for good health and grace.

" Pat. You have your job.  I did not fire you.  In any bureaucracy people will say 'The Cardinal says, this and Cardinal says that and all without asking Francis George what he thinks.  They mean well."

We chatted some more and I learned that his father belonged to Local 399.  Like my father and his father before him, Francis Cardinal George's Dad was a stationary engineer.

We shared some more laughs about life in the Chicago Archdiocese.  I continue to work at Leo.

Cardinal George worked for Leo.  He counseled five students who had very tough lives.  He helped us raise money for new buses and blessed those buses.  Francis Cardinal George was made a Leo Man in 2011 and inducted into this school's Hall of Fame in 2014.

He was my neighbor - a great neighbor.

Cardinal George went home to Christ on Friday, April 17th.

* Bill Gainer is a guy from Roseland. Like Cardinal George, Bill does not know the first thing about being a "big shot."

Leo High Schoool Heroes: Raymond E. Jehli -Navy Cross Recipient

On April 7th, 1945 Leo Man Ray Jehli '39 flew from the deck of USS Enterprise, attacked and sank a Japanese Cruiser in the South China Sea.  From St. Francis de Paula Parish, Ray Jehli was a four year Honor Roll student at Leo played basketball and football before going to war.  Ray Jehli is credited with sinking one of the last enemy capital ships in World War II combat. President Truman awarded the Navy Cross to Ray Jehli. Ray's brother Walter '37 and Army Air Corps pilot was shot down and killed in 1944.

Walter is buried at St. Mary's on the south side.

Jehli, Raymond E.

February 12, 2004

Raymond E. Jehli, age 82, WWII Navy Pilot, recipient of the Navy Cross, beloved husband of the late Eileen Jehli, nee McGloin; loving father of Mary Virginia Flynn (Micah), Raymond "Jay" Jehli (Maureen), Patricia Heyne, Christine Jehli, Karen Jehli; dear grandfather of five grandsons and two granddaughters. Died Feb. 2, 2004 at home in Mesa, AZ. Services were held Feb. 5, 2004. Memorial donations may be made to Hospice of the Valley, 2222 S. Dobson Rd. #401 Mesa, AZ 85202

JEHLI, RAYMOND EDWARDSynopsis:
The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Raymond Edward Jehli, Lieutenant, Junior Grade, U.S. Navy, for extraordinary heroism in operations against the enemy while serving as Pilot of a carrier-based Navy Fighter Plane in Fighting-Bombing Squadron NINE (VFB-9), embarked from the U.S.S. ENTERPRISE (CV-6), on 7 April 1945, while deployed over the East China Sea. His outstanding courage and determined skill were at all times inspiring and in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Go to Work,or Play Sick Mountie of the Yukon All Day

Outpost of the Mounties                                        Outpost Hickey in 2014 before wind took down the basketball rigWhen the summer wind comes a-winging,

Then I’m feeling so alone.

There’s a melody softly singing,                       

Bringing me memories of home.
"Due to severe weather conditions, we will be closed tomorrow, Thursday, February 19, 2015."


Leo High School soundly decided to call off school due to the dangerous winds and Artic temperatures. we had an Alumni meeting at Father Perez Knights of Columbus Council 1444 last evening, while Lions of the Hard wood hosted our Brother School - Brother Rice in the 3rd Floor Gym.  I have yet to track down the score of that game - must have run late*.

We are in the frozen North! Midwest. South, East you name it.  Chicago was again blessed by God and avoided tons of the white stuff now crusting Indiana and Michigan.

I decided to come into the school and prep some stock donation with the requisite info and my signature - drop off Alumni donations and avoid being an Arctic cocoon.

My late wife Mary like corny old movies that had Singing Mounties, be they standard black and white epics, or Shirley Temple's blubbering interrrupted by song.  Whenever our Bourbonnais, Illinois apartment heat failed to keep up with the threshing winds and the thermostat dropped below 60 degrees, she'd say, "Time to play Sick Mountie!"

That meant that the two of us and later the three of us would cocoon within quilts, sleeping bags, Army blankets and even thick bath towels.

I though of that last night, when we got the call 8:53PM announcing "No Classes."

I covered the cat in an extra blanket and Sophie objected not a bit.

Car fired up fine, no snow.  Really cold, as predicted. 

It is Lent - be productive, somewhat!  Anytway, no oone to play Sick Mountie with but that damn scrawny cat.

* UPDATE Brother Rice 51, Leo 48: Mike Shepski scored 12 points in leading Brother Rice (11-16) to a spot in the consolation championship. Morgan Taylor added 11 points for the Crusaders and Jake Kosakowski had 10 in the contest at Loyola. Kewan Smith registered a game-high 21 points for Leo (9-15) and Darius Branch finished with 18.

Joseph Auman, Larry Spillan, Leo Alums and Marine Raider Heroes of Guadalcanal/

Today marks the 72 Anniversary of Guadalcanal.

Yesterday, I asked a young man in his twenties if he knew about Guadalcanal.  He cheerfully answered, " That was dug by FDR in order to connect the Atlantic to the Pacific."

Okay. I kept my trap shut other than saying, " No, that was the Panama Canal and it was dug at the order of President Teddy Roosevelt -FDR's cousin."

He did not ask for correction.

I was glad that the young man did not answer that it was ditch dug in Egypt.

Guadalcanal was an epic battle fought during the Second World War.  Two graduates of the Leo High School were killed hours apart in one of the Guadalcanal Campaign's hundreds of bloody skirmishes: Joe Auman, Leo Class of 1940 and Larry Spillan Leo Class of 1941.  Both young men were members of Carlson's Raiders and had taken part in the raid on Makin Atoll*.  Now, on Guadalcanal they participated in a long-march raid behind Japanese lines in order to harrass and terrorize the vastly superior enemy.

Larry Spillan was killed outright when he took point in an attack on enemy positions.  The Japanese counterattacked and Joe Auman held off waves of attackers with his machine gun, while his company withdrew.

The President of the United States of America takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross (Posthumously) to Private Joseph M. Auman (MCSN: 293089), United States Marine Corps, for extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty while serving with Company E, SECOND Marine Raider Battalion during an engagement with the enemy Japanese forces at Asamana, Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands, on 11 November 1942. When his company was forced by overwhelming enemy fire to make a temporary withdrawal, Private Auman, with utter disregard for his own personal safety, manned a machine gun and covered the retirement. Steadfastly remaining at his exposed position, he continued to fire his gun until killed by the enemy. His dauntless courage and outstanding devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service. He gallantly gave up his life in the defense of his country.
General Orders: Authority: Board of Awards: Serial 0478 (May 3, 1943) -Action Date: 11-Nov-42; Service: Marine Corps; Rank: Private;Company: Company E;Battalion: 2d Marine Raider Battalion  (Emphasis my own.)

God preserve our memories.

* a Respolution by the State of Illinois incorrectly notes that Spillan and Auman were killed during the Makin Raid.