Bob Foster Is Where God Requires an Honest Heart and a Windbreaker

  

                            Robert W. Foster -Eternal Since 1940

Man, did you feel that wind yesterday?  I was in the parking lot of Meijer’s in Michigan City and saw a blue basket-cart sail past my car with no human hands at the helm.  It was loaded with groceries. The helmsman caught up with it a yards west of the entrance. That was some wind.

When I got home and went back to work on my up-coming final exams, I learned via Facebook messaging from Dan Stecich,  that Bob Foster, Leo Class of 1958, Purdue Boilermaker, History Teacher and Football Coach for Leo, Mount Carmel, Little Flower, and St. Rita high schools, Principal and President of Leo High School had gone home to Christ.

That was no wind.  Bob Foster was leaving.

I worked for Bob Foster. I learned that Leo High School is not made of re-bar and poured concrete, but of bone, blood, muscle and heart.  Bob Foster coordinated those vital elements from all of the men he taught, mentored, or met.    Mr. Foster taught them the fundamentals of commitment and courage and swelled the sidelines of a very winning team.

Leo High School remains a vital organ on 79th & Sangamon Streets, because of Bob Foster.

God is not making any more Bob Fosters, because He did such a damn good job on the original.

You will know Bob Foster, because you will meet Bob Sheehy, Terence Bates, Mike Joyce, Mike Holmes, Dan Stecich  Mark Lee, Gus McNamara, Denzel Tucker, Bill Holland, Amir Hunter, Mike O’Neill, Raheem Williams, Rich Finn and Lonnie Newman.  Bob Foster will be most present wherever Leo Men and good people work to help make this a better world.

The bulk of Bob Foster’s spirit whirl-winded to God’s home field, where it is sunny, dry, the grass is cut just the length to confound the opposition and all a man needs is an orange windbreaker with Leo HS stenciled in bold black on the left breast.

Bob left enough spirit in everyone else to maintain the mission here.

That was some wind.

Obituary for Robert W. Foster

Foster, Robert W.

Beloved Husband of the late Carol (nee Goss).
Loving Father of Jennifer (Dan CFD) McVicker, Michael, and Cathleen (Sean) Huenecke.
Dear Grandfather of Erik, Luke, Peter, Jessica, and Ryan.
Fond Brother of the late Thomas, Donald, Jack, and Jeanne Tighe.
Dear Uncle of many nieces and nephews.
Special appreciation to Bob’s caregiver and friend Al.

Bob retired from Leo High School in 2010 after over 40 years in numerous capacities, Teacher, Head Football Coach, Athletic Director, Principal and President.

Recipient of Leo High School Alumni Association “Man of the Year” in 2008 and Hall of Fame Inductee. Tony Lawless Award winner. 2013 Inductee to the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame and 1983 Chicago Catholic League Hall of Fame Recipient, 1999 Distinguished American Award from the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame (Chicago Metro Chapter), 2006 ISCC Educator of the Year Award. 

Arrangements entrusted to Robert J. Sheehy & Sons Funeral Home


www.sheehyfh.com 708-857-7878

The Potat-er from Decatur Takes Obama Spiel to The Englewheel: Dick Durbin is No Bob Foster

One of the most gigantic of all fatuous ninnies, Senator Dick Durbin, carried President Obama's message to the well-strapped choir.

ENGLEWOOD — As President Barack Obama announced strict new gun controls nationwide Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) visited one of the neighborhoods devastated the most by gun violence *to voice his support . . .

That is nice.  Englewood, pronounced Englewheel by Chicago's mildly besieged Highland Park Homie Mayor, is a Zipcode where many of Chicago's homicides ( translated into Media Speak -Gun Violence) takes place.  Folks in Englewood are strapped -  they are impoverished and also very well armed.

Folks are strapped a few blocks to the south, where I work every day, in Gresham.  I have seen many handguns, most owned according to existing statutes by very good people and some in the hands of thugs; not necessarily gang members -thugs.

There are gangs in strapped communities, where a bi-polar law enforcement psychology exists - mistrust and now a vigorous hatred of any and law enforcement and a riveting fear of Vice Lords, Stones, 4 Corner Hustlers and Disciples of all Discriptive Modifiers, who prey on children, the elderly and geographically over-priced retailers from outside the African American communities.

Very Good People buy, or manage to get guns to protect themselves, while our politically maligned first responders are distracted by gangs, elected officials, Cadillac Commie Lawyers, the callow Chicago news media ( please, read agenda wrapped columnists and all editorial boards) and can not be the 1st Responders to their calls.

Into this sadness, arrives a doughy, fatuous ninny, United States Senator Dick Durbin (D) who will do and say anything for the PACS and people who fund his larded ass and its place in the United States Senate.  Durbin was once a 'fierce defender of the unborn' and now is Planned Parenthood's most fawning of PP President Cecile Richard's Lucchese Boots lickers.

President Obama tongues the Luccheses of Planned Parenthood, like a three old with his first Rainbow Cone. Dick Durbin showed the President how to do that.

I have met both our President and our Senior Senator and was and remain underwhelmed by both men.

When Dick Durbin was wedged into his Senate seat back in 1997, I was in my second year of service to Leo High School in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood.  Dick Durbin is Irish - a mealymouthed, spineless and rather dull Irish American.  Leo High School has Irish and African America DNA in its blood, bones and sinew. Bob Foster is an Irish American - a tough, honest, warlike softy of a man with deep and abiding love of historical, personal  and shared truth. Bob Foster is  aproud Leo Alumnus, history teacher, athletic director, guidance counsellor, principal and Leo's first President, now retired.

Dick Durbin came to Leo to be seen in a black neighborhood.  Gresham was more of a shooting gallery than it happens to be today and gang warfare was more robust.  Leo High School is a Roman Catholic high school for young men and the gangs were more intimidated by Leo President Bob Foster than the cops from the Sixth District.  Bob Foster maintained Leo's continued operation in Gresham out of the pure force of his nature and his Irish " I Could Give a Shit" attitude toward politicians, newsmen, Church higher-ups, icons, and millionaires - let alone gangbanger war lords. Every kid at Leo was an African American encouraged to celebrate his race by dint of his character and Bob Foster never aped any other dialect for public posing other than his salty and articulate Sou't Side Irish. 

Bob Foster does not have phony fiber in his DNA and he had to meet Dick Durbin.

Durbin toured Leo, was introduced to Leo Students, was wowed by the phalanxes of athletic trophies that include a number of City of Chicago Football Championships and remarked on the photos of young Bob Foster in the 1956 Championship Team picture.  Bob Foster introduced Dick Durbin to Leo Head Football Coach Mike Holmes who had just led the Lions to another IHSA Football Playoff run.

When the toured end with 'coffee and' in Bob Foster's office, Senator Dick Durbin asked, " Does Leo Have a Football Team?"

Like I said, Bob Foster is a singular man.  Singular men make miracles happen.

I waited and was not disappointed.  Most educators, failed classroom teachers with bigger salaries and pensions, would said, " Yessir Senator, we sure do!"  They might have passed on the remark, unchallenged and said, " I just love doing the work of Dr, King and Jesse Jackson, don't you Senator?"

Not Bob Foster - " Jesus Christ Almighty???!!!!! You gotta be soft as baby-shit!  How in the Hell were picked to be Senator?"

Thus, ended the Decator Potater's visit to Chicago's inner city in the late 1990's. Dick Durbin was seen in the inner city, photographed by staff, but he was not heard at the time.

Now, Dick is back in the Hood and Bob Foster is retired.

There is a home-truth spoken by Leo Men - " You can't make this shit up,"

God helps us.

* Guns are inanimate objects and can not commit any human act.

The Man Who Shaped Francis Cardinal George: Jean Jacques Olier (1608-1657)

Jean Jacques Olier

One evening, Cardinal George asked me to bring two students from Leo High School up to the Cardinal's Residence in Lincoln Park, in order to pray with and for them. Leo High School's student population is 97% African American; these two young men were white and from Canaryville. Both young gents had very tough home lives and I'll leave it at that.

Cardinal George called me every once in while to ask about the status of certain young men whom he knew to be challenged. One African American sophomore had been shunted off to nine different foster homes and sat on the edge of life as a Gangster Disciple.  The Cardinal managed to lift this kid off of that razor's edge. These two white boys were freshmen at the time and had acted out enough at school  to indicate volcanic home lives.

The Cardinal's Residence has been and shall continue to be, in the Chicago and national media, portrayed as some kind of 1%er Xanadu and described as 'lavish.'  That is pure nonsense.  It reminded me of any  successful immigrant's  family home: clean, tidy, simple and proud. The well polished hard-wood floors creak. The media made my Cardinal's home into something opulent to point to as an anachronistic touchstone in  its arguments used to attack the Catholic Church, be it ordination of women, Gaza Flotillas, redefinition of marriage, abortion, or attacking School Choice. Bullshit is King in Chicago.

The Residence is a nice rectory with a lot of chimneys and that is all. Lavish?  My broad manly ass.

Well, the media won that one.  The Residence built and maintained by Catholics will go away. The Nuns who worked with Cardinal George lived in a convent behind the Residence and they are real people who will now be tossed out and eventually put their love and talents elsewhere and fade from Chicago's flabby memory.

That night when me and the guys visited?  They were not taken by any opulence, but hospitality. Two boys learned what a woman's love is all about because of the Polish nuns who work with George and the spirit of a 17th Frenchman who served as the Cardinal's model.

These are two teenagers who had been ear-bombed with abuse and pummeled with all manner of neglect, including abandonment.

The boys were greeted by the wonderful religious women  like they were favorite nephews. The ladies are members of The Albertine Sisters. The boys were treated to home baked treats and tea served in lavish cups.

Cardinal George wore a sweater and his clerical collar and welcomed the boys.    Cardinal George took the brace of tattooed youngsters into a study  and I was dismissed.  The sliding doors closed and the three of them laughed loudly . . .about me, I'll bet.

I walked around and looked at the portraits of Chicago's great Archbishops, Feehan, Quarter and Mundelein, the icons and the statuary. One simple wood carving  I did not recognize*.  It was a wood carving of a 17th Century Frenchman.

After about forty minutes, the Cardinal and the guys reemerged from the study. I asked the Cardinal about the wood carving.  " That is Jean Jacques Olier.  He is not a canonized saint, but I have very special attachment to his life and works.  Read up about him, Pat," was this great teacher's advice.  I did.

Jean Jacques Olier was a 17th Century man of Christ.  He moved easily among Kings and Counts and lived with people swimming in the gutters.  A first rate intellectual and fierce man of action, Jean Jacques Olier opened seminaries, orphanages, asylums and organized soldiers and notorious street duelist to combat the plague of dueling -street violence, or sword violence, depending upon whether one has Chicago values, or not.  Olier fought equally. the heretics and orthodox fanatics within the protection of the Church

To know Francis Cardinal George, one needs to add an understanding of the man who served as his historical and spiritual model to the compelling narrative of the kid with polio who became a bishop.

Cardinal George was no hair-shirt.  He was a genuine Chicago tough guy - a guy who can take it.  A guy can take anything, as long as he honors the virtues that endure. Those virtues are learned through a piety and a dignity shaped by other persons.  Persons like Jean Jacques Olier.

The two kids had their lives oiled and comforted by Cardinal George, but what they took away from the Cardinal's Residence on north State Parkway was a bag of baked goods and the love of great women. That was all either one of the boys talked about - the women who treated them like they were meant to be treated in their lives - Jesus, living in Mary.

They can thank Cardinal George and a 17th Century Frenchmen for that introduction to love.

Cardinal George prayed this every day.

O Jesus, living in Mary, come and live in your servants, in the spirit of holiness, in the fullness of your power, in the perfection of your ways, in the truth of your virtues, in the communion of your mysteries. Rule over every adverse power, in your Spirit, for the glory of the Father. Amen. Jean Jacques Olier, S.S. (1608-1657)

* Correction:  the wooden carving is of St Eugene de Mazenod who founded the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1816. I got onto Jean Jacques Olier with the Cardinal by some other icon.  My bad.  Thanks to the sharp eyes of Tom Zbierski.