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.  

One Gangster Banked There and Now Ja'Mal Green, His Majostee, Owns It: Standard Bank a Chicago Story

Ja'mal Green - His Majostee!

J 
Old Standard Bank

Spike O'Donnell - king of 79th Street


From the end of World War One until the 1980's the Art Deco building at 7919 S. Ashland Avenue in the Highlands of Gresham - 60620 -was the safest bank in the Midwest.  Standard State Bank was where Edward J. "Spike" O'Donnell kept his loot.  Today, a young anti-police Democratic activist, who  States Attorney Kim Foxx allowed  Ja'Mal Green to plead down nine felony charges to a single misdemeanor charge, is also being gifted with this ediface.

Spike O'Donnell was the only racketeer from the Capone Beer Wars to die in his sick bed without handcuffs, or beefy guards doing the death watch.

Unlike too many of his brothers ( Steve, Charlie, Walter were all killed and a younger brother blinded)  who were taken for the long short-ride, or gunned down in the lobbies their apartments, Spike quit the beer rackets, lived life and enjoyed decades of notoriety and 79th Street celebrity operating asphalt, heating oil and paving operations from his suit above the old Highland Theater one block north of Standard Bank.




He was not too legit to quit. Spike was too smart to become more of a bullet magnet.

Spike O'Donnell owned several large bungalows west of Ashland Avenue in the 1930's.  He lived  at 8145 S Honore. He and his family suffered the gangster life.  In April 1932, Spike's brother Charles was gunned down in the lobby of his apartment near 91st & Ashland and later died of gangrene in Little Company of Mary Hospital.

That same month two men, one Walter Zwolinski who had been kicked out of the O'Donnell mob, for shooting Charlie O'Donnell's pet goat, broke into Spike's home at 8145 S. Honore. " in  hopes of killing Spike, but find only his wife Elizabeth at home. Frustrated in their efforts, they throw her down the basement stairs, but she sustains only minor injuries. Speculation suggests that one of the men was former O'Donnell gang member Walter Zwolinski, who is now a member of the McGeoghegan-Quinlan Gang. Since his expulsion from the South Side O'Donnell Gang for killing Steve O'Donnell's pet goat in a fit of rage, increasingly unstable Zwolinski is suspected in separate attacks on Steve and Spike as well as the fatal wounding of Charles O'Donnell."

In May, Walter Zwolinski was found slumped over the wheel of his car with six bullets in his head.

Spike O'Donnell put the gains of crime into accounts at Standard Bank 7919 S. Ashland.

There is a tale on the south side that might be apocryphal - at the start of the Depression there was a run on the bank and Spike O'Donnell showed up in the lobby with several suitcases stuffed with cash and also tucked under his arm was a violin case, also loaded with the long green difference.

The 6'4" O'Donnell announced to the throng of worried depositors, " I am putting dough in Standard and also the cash from Father Steve McMahon's Little Flower Church, rectory and school. This dough is going no where."

Little Flower, St. Sabina, St. Killians, St. Etheldreda and Leo High School held accounts with Standard Bank. It was the safest bank around.

And the dough remained.  Standard Bank has many branches in southwest city and suburbs.

The branch on Ashland closed in the 1980's.

The building is in the possession of young Ja'Mal Green, who has become as prominent as Chance the Rapper, thanks to Democrats like former Governor Pat Quinn, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and her creature Cook County States Attorney Kim Foxx.

Spike O'Donnell once robbed the  Stockmen's Trust and Savings Bank at 5425 S Halsted and did a stretch in Joliet, until he was pardoned by Governor Len Small.  Spike was never given a bank.

Green said he now hopes to focus on the youth center he's trying to establish in Auburn Gresham. Green and his supporters bought a 12,500-square-foot building at 7919 S. Ashland Ave. last week.
Green, who has protested violence and police brutality, has spent months raising money for the Majostee Allstars Youth Center. He hopes the center can become a spot where locals learn about opening businesses, drop their kids off for day care or express themselves at concerts and open mic nights.
The center will also offer mental health services and mentoring opportunities.
"That's what Majostee Allstars is all about, is telling our young people in these communities you may have ... a lack of investment in your community, but no matter where you're from you can still be something and you can still have hope," Green said. 

Ja'Mal Green wants to make this gift an opportunity for more young men like himself.  Donation are funneled through Pastor Pfleger Industries:

How to Help the Youth Center
• Donate on GoFundMe
• Send PayPal donation to MajosteeAllstars@gmail.com
• Mail check to St. Sabina, 1210 W. 78th place. Make it out to "Majostee Allstars."
• Buy a Majostee or Transform the 9 T-shirt online

There hasn't been this much bullshit on Chicago's streets since the Stockyards closed.

Spike O'Donnell had friends in high places and so does Ja'Mal.

Is this a great city, or what?

The Noble Irish Terrier

     

The over-all appearance of the Irish Terrier is important. In conformation he must be more than a sum of his parts. He must be all-of-a piece, a balanced vital picture of symmetry, proportion and harmony. Furthermore, he must convey character. This terrier must be active, lithe and wiry in movement, with great animation; sturdy and strong in substance and bone structure, but at the same time free from clumsiness, for speed, power and endurance are most essential. The Irish Terrier must be neither "cobby" nor "cloddy," but should be built on lines of speed with a graceful, racing outline. -The Irish Terrier

This morning on the way to services at St. John Fisher Catholic Church, I ran into Rocky - an eight year old Irish Terrier puppy.  These dogs stay pups until they go to heaven.  Rocky was all business yanking the leash of the young lady taking him out for his matin mouvement de l'intestin et de la miction des arbres , des souches , des poteaux et bouches.  That's French for his refreshemnt complète.

Rocky turned his attentions to me - a natural patsy for play.  He was all a shudder and whiskers.

Rocky reminded me of Leroy Hickey my dog from 1965 - 1977.  Leroy was an Irish terrier that my Dad bought off of one of my Grandfather's pals - Pete Bradley - from Scartaglen, Co. Kerry.  Pete had a bitch that pupped nine red beauties and my Dad picked the feistiest  one in the litter.  About two weeks later the Old Man took Leroy back to Pete to have his ears and tail properly clipped.

Pete had had a few.

The result. Leroy's tail was about three inches shorter than it was supposed to be and his ears were lopsided.  This is the downside of getting products, pets and promises from any 'guy I know.'

Leroy needed to shake, not only his tail and the attached money maker, but his entire being to signal delight. Other dogs took his tail-less greetings with wary approach.


The Irish Terrier breed is about 2,000 years old and was bred for protection of the home, children and to do constant warfare on rats and other vermin.  With snooty Progressive patrician WASP bigotry, the Irish Terrier was not recognized by the American Kennel Club (AKC) until 1885.  The Irish themselves much later.

Like most of the aboriginal Irish of the two-legged variety, these bastards can dig.!  Leroy would have made a great Streets and San guy. They are superb ratters.  There was not a rat within six blocks of our house and Leroy would bound over the backyard fence or front gate to get after a rat or feral cat on the B & O tracks embankment at 75th Place.  They'd go to ground and Leroy would dig them out.

They are very loyal, protective, stubborn and fearless.

Leroy had a reputation as the only dog in Little Flower Parish to have gotten the best of Bowser Lanigan - mixed mutt Rottweiller.

Irish Terriers are great with children, but very tolerant of others.

Leroy remembered Pete Bradley and would foam at the mouth whenever Pete's car pulled away from Grandpa Hickey's house at 7535 S. Marshfield and totally ape-scat if his blue Pontiac ventured west on 75th Place anywhere near our house.

I hope to see more of Rocky on my way to church. 

Out of the Mouths of Cops - People Still Speak to One Another: Inspite of City Hall

"Thank goodness for bloggers. They closed the Taverns so people could not meet and spread the word. The news in chicago is more like the propaganda ministry. If it weren't for blogges (sic) the truth would never get out." Comment from Second City Cop

 Working men and women could walk to a neighborhhod tavern at one time, Richard M. Daley put an end to all that. Ironically, it was saloon goers who became the Daley Government in Exile that made him States Attorney and then Mayor of Chicago.  How about that?

I always turn to a Chicago Police officer for the straight dope on things.  My first reads every morning come from Second City Cop (SCC) and Beachwood Reporter. SCC tells the facts of the matter, in same way that one could pick up the straight dope from a guy who was there, or knew a guy who could and usually did, get something done - like in an old time neighborhood saloon. I remember reading some stuff from a few years back that verified with actual data what I already believed from an honest man.

"In 1988, the year before Richie Daley became mayor of Chicago, 11 taverns were closed as public nuisances. The next year, there were 49. All told, between 1990 and 2005, there have been more than 1,000 license revocations citywide." Last Call for Taverns

In the days before television, people — mostly men — sought diversions in neighborhood taverns, says Michael Ebner, history professor emeritus at Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Ill., a Chicago suburb. "There was a degree of camaraderie there and a sense of neighborliness as well," he says. "The social bonds that evolved … were quite enduring."

Home-cooked meals often were available at taverns, which became hubs of political activity and, eventually, places to watch sports events on TV. "The tradition lives on, but in sharply diminished proportion," Ebner says. . . .

In 1990, about 3,300 Chicago establishments had tavern licenses allowing them to serve alcoholic beverages; places that also offer live entertainment, charge admission or serve food as a primary source of business require different or additional licenses.
The number diminished as city leaders sought closure of bars that prompted police calls or complaints from neighbors, and since 2009, the number of tavern licenses has held steady at about 1,200. USA 2012

Richard M. Daley closed more saloons than Billy Sunday, Frances Willard and Carie Nation combined. This I know, because a man who sold bar cleaning products for forty years in Canaryville and who operated the non-PC handled Lily White Products at  635 W. 47th Street was put out of business, by Daley anti-saloon crusade.  William Schoenecker began his business by filling rinsed out empty bottles with bleach, at his home on 55th and Wells and selling them to the many saloons, taverns and restaurants in Chicago, at the time. After serving on a sub in World War Two this gentleman expanded his business and flourished, until Richard M. Daley began his progressive anti-saloon crusade.  Leo High School placed William Schoenecker's name into nomination for the Leo Hall of Fame in 1995, for his generous donations to Leo high School scholarship funds over forty years. I was tasked with doing Bill "Lily White's biography.

I asked him why he was closing his once very successful operation in Canaryville.  Bill told me, " No saloons to sell to, Kid.  Daley don't want people going to neighborhood taverns and beefing about him, or his pals.  Here in Canaryville, you have TNT's Pizza and Kelly's on Wallace and  Pat's on 43rd.  That's it.  Bridgeport - it is the same. Tome was that guys could get off work, clean up and stroll to the tavern.  Now, a guy needs wheels and after a few toddies he's got himself a drunk driving beef. Money for the City and no shared wisdom over a couple of pitchers of Old Style - that's the idea."

Daley closed neighborhood bars and used 'public safety' as an excuse.  He gamed the ordinances that would permanently void a liquor license, citing residential complaints, noise and public urination.  Fights happen in bars to be sure.  But they also happen anywhere. There are more brawls in Walmart s than saloons and Chuck-e - Cheese is the place to go for a swell donnybrook.  

Every neighborhood had a great number of local taverns.  I grew up in Little Flower and there were taverns, lounges and saloons, as well as Visit Our Tap Room liquor stores every few hundred feet from one's front porch - on Wood Street, On Wolcott, on Ashland and all along both sides of 79th Street.  I can not recall anyone ever getting a drunk driving beef.  Dads walked to Billy Ellis's Wooden House, Louie Katecki's Lou's, BH, Shannon's, the Mirror Lounge - Home of Cal Starr, Mel Collins' Sea Breeze Lounge, Sol's Tap Room, Caruso's and Casto's.  The thought of driving to a palce to 'get a drink'  was nonsense.

More than the liver, the heart, the soul and the brain were massaged in places  where Schlitz and Sunnybrook was sold - saloons were where topics ranging from the Vietnam war to the rise of First Wave Feminism were as much a topic of discussion as the hopes of Leo Durocher, or the Dreams of Dr. King.

LBJ called Richard J. Daley about the Vietnam War.  Old Man Daley opposed the war, but supported the boys doing the dying.  Mayor Richard J. Daley expressed the views of people who worked at Darling Rendering and Wrigley gum on Ashland, Spiegel Warehouse on 35th and Lee Lumber on Pershing Road spoken with heart and head in the taverns and saloons, like McGloins at Ashland and Archer Avenue in Mopetown. LBJ listened to Robert McNamara and Nixon became President.

Richard M. Daley listened to only the Robert McNamara's of his times - the University of Chicago crowd, the IVO Hyde Park Mafia and Newton Minnows.

You can not make policy where people have a voice and closing the opportunities to speak in the name of 'public safety' was a Progressive turning point in our history.

Today, people do not frequent saloons, bars, or taverns in the manner of generations of Chicagoans past.  People go to bars and get hammered.  The music is always excessively at volume max, because as a noted south side mixer master told me in 1976 - "You can't talk; so you drink more and try to shout over the music. Louder music; more booze sold."  Flat screens dominate any perspective.  One meets not for ' a drink,' but a bacchanal.

Saloons were open all day because of shift work.  Shifts are found only in the First Responder World of cops, fireman, ambulance teams and nurses.  Everyone else is 9-5.

In this environment, ideas are not shared; traditions are not passed on; nor is the simple courtesy of listening to another person necessary.

Except on the blogosphere.  The Internet is the place where neighbors can share ideas for better or worse. It's dry, however.

No one seems to know this more than the Police officers who have been targeted by the very people responsible for the policies that have created our blood soaked streets and our group-thought intellectuals.

This Labor Day ask someone who actually walked a picket line from 1936 through the 1950's about real labor.  Find a saloon somewhere outside of Chicago, or ask some blogger.

Time to Turn To St. Rocco - Our World Is Diseased

O Great St. Rocco, deliver us, we beseech you, from contagious diseases, and the contagion of sin. Obtain, for us, a purity of heart which will assist us to make good use of health, and to bear sufferings with patience. Teach us to follow your example in the practice of penance and charity, so that we may, one day enjoy the happiness of being with Christ, Our Savior, in Heaven. Amen. Prayer to St. Rocco

I remember the Feast of Saint Rocco, when it was celebrated at St. Mary of Mount Carmel* Parish in West Englewood back in the late 1950's and 1960's. The Feast of St. Rocco was celebrated in August usually the 12th - 15th.  We lived on the south side of Burlington Northern-Santa Fe tracks at 75th Street, in the Mick-land of Little Flower, but went with our folks to the great Italian main street on 69th Street to Sardi's for meats, Naples Bakery and to eat well at Louis George's.

Many of my Italian neighbors moved from the wood framed two story apartments, or single family cottages in St. Mary's to the Georgians and brick bungalows in Little Flower and they introduced us Turkeybirds to glories of the feast of St. Roccos - games, Italian beef and sausage 'samich-es wit green peppers 'n onions.' Most of all the great fireworks attendant to the close of feast.  When I was about five Terry Smith, Al and Charlie McFarland, by brother Whitey and me asked the smartest guy south of the Wood Street viaduct, Maury Lanigan where the great fireworks came from and were shamed by the shaman, " That's the Dago Carnival."  Oh.

As we got older (grow up? as if.) we went with our Italian buddies over the tracks and to the great carnival.

The Procession of St. Rocco travelled the circuit of the parish from the Church on Hermitage down 67th Street to Damen and south to 69th Street ( home of the 69th street Loafers) and east to Ashland and then back to the church.  After stuffing our potato-holes with cotton candy and those no-longer existent red hard-crusted cinnamon candied apples, Italian ices and beefs we hiked back over the tracks (rather through the swampy viaduct behind the steel factory) to our Georgians and raised ranches on 75th Place and Wood Street.

Once home, before street lights out mind you, we would sit on the curb and watch the greatest sky show of the summer.  From St. Mary's huge and majestic pyrotechnics dominated the skies over Englewood in what seemed an endless fire works show.  All in celebration of the 13th Century Frenchman from Montpelliar who is so venerated by generations of Italians.

Rocco was born with a red birthmark on the left side of his chest.  Shortly he was orphaned and raised by his uncle the Duke of Montpellier.

St. Rocco grew up about three hours west of Nice in south of France.  Yesterday, Islamist savages drove a panel truck through a crowd of innocents celebrating the French Fourth of July -Bastille Day. These activists slaughtered four score human beings in the cause of the Caliphate.

Here in America, we are trying to recover from the slaughter of five Dallas Police Officers and dozen more by a savage activist.  You can call him what you will.

There will be no healing in the near future here any more than in the Non-Caliphate world.  Professional Oligarchs running for President, activists in the pay of a Hungarian Bond Villain, media clowns and group-thought academic facists will keep the scabs yanked off any healing. Sad to say.

Our world is diseased.  Our world is diseased by charlatans and thieves who would "Deconstruct" humanity.  We have no common humanity. We are Diverse, because we must stay Balkanized and aggrieved.

Disease knows no class, no race, no faith and no mercy.

St. Rocco was a well-to-do young man related to the Duke of Montpellier.  He denied the material world and dedicated his life to God and everyone on God's earth who suffers.

Rocco went to Italy, where a plague was decimating the population . Rocco prayed for the sick and cared for them with his RoccoCare.

He too caught the plague and developed a horrible oozing ulcer on his left leg.  He slept on leaves and drank water from a creek, but he was fed crusts of bread from a dog who had discovered the suffering Rocco and grabbed a loaf of bread off of his master's table. The dog belonged to a local nobleman who took notice of the bread snatching and followed the mutt to where the saint was holed up.

The nobleman tended to Rocco's health, but the leg never improved. Rocco had become legendary for his works among the suffering people of northern Italy over the next three years and then rturned to France sick, suffering and broke and was tossed into prison as a "spy." It turned out that the official who arrested Rocco was his uncle - The Duke of Montpellier.  On August 16, 1378,  a guard went to Rooco's cell and found him near death When the Duke demanded to know the true identity of this Italian spy, Rocco replied, " I am your nephew."  The Duke ordered the man stripped to waist and revealed the red birth-mark. He also had a red oozing sore to go with what God had blessed him with at birth. A voice was heard by the Duke and all of the townspeople saying that Rocco had merited eternal life and had gone home to Christ.

Many miracles were attributed to Rocco.

I am going to try and remember to pray to Saint Rocco and pray that our divided and diseased world comes to its senses.

St. Rocco was a big part of my childish summers,  I hope and pray that I grow up and the world turns to Rocco, as opposed to activists, oligarchs and frauds.


*"St Mary of Mount Carmel. 6722 S Hermitage (west Englewood) Most original parishoners came from Salerno. Now a Protestant church. Original church was woodframe 1891-1976."


Many thanks to this great Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/69th-Street-South-Side-Chitowners-271041162496/?fref=ts

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.

A Wistful Few Moments With Marge - The First Girl in My Parish to Read The Female Eunuch

“Men are the enemy in much the same way that some crazed boy in uniform was the enemy of another like him in most respects except the uniform. One possible tactic is to try to get the uniforms off.”
― Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch

In October of 1970, I was a freshman at Loyola University ( Lewis Towers) in Chicago.  I had had a great summer due to a great paying job as a second year janitor ( $ 2.75 per + T and 1/2 for OT)  and the brief but spicy company of Marge. That month a book came out that rocked our world - Germain Greer's The Female Eunuch/  Feminism.  You can't beat it.  You can nod to it, grant that it is there, see it for what it should be and what it is most certainly not and live your life.

Though not a woman, I can deeply appreciate the feelings of being objectified, patronized and fitted into clothing and undergarments that might be alluring, not never comfortable. I was forced to wear a turtle-neck sweater once, because the girl who purchased it for me thought I'd look like one of The Monkees - just a pathetic male adolescent wearing something he hated.

The girl's name was Marge.  She lived at 77th & Wolcott in Little Flower Parish. Her Dad was a lockesmith with shop between Hermitage and Wood streets.

Marge was a girl who blossomed early and adopted the dress and attitude of the greaser chicks who latched onto the 69th Street Loafers north of the tracks from us.  The Loafers were mostly Italian kids and we were largely Micks.  We got along, unless we were complete assholes.  The Loafer guys wore cabrettas, rat-stabbers ( Stacy Adams shoes) and greased their back like Elvis.  The greaser girls wore tight black slacks jeans, or skirts, tighter sweaters and their hair all cotton-candied up and large and supported by Alberto Culver hairspray.

We Micks tended to sport more of a Joe College Karol's Red Hanger look and buzz-cuts.  The girls wore attire straight out of Trouble With Angels Haley Mills/Mary Tyler Moore modest allure. The Greasers called us Doopers, or Wood Street.

We Doopers imagined Greaser girls to be a little bit slutty - they'd put out a little bit anyway. Not so.Some of our Meghan Mickleberry Haley Mills babes were positively Russ Meyers in attitude and deportment, while Shirley and Flo, though bedecked in Faster Pussy Cat, Kill,Kill,  fashion and accessories were as virginal as St. Agnes.  Never assume.

I flirted with my afore mentioned Marge, the locksmith's daughter, because I assumed that I might have my wicked way . . .within reason . . .with her.  She looked the part and by the 6th Commandment filled the part.
I was stunned!  You asked for it Bub and you got it.  Marge accompanied yours truly on several trips to Rainbow Beach and we smooched - à la manière de la sale français - up a storm.

Marge was positively black Irish gorgeous and built like a muscle car at Santa Fe Speedway.  Every impulse to explore the horizon of human copulation was aroused, only to be quieted by ethics and Catholic moral instruction.  As  St. Thomas Aquinas once said, " You knock-her up and you marry her."

I was bullied by better angels, while Errol Flynn whispered in my ear . . .not forgetting Marge was the whole package. She was nice.  I was and remain . . . complicated.

I determined that discretion was the better part of satisfaction and that bookish me was destined for Loyola University in few months time and the burdens of parenting were complimentary to four years of the Jesuits. I did what any male 17 year old goof equipped with a robust and operational set of nuts could do - I avoided Marge.  You know.  Disappear in plain sight.  Never call.  Never acknowledge.  Guy stuff. Birth control on the cheap.

I dreamed of Marge and went on my way.  So did Marge.

Years later, I ran into Marge at a party near DePaul University. Marge had moved up to the north side and was taking classes while working at  Earl Pionke's Earl of Old Town.  Marge still looked great, but had adopted the more exotic looks of a flamenco dancer and not a Hot Rod Mama.  This suited the radical cool guys and faux Hippies who lived in the hipper quarters of Chicago, or frequented its environs.  I still dressed and groomed like Dooper -close-cropped hair, crew neck sweaters and penny loafers. Dweeb chic.  Marge remarked that I had not changed and that was not a compliment.

The verbal punch out was taken it in cowardly good humor, because I had acted the cad.  No, Marge said it was not my Catholic school boy creepiness about love and passion but my insular and puritanical cowardice.  I was not liberated.  Marge said that she was liberated.  She had been given The Female Eunuch, by one of her older sisters and that book became her bible.

 Marge explained that men hated women and treated them horribly and women went along with it pretending that love and family really meant something.  Woman was better. Kids raise themselves. Mother is Man Word.  Sex is liberating only if one is liberated.

Okay.

I still wanted to see if maybe Marge . . . not a chance.  Marge was dating a guy from Canada named Guy - Geeeeeee -no kidding.  I mean she was shacking up with Guy, while she further evolved.

We parted ways. Decades of life vanished like ice cubes in a dog's mouth.

At one of the Little Flower summer reunions out at a south Cook County Forrest Preserve, I asked one of my balding compeers if he had any word about Marge. " Yeah!!!!!!!!  You tried to crack her britches; didn't you?"

Actually no . . .up to and including that possibility to be sure, but no.

The former football star and Mayor of Palos Hills said, " Marge.  She was all over the place. Married a bunch.  Screwed everyone and anyone.  Nutty.  Billy Fleming called her Million Man Marge."

Well, what happened to her?

" She's a feminist. Writes a blog or something."

Imagine that.

Meatless - Monday or Friday? Go Reconcile Yourself.

Was that you, Ma?  Good Lord.

I am saving Mother Earth.

I can't get the window with this bum stepper.

It's Organic, Pa and it's Monday.

In a unanimous 12-0 vote, the council approved a resolution Friday endorsing the "meatless Monday" campaign and asking residents to make a personal pledge to ditch meat for one day a week.
The resolution makes L.A. the largest city to     sign on to the international "Meatless Mondays" campaign, which aims to reduce meat consumption for health and environmental reasons. L.A. Times

Fifty years ago, we ate fish sticks of Friday.  When the Old Man could be home for a Friday dinner we had halibut.  A couple of years later, we were told that Friday fish was out and we could have meat from animals that  " walked the earth" on Friday as well.

We were called Mackerel Snappers, Fish Eaters and Friday Pork Dodgers by our ecumenical pals who either went to public school, Timothy Lutheran, or kopped a plea and attended Little Flower Grammar School with us Cat Licks.

We did not swim at YMCA either. We went over by Leo High School, or to Ridge Park and very often took CTA and Sunburban transit to Blue Island's Memorial Park.  The YMCA preached 'birth control' and the older gents swam in the nude - very Progressive.  We swam elsewhere in swimming trunks and ate fish on Fridays.

Friday was a day of abstinence - a adjunct to the Sacrament of Penance - in preparation to a visit to the confessional box on Saturday afternoon.

The Sacrament of Penance was nuanced into Reconciliation 'Forget God, it is our human community with whom we must atone.'

The lines to the confessional box vanished.  Hey, sorry . . .heartily sorry. Sin vanished.

Now, we hear of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops returning the faithful to the purpose of Penance.  As part of this evangelical consideration, Catholics will be asked to again abstain on Fridays.

Not to be eclipsed by the Bishops, the Los Angeles City Council asks its citizens to reconcile themselves to obesity and the environment.  Meatless Mondays are Progressive Doctrine.

I get the lard legislation. Wide loads are a burden on the eyes of the lithe liberal and legislion ladlers -  Be like Us, Your Betters! Reconcile yourselves to the fact that WE know better. 

I have also heard the flatulent fantasies of the Eco-radicals holding that hoofed and cloven creatures fart up a storm and blow holes in the ozone -They, preach, "WE (you) must ALL (you) go and consume less meat, and MOTHER EARTH will have fewer eructations from bossy and Old Major splitting the pastoral sound barrier and wafting heaven-ward.  Be Vegan!"

Well, husbanded cows, pigs, sheep, and foul are Vegans.  They eat no meat with their feed - only vegetables and wholesome grains.

Moreso, I have been in the proximity of Vegans of all shapes and sizes in the produce sections of Whole Foods and let me tell you the methane atmosphere could not be attributed to Slim Jim consumers.  I was once part of a line at the checkout for Whole Foods immediately behind a pony-tailed hottie of twenty or so with a basket loaded with organic beets, beans, brown rice, tofu, carrots, kale and cabbages.  This athleticly toned and tanned young siren proceed to staccato caps of noxious rounds that would gag a hungry maggot.

In words of Kipling's Peachy Carnehan from the Man Who Would Be King, the Gwenth Paltrow look alike seemed to "break wind at both ends simultaneous - which is more, I reckon, than any god can do."

With watery eyes, but good manners I backed off and broke ranks, fitting in behind a solid-looking Bavarian Burgher clutching an expensive ham which perfumed the queue removed a safe distance from yon Vegan Vestal.

I choose to do Penance on Friday and abstain from my four-legged and feathered friends of Mother Earth.  I need to do Penance.

As to the LA Inquisition?  Go reconcile yourselves!

Tales of The South Side: Garage Band Aid - My 1960's Tour Bus was CTA

I was taller in real life . . . or, so I am told.

Smilin' Jack Merrins was two years ahead of me, at St. Augustine Minor Seminary* in Holland, Michigan where I spent the first three years of high school.  Like four of my classmates from Little Flower Grammar School Class of 1966, ( JC, SB, PO'C, & PM,), PFH thought of becoming an Augustinian Brother.  We were recruited by the late Father Dudley Day O.S.A.

I improved my smoking habits, participated in athletics with gusto, completely avoided any familiarity with chemistry, physics. math and the lesser sciences and learned Latin, Spanish, Literature, History, Government,  as well as more chords on the guitar and how to sing into a microphone. We had a band. In fact, we had many bands.  We had many bands in order to use up the few minutes of the day where mortal sin might become an issue.  We were by circumstance and indoctrination celibate.

Smilin' Jack Merrin was from St. Louis, Mo, where he fronted a band call Le Clades Blades - an eight piece rhythm and blues rock band of guitar, bass, Farfesa organ, drum kit and brass & reed. Smilin Jack vocalized.

Here at St. Augustine's -Smilin Jack's ax was Sax and Vox.  I played guitar, Lurch Palauskas -the Lithuanian Lover -banged keyboard and Brian "Bing" Bell hit the skins and did back-up vocals.

We covered these hits -

1. "Mama Get Your Hammer (There's a Fly on Baby's Head)," by the Bobby Peterson Quintet.
2. "When There's Tears in the Eyes of a Potato," by the Hoosier Hot Shots.
3. "I Like Bananas Because They Have No Bones," by the Hoosier Hot Shots.
4. "She Was Bitten on the Udder by an Adder," by Homer & Jethro.
5. "A Bowl of Chop Suey and You-ey," by Sam Robbins & His Hotel McAlpin Orchestra.
6. "I've Got Tears in My Ears From Lying on My Back in Bed While I Cry Over You," by Homer & Jethro.
7. "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I've Been A Liar All My Life," by Fred Astaire and Jane Powell.

8. "I'd Rather Have a Bottle in Front of Me (Than a Frontal Lobotomy)," by Randy Hanzlick, M.D. 

At no time did we violate ASCAP or BMI regulations

(Dr. Demento says Hanzlick is--or was, as of 1980--a real internist in Atlanta, who writes songs for a hobby). 

http://www.hollandsentinel.com/news/x132294923/St-Augustine-Seminary-graduates-bring-spirit-of-history-to-reunion

http://www.ascap.com/

*“I got a great education here,” said Edd Boyd of the class of 1963, one of the 60 alumni at the first overall reunion of the St. Augustine Seminary, a Catholic high school from 1949-1977 on what is now Shore Acres Park in Laketown Township. “I enjoyed the four years I spent here. It was rather idyllic.” . . . The property was originally the home of Dorr Felt, the inventor of the first adding machines. The Augustinians bought the property in 1949.
The order sold the property to the state in the late 1970s and the buildings were converted into a prison. Laketown Township bought the mansion and surrounding land in the 1990s and the prison was leveled. The mansion is being restored to the Felt-family era and the grounds around it are now a park with a disc golf course, trails and access to a beach on Lake Michigan.

I Remember 1964 , Little Flower, Clancy the Roller Skating Monkey, Tommy Walsh,and Nailed Rick Kogan's Pop Quiz

Thanks Rick Kogan!

1964, I was twelve. I lived in a two bed room Georgian looking north to the railroad tracks at 1755 W. 75th Place in Little Flower Parish of the Chicago Gresham neighborhood. Little Flower was founded in the mid 1920's to serve the massive Catholic demographic in Gresham. Monsignor Stephan McMahon was a priest, lawyer and real estate genius who built one of Catholic Chicago's most impressive campuses between 79th and 81st Streets/ Honore and Wood Streets. The grammar school was tuition free to parishioners and brand new co-educational high school was filled to capacity.

The Church Rectory had a fruit(Peach, cherry and apple) orchard and underground garage all within view of the two grammar school buildings. A huge convent housed the Religious Sisters of Mercy who operated the school. This was a working man's parish that looked like it belonged to the Gentry. Monsignor McMahon made this happen.

President Kennedy was killed before the start of year. I was in Sister Dorableats's sixth grade class and would end the year in Sister Gertrudas's seventh grade class -both Sisters of Mercy were in the words of Grandpa Hickey - 'hairy-faced old Galway bitches.' My academic preparation for life consisted in rigorous reading and arithmetic drills and understanding that these two particular nuns had no use for the male species whatsoever.

We testosterone pups formed a reactionary Band of Brothers and engaged in minor larcenies in recognition of the Hoods' intense dislike for our smelly, willful, sloppy, curious and energetic selves. I was and remain an affable goof who had the pleasure of the company of great people. The three Mike Kellys (1,2,3), The brace of Bobby Ryans (1,2), Willie Bigane, Freddie Knight, Al McFarland, Jimmy Shea, Jimmy Zach, Larry Fiscelli, Danny Miller, and the great Tommy Walsh* were told in no uncertain terms that we would collectively "Die on the gallows." Yeah, right. For kicking over the Mission Money Monkey?

The nuns won a Clancy the Great Skating Monkey at the Mother McAuley Fair. It was a battery operated roller skating plastic monkey that skated when money was tossed into the yellow plastic hat in its hand. They used this ruse to weasel our dimes and nickles and pay to keep the Congo Catholic. You think I'm bullshiting? Well, I'm bull-truing.



Among us was Tommy Walsh. Tommy was the son of a single Mom in our parish, which was about as common as a Vegan Cannibal. Tommy and his Mom lived in an apartment flat building on Honore Street and Tommy's Mom worked at the Bell Phone Company at 87th & Ashland. Tommy, unlike the rest of us had scads of free time. He was a genius and an Irish Greaser.

Most of us Micks dressed like the little gents that our moms wanted us to be. Tommy Walsh dressed like a tough Dago from 69th & Ashland. He wore Stacy Adams Rat Stabber loafers ( fence climbers with heels) on his feet and a black leather Cabretta coat for all seasons. Tommy was also morbidly obese and walked pigeon toed. Tommy was Outlaw, Baby!

Tommy Walsh was Young Emerson Writ Large! A Concrete and clay Thoreau with a sense of humor. He was as a God to us lesser more compliant male untermensch! He said what was on his mind to his pals and boon chums and to the Black and White hard women with pens and cough drops tucked under their Wimples. When told of his sinful nature in not dropping dimes into the Mission Can, Tommy replied, "What and help the tribes cooking our Missionaries, S'ter? No thank You!"

Again when queried on matters theological, "Hey, I don't ask you 'How Do You Feel About the Immaculate Conception?' Do I S'ter?" Whack! WHACK! Tommy often was sent to see Father Gerrity and after the Clancy Incident, Monsignor McMahon -Himself.

The day that Clancy the Roller Skating Monkey arrived to shakedown each and every classroom, Tommy Walsh was prepared. He sat in the very first seat at front of the classroom, next to the cloakroom.

The Monkey had a hat-ful full of pennies, nickels and dimes that two young nuns would dump into a big metal pail. " Take out your pennies and do God's work! Here Comes Clancy!"

The Monkey made the circuit of rows and ended with his hat-ful of loot on his delightful way to the big money pail, but had to make it past Tommy Walsh. Tommy let go of a convulsive sneezing fit and launched out a large leg at the mechanical monkey. His razor toed Stacy Adams footwear caught the plastic primate under the chops and the toy from the good folks at Ideal went out of commission and clouds formed over the Catholic Congo. Tommy was paddling in the murcky waters of Really Shit Creek! The howling classroom showered coin of the realm to the squeals of delight and approval from the timid showered down like me. Mike Kelly 1. grabbed a few dimes for a post-curricular trip to Millie's Candies and Sundries on 79th & Winchester. Sister Dorableat, who looked like Broderick Crawford with a hangover, twisted Tommy's ear and dragged him to THE OFFICE. He was sent from there to the Monsignor.

Hours later, after Book of Valor essays, we watched out of the classroon windows as Tommy Walsh and Monsignor Stephan McMahon walked among the peach trees in the rectory orchard. Both the Monsignor and Tommy were laughing their asses off.

The Second Vatican Council was wrapping up. The Church decided to self-evaluate. We no longer have builders and priests and like Monsignor McMahon, but there are still nuns like Sister Dorableat -in civvies.

1964! I remember it well. Thanks to the Tribune's best link to genuine Chicago history and the greatest speaking voice in the City, Rick Kogan for today's walk back.

I nailed the quiz.

Chicago Live 1964 Almanac quiz


1. The Southwest Expressway, completed in 1964, was later renamed in honor of whom?
A. Adlai E. Stevenson II
B. Dan Ryan Jr.
C. Dwight D. Eisenhower
D. Bishop Louis Henry Ford
Your answer was correct.
2. What Cubs star infielder and former Rookie of the Year died in the 1964 crash of a small airplane he had been piloting?
A. Ryne Sandburg
B. Ken Hubbs
C. Rogers Hornsby
D. Lou Brock
Your answer was correct.
3. Fill in the blank: 7.1 inches of snow fell on March 29, 1964, making it the snowiest _____ in Chicago history.
A. St. Patrick's Day
B. Ides of March
C. Vernal Equinox
D. Easter
Your answer was correct.
4. What famous Chicago residential complex was completed in 1964 along the north bank of the Chicago River?
A. Lake Point Tower
B. Park Place Tower
C. Chicago Spire
D. Marina City Towers
Your answer was correct.
5. What R&B singer and graduate of Bronzeville's Wendell Phillips Academy High School was shot to death in 1964?
A. Marvin Gaye
B. James Ray
C. Sam Cooke
D. Nat King Cole
Your answer was correct.
You got 100% correct.
Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune

* Tommy Walsh was the only student out the one hundred twenty kids in my grammar school class to attend a Chicago Public High School. I hear that he earned a Doctorate.

The Late Lester Mukinfuch - Little Flower H.S. Class of 1970

I received this e-mail photo from my old pal Lester. Lester was the son of the late Tanczo and Muriel Mukinfuch and lived in the apartments above Wise's Five and Dime on 79th Street between Marshfield and Paulina.

Lester used to push the phalanx of unoccupied swing seats at Clara Barton School as hard as he could, close his eyes and try to duck them, like Napoleon Solo did with swirling razor sharp bladed on Man From Uncle,* well into his late teens. Lester would loudly gum out the base riff from MFU theme music (Dun,Dun,Dunt,Dunt -Dun, Dun, Dunt, Dunt,Dunt . . .) -Duck, pop up, and take the the quarter inch pine in the teeth.

Lester was a lovely guy. He recently retired from the faculty of University of Chicago where he had been a Distinguished Professor of Social Work and had been consultant for AFSCME and the SEIU, as well as Organizing for America.

Unmarried and childless, Lester had gone to Alaska on holiday and having become a great fan of the Bear Whisperer on the Animal Planet Channel, wanted to get close to Ursus arctos horribilis .

When I received this photo attached to the following e-mail from his Cingular camera phone at 7:55PM last night posted below, I notified Bob Sheehy, President of Sheehy & Sons Funeral Homes to expect a delivery from •Ketchikan, Alaska -

Hick!

Alaska is assume! The Woods Streets guys ud love it! Beers alot, but there'sbears out here. Look I foun on my table! Back on . . .

Ubi Sunt, the lads of my youth!

HT to Max Weismann of the Center for the Study of Great Ideas -Lester never met Max, nor a Great Idea.

Know Not What Misfortune - My Dad's Elysian Fields

My Dad loved his childhood home at 7535 S. Marshield in the Gresham neighborhood ( Little Flower Parish) in Chicago.

He lived there with his sister Helen, the eleven brothers and sisters ( Mary, Bud, Mike, Nora, Kathleen, Marquerite, Jack, Joan, Donald, Bart and Sylvester) who have preceded him to Christ's mantel.

My grandmother Nora and grandfather Laurence bought this home before the Great Depression and maintained it throughout as well as thirteen children, a huge garden, goats and chickens - before the advent of nanny-state ordinances.

From 7535 S. Marshfield Patrick Eugene Hickey went to Little Flower Church and very briefly to the Grammar School, where in the cryptic folklore of Irish family proprieties the Hickey's willful middle child is said to have proved to be an incorrigible - My Uncle Bart, who followed my Dad into the Marines and unrepentant Diogenes who would tell an adolescent nephew that Eileen O'Connor had a 'great set of pins on her,' revelealed, "Your Old Man Decked a Nun -that's why he went to Clara Barton.

Clara Barton Elementary is closer to the ancestral manse than Little Flower and it was there that Dad made pals for life with Catholics and Non-Catholics, Bob Nelson,Dave McMillian, Marsh Anderson, and Russ Haberle. The middle child was ecumenically inclined Catholic as far back as the 1930's. He played ball at Foster Park and Billy Smith Field. Together with the traditional Catholic Crowd who attended Little Flower ( Jimmy Arneberg, Dick Prendergast, Jimmy McNicholas, Tony Kelly and others) they soaked thick rope in gasoline, streched it across 79th Street, lit it afire and stopped streetcars, just to do it. They danced and roller skated with the girls at St. Sabina's Dances and worked hauling ashes at Fleishman's Standard Brands, hauled mail sacks on Polk Street, and coal at Grogans on 76h & Ashland.

These streets of Gresham and prairies and alleys of Little Flower Parish were his Elysian Fields. Patrick Eugene Hickey is there again.

Click my post title for the map of the neighborhood and then click on the address in blue for a photo of his home. It was the home of my massive extended Hickey Family. It remains so.

EcclesiastesChapter 11

Cast your bread upon the waters; after a long time you may find it again.

Make seven or eight portions; you know not what misfortune may come upon the earth.

When the clouds are full, they pour out rain upon the earth. Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north, wherever it falls, there shall it lie.

One who pays heed to the wind will not sow, and one who watches the clouds will never reap.

Just as you know not how the breath of life fashions the human frame in the mother's womb, So you know not the work of God which he is accomplishing in the universe.

In the morning sow your seed, and at evening let not your hand be idle: For you know not which of the two will be successful, or whether both alike will turn out well.

Light is sweet! and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun.

However many years a man may live, let him, as he enjoys them all, remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that is to come is vanity.

Rejoice, O young man, while you are young and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart, the vision of your eyes; Yet understand that as regards all this God will bring you to judgment.

Ward off grief from your heart and put away trouble from your presence, though the dawn of youth is fleeting.

St. Leo the Great, Pope, Doctor of the Church

The works of mercy are innumerable. Their very variety brings this advantage to those who are true Christians, that in the matter of almsgiving not only the rich and affluent but also those of average means and the poor are able to play their part. Those who are unequal in their capacity to give can be equal in the love within their hearts. St. Leo The Great


Today is the Feast of St. Leo The Great. I was baptized in St. Leo the Great Parish in 1952 by Monsignor Pat Molloy*.

St. Leo the Great Parish at 77th & Emerald was once the largest Catholic Parish in Chicago and eventually was divided into St. Sabina, St. Kilian, and Little Flower Parishes. Click my post title for Dr. Eileen McMahon's account of the action. Four Huge Catholic Parishes -That's a lot of Mackeral Snappers!

Today's Gospel from St. Luke for the Feast of St. Leo The Great is very telling about all of us - well me anyway.

Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, `Come at once and sit down at table'? Will he not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink'? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, `We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'"

Luke 17: 7 - 10

I was told by my Dad years ago, "You don't get "Atta Boys" for doing your job."

* Rose Keefe's -Guns & Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O'Banion

On November 14,1924 the hearse leaves Sbarbaro's Funeral chapel followed by cars carrying flowers en masse and made it's way to Mount Carmel Cemetary.

At the crowded cemetary, Father Patrick Malloy of St. Thomas of Canterbury church recites prayers for for the kind person he knew in O'Banion. Father Malloy stated that "One good turn deserves another" this in reference to O'Banion's helping needy and poor families on the Northside. After O'Banion is laid to rest, the Northsiders go on the hunt for everyone implicated in O'Banion's murder.

http://books.google.com/books?id=sGz8dePJA7YC&pg=RA1-PA210&lpg=RA1-PA210&dq=Father+Pat+Malloy+Chicago&source=bl&ots=u-P1cODVKE&sig=ZG_kAyQwSAnSiGnYWe

Tyna Robertson and Arianna Huffington: Serial Sisters of Superstar Serangeti

Nothing says Christmas like Sharing. Toys for Tots; Salvation Army Buckets; St. Cajetan's 8th Graders Caroling for the Elderly; giving trees at Sacred Heart Parish for poor kids in Englewood and serial skanks Tyna Robertson and Arianna Huffington helping themselves to people with talent.

Yep, my old heart is warmer than Brian Urlacher's Under Armor after the OT win over Green Bay and gayer than the cowboys and farmers in the swell choreography of Oklahoma!

It seems that the spirit of giving and taking has blanketed the landscape of Chicago like Patrick Fitzgerald's paper trail wire-net on Governor Blagojevich this snowy Chicago morning.

Item one: The Lord of Dance, Chicago's Own Michael Flatley of Little Flower Parish*, has horn-piped a chorus line of lawyers seeking documents on why serial dater Tyna Robertson has not met the vig on the $11 million settlement dropped into her elegantly manicured mitts:

Burr Ridge, IL -
Tyna Robertson got a house call from the Cook County sheriff’s office at about 8:30 a.m. Monday, Dec. 22, at her Burr Ridge home.

The mother of Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher’s son was under arrest. Robertson was arrested for a warrant stemming from false sexual allegations she made against Michael Flatley, of Riverdance fame, according to media reports.

The dancer requested Robertson be held in contempt.

Robertson was taken into custody this morning and appeared in a Cook County circuit court later this afternoon.

The case involving Flatley ruled for Robertson to pay $11 million, which she has allegedly not paid any part of, according to reports. Cook County Judge Alexander White said if Robertson does not cooperate with Flately’s attorney, she could go to county jail for six months.

Robertson was supposed to appear in court for the Flatley case but did not show up, reports state. She contends she never received notice, reports state.

Reports said that Urlacher picked up his son, Kennedy, after Robertson was arrested. Urlacher and the Bears are scheduled to play the Green Bay Packers tonight at Soldier Field in Chicago.

http://www.mysuburbanlife.com/darien/police_and_fire/x512360393/Mother-of-Brian-Urlacher-s-son-arrest-at-Burr-Ridge-home-this-morning

Urlacher has gotta love Lord of the Dance! Nothing says Christmas like a gift from a complete stranger.

Stranger yet is Arianna Huffington, the Greek serial dater who looted some California tycoon slob named Huffington of his family handle and all his gelt.

Arianna's millions gave her the where-with-all to become a dedicated Leftist and publisher of Huffington Post - The Hollywood Squares of Internet journalism. Huffington Post is remarkable for its cavalcade of C-List Hollywood talent and wits who post columns fulminating against President Bush, praising Congressional Puffer Fish Barney Frank, and congratulating celebrities for having strong like-minded opinions. Some of the lightweights for Huffington Post include: Steve Weber - a generally face-less actor who was on some TV show back in the 90's,Marty Kaplan a guy with a resume like GD's Rap Sheet, Bob Creamer, check-kiting felon and Progressive Lecturer.

Well it seems that Arianna's gang has been pinching material from people with genuine talent:

Kevin Allman, a New Orleans journalist and editor of Gambit Weekly, finds The Huffington Post's idea of starting a whole series of city-focused aggregation sites hypocritical, especially given the site is named after Arianna Huffington, a popular, and now-liberal-leaning columnist.

In other words: professional newsgathering organizations have paid professional writers to do professional work, and then Arianna comes in, creates links to their creations, and sells ads on her own page. How progressive.

But Peretti says some 95 percent of The Huffington Post's traffic goes through the headline links, and that when The Huffington Post does original reporting or adds to a story, it changes a headline link to point to its content.


Otherwise, the Chicago project picks the 'best' stories from publications like the Chicago Tribune, the Sun Times and the Chicago Reader.

As for disgruntled publishers, Peretti seems genuinely perplexed and says The Huffington Post links should be good for them — and suggests that upset editors get in touch and build relationships with Huffington Post editors.

Oh, Yeah!!!


BWAAAAHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAA!

You, Sweet-Pea, are a Lulu,Sir!

Heck, I do that near every day - lift stuff off the Internet and write about it ( but I always [as much as in my limited powers to do so] and give Credit/HTs/Props/Acknowledgments and provide links to the sources)for nothing - no pay - just to practice my writing chops for benefit of you my human sisters and brothers.

Christmas 365/24/7 - for Patrick Francis, doncha know? Shoot, I'm a Soft-touch. I make a drop to every Squeegee Artist and Styrofoam Cup Capitalist! They are actually out there working! Unlike Arianna and Kid Sis Tyna!

Tyna and Arianna, it seems - by what it is reported in the news and elsewhere - to me are just a pair of Lion sisters poised to pounce out there on the Celebrity Serengeti: cut a weak man out of the herd and devour! Merry Christmas Girls!

* Click my post title for more on Flatley