Where Did All of Chicago's Hedge Bushes Go?

My childhood home at 1755 W. &75th Place today has all but been de-nuded of hedges - only a slight strip remains.

I walk to St. John Fisher in the morning between 6:00 and 6:30 A.M. - weather, laziness and time permitting.  It is a solid mile to the church and my vigorous gait usually gets me there in under fifteen minutes.  I mediate, plan the day, wallow in guilt and pray during this exercise.

Since childhood, I have had the attention span of parakeet ( 'bite the cuttle bone!' -'whack the bell!'-'head-butt the mirror!' - 'splash water!') and tend to flit the old noggin with varying perceptions - "this guy's lawn is worse than mine . . .Thank Christ. Charleston Chew wrappers!!!!  Where they get Charleston Chews? Love those.  These kids on Talman have more Fisher Price toys than Toys R Us . . . cool fort" for example.

Occasionally, this quality time of mine pulls together larger questions.  These past few days, I have noticed the lack of property hedges - the Right angles of bushy shrubbery that at one time seemed to dominate neighborhood landscapes.  Nellie Stevens Holly, Schip Cherry Laurel and Barberry shrubs once outlined our streets and walkways.  

Where is the Chicago neighborhood Bungalow Bocage?

I remark merely on its absence and wonder how kids can grow up with their heads screwed on straight without having had the experience of being knocked into the hedge on the way to school.

Hedges were magical!  They were castles, forts, Green Walls for Home Run Derby, jungles, zoos, hiding places, bushwhacking opportunities and the leaves could be made into musical instruments.

I spent many early mornings pulling myself out hedges on Honore, having taken the inside lane closer to properties and being Maury Lanigan-ed into a Cherry Laurel fencing the sidewalk in front of Al Balauskas's bunglow.  Paper bag covered books torn, folders of sloppy homework em-barbed in the sharp branches and my ego shocked out of existence to delighted howls of my boon buddies - " Walk on the outside, Hickey!" - prepared me for this  Vale of Tears that is our lot.

Each of us would spend time in the bushes.

Each of us, male and female, would learn that life is paved with unexpected checks into the boards.

The hedges helped.

A Greek American Made Chicago the Marshmallow Capital and I made a Mess of Campfire Marshmallows at Cracker Jack

I was reading DNAinfo Chicago's article about the openning of the "first" Chicago Marshmallow Cafe!!!!!!  XO Marshmallow, set to open in Rogers Park July 1st, sound too cute by half, "For marshmallow-lovers, it's an edible playground.The store features a mixture of ready-to-eat treats, customizable topping bars, hot and cold drinks and other items for sale, as well as offer a small seating area. "

Okay.

Kind of a BFD story; marshmallows and Chicago are old news.

I made marshmallows, when I got burned and broke three toes working the line at Cracker Jack in 1968.  It was a godsend.

The college kid with whom I was paired passed out from the heat and dropped his end of hot huge kettle of molten cracker jacker, which whammed down on my brogans and broke the Big toe and two of his cousins and burned the hell out of my shins.

Crack Jack Factory on Cicero Ave. was a Fritz Laing of a place in 1968.



My Cousin Mike and I got hired even though we were under age - He was 17 and me just shy of it. We were assigned as General Indirect - we could be sent anywhere and told to do anything: sew up bags of re-cycled corn starch, load freight, or work as a machinist's gofer in the plant.  We worked production every day 3-9 P.M.  We followed F.W. Rueckheim's recipe made famous at the Chicago Exhibition.

Popcorn and peanuts coated in caramel stick together in a huge gooey mass. Rueckheim's little brother came up with the idea of blowing air into the mixture and giving it a long tumble in a cement mixer type of drum and VOILA! Separate but equally delicious.

In 1968, Cracker Jack went 24/7 and Production was on the top floor. It was 115 degrees on average.  We began each day with crisp white uniform and came out eight hours later brownish yellow.

The operation went like this.

• At the sound of bell one man would take the 65 gallon steel drum full of hot popcorn from an assembly line to his dual work station (one man left and one right), pour a cup of corn oil into the popcorn and mix until a bell rang
• At this bell, each man would kick his kettle up on the station fitted with a huge screw, an Air blowing duct, and valve release for the boiling hot carmel - pull lever, wait for the bell.  
• Shut valve
• Place long steel rod into the mixture and stir until bell
• Open Air jet - wait for bell
• Close Air jet - wait of bell Lower screw and mix - for bell
• Raise screw - wait for bell
• Horse kettle off and drag to conveyor with your partner swing kettle onto conveyor
• Conveyor goes to the dump shute and Cracker Jack goes down one floor where peanuts are added. 

All shift, you sweat like a whore in church.

The lower floor where coated peanuts are added is . . .air conditioned.  It is on this floor that the peanuts and the prizes are added.  Women make up the work force here, with the exception of the machinist. Cousin Mike was assigned to the machinist and was stuck with a Joe college newbie. 

I would soon go to the cold!

The day Mike was reassigned, my partner passed out and I went to the Clearing Health Clinic and told, " You got busted toes kid," had salves applied to the burns, take two days off.

I went back to work three days later. I was told to make marshmallows.

On this air conditioned paradise Campfire Marshmallows are made according the recipe of Greek American hero Alex Doumakes - Americanized to Doumak. 

The Marshmallow is a flower with tasty health benefits.  In the mid 1800's the French mixed the flower's juices with eggs and sugar, as a lozenge for swells.  In the 19th Century, Chicago became the hog-butcher of the world and world cent for gelatin.

Gelatin, boys and girls, " is a translucent, colorless, brittle (when dry), flavorless food derived from collagen obtained from various animal body parts. It is commonly used as a gelling agent in food, pharmaceutical drugs, vitamin capsules, photography, and cosmetic manufacturing." 

Bones, hair, fats, snouts, hooves, ears and tails of piggies, lambs and cows makes Jello!

Gelatin became all the rage. Aspics were no longer limited to the swells, but available to Stosh and Gert.

Jello Gelatin became synonymous with Cherry, Lemon, Orange and Lime and not hogs, beeves and sheep parts. 

Chicago is a waste not, want not town, or it was. 

By 1921, a Greek in California came up with a recipe for Marshmallows in their current form.  Gelatin allowed the confection to be produced cheaply and widely. Soon Alex Doumak's recipe was side-by-side with Herr Rueckheim's Cracker Jack right here in Chicago. 

My task was to monitor the serpentine flow of sweet white gelatinous oozings of to the corn starch covering. This goo clogged up a storm and set-f alarms bells until the machinist showed up to cloear it.  I was stuck - stuck -stuck with ropes of marshmallow all over me.   Like the Laocoon I was covered in snakes of marshmallow. 

After eight hours of fighting boas of marshmallow and stepping onto the spillage, I had added an additional three inches to the majesty of my height. This repeated itself for next two days, until production boss Tony Grippo had had enough of the machinist pissing in his ear about 'That gap-toothed moron fucked up the marshmallow conductor again' and was sent back to the 115 degree heat of Cracker Jack Production.  

Damn glad I was of it too.  They found out that me and Mike were under-age and gave us the heave-ho.  Damn glad we were of it too.  

It's a Chicago thing, this yarn. 

Marshmallows are plants that soothed sore throats when mixed sugar and eggs - for the well-off.  Gelatin is a by-product of animal parts.  Chicago was ground zero for animal parts.  A German mixed caramel coated popcorn and peanuts and became a portmanteau word and baseball icon. A Greek made marshmallows available top working stiffs.  The German stated making and marketing the Greek's confection from his Chicago plants. I made both.  Now there is a Marshmallow Cafe. 

Damn glad I was of it too.

Marshmallow Cafe? Pass. 

Neighbors Celebrate Hickey's Delayed Lawn Work With a Blue Angels Flyover!

This is my Lawn Mower.  It is generated by the will to go out and cut the grass, weeds, dandelions and tree branchlings behind the force of my sixty-four year old frame and , of course,  the time to do it. Hey, I been busy. Really. As the poet said, Time flies like an arrow and Fruit Flies Like a Banana.

Prior to this day's cuttings and pullings, Lawn Hickey was not unlike this!

Homo , Civis et proximum. eum locum te deducas languoribus peresus triturans triturabit!

Time! on whose arbitrary wing
The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,
But drag or drive us on to die---
Hail thou! who on my birth bestowed
Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,
For now I bear the weight alone.

Get your fat ass out to the garage! Lube the damn wheels on the WalMart Special and start pushing!

With rapid Force our sharpen'd Blades we drive,
Strain ev'ry Nerve, and Blow for Blow we give.
All strive to vanquish, tho' the Victor gains
No other Glory, but the greatest Pains.

Here -  and here is what I hath wrought!

WITH Heat and Labour tir'd, our Scythes we quit,
Search out a shady Tree, and down we sit:
From Scrip and Bottle hope new Strength to gain;
But Scrip and Bottle too are try'd in vain.

New-growing Labours still succeed the past;
And growing always new, must always last.

The neighbors are having a Fly-Over by the Blue Angels at noon.   

Parodies Lost, or Milton in Monee

Outside of Crete- Monee, Illinois is a massive trucker stop and in it long-distance knights of the road can get a shower and meal. A question was posed to the hard-biten by life, 'I have-witnessed it all and change' fry cook and proprietor, Billy Foy.

One Ace of the Highways dropped in and posed playful questions of the onion and spuds chopping master of the house, launched his lanky as he launched his haunches onto to the rotating stool and asked, "Hey! How have you been, Billy Foy, Billy Boy? Hey, How have you been, Smelly Billy?"

Without looking up from his labors, the truck-stop Rick Bayless snorted, " I have been sleeping with your wife, she fills a hole my life, But she's a dumb thing and doesn't  seem to bother."

Unfazed the jimmy engine-braker continued, " Did let she you in house, Billy Foy, Billy Boy? Did she let you in our house, Fetid Billy?"

Flipping the diced Vidalias and Yukons, the Monee mess masher handed back, " She opened her garage, where was parked your vintage Dodge, and we nailed things right on your back-up starter."

The lanky road warrior was abashed, " I'll have the spinach - pie, Billy Foy, Billy boy. I'll have the spinach pie, Mephitic Billy."

With the contempt of Agamemnon for Menelaus, the Cretan cuisinier turned and said, " You'll get better than your wife, there's the door, I gotta knife ( snort) How about Chun King, or the #$%^ing salmon platter."


If this reminds you of anything, it really shouldn't.

Tales of the South Side & Billy Corgan: Barks Coleman's Childhood Home for Sale

By Bob Goldsborough
Special to the Tribune
7:48 a.m. CDT, April 28, 2014
The four-bedroom, raised ranch-style house in west suburban Glendale Heights where Smashing Pumpkins founder and frontman Billy Corgan spent much of his preteen and teenage years has been listed for $175,000.
One of the most successful rockers ever to come out of the Chicago area, Corgan, 47, now lives in a massive vintage mansion on Lake Michigan in Highland Park.
But for close to a decade -- from 1977 until he graduated from Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream in 1985 -- Corgan hung his hat in his family’s 1,531-square-foot house in Glendale Heights.
Corgan’s father, blues and rock guitarist William Corgan Sr., and stepmother, Penelope, paid $49,000 for the house in 1977, according to public records. After the couple divorced in 1983, Corgan, his brother and his half-brother all continued living in the home with his stepmother, according to court records.
After graduating from high school, Corgan moved to St. Petersburg, Fla. for a brief stint before returning to Chicago and proceeding to form the Smashing Pumpkins. In 1986, Penelope Corgan sold the house for $80,000 to . . . 

I deserve a big old spank for not giving Chicago rock retiree and celebrity pain-in-the-ass his props, yesterday! Well, I was busy and that is certainly no excuse.  The Chicago Tribune posted the above article on the front page, because Billy Corgan's "childhood' home is on the realtor's block.

How about that? Well, did you know this ?

Driving home from Leo High School yesterday, I took a turn west through the old neighborhood along 76th Street.  I noticed a for sale sign on former the home of Terry "Barks" Coleman. Barks was the son of button accordion genius Maurice " Mossie" Coleman who immigrated to Chicago during the Irish Civil War from northwest County Kerry.

Mossie Coleman was a pathologically taciturn gentleman, who closely kept his own counsel, but otherwise spoke volumes when his huge fingers danced on the buttons of his vintage Salterell  Le Bouebe with like of Joe Shannon,  John McGreevy,  Eleanor Neary,  James Keane,Sr, Frank Thornton, Jimmy Neary, Maida Sugrue and the great Terry Teahan at Hanley's House of Happiness on 79th Street, AOH's Cannon Hall on Halsted and at every Ceile in Chicago.

Mossie worked as a stationary oiler/fireman at the old Audy Home which was a very good trade and bought the Georgian two-story home at 76th & Wood Street in 1955. Mrs. Coleman worked as a waitress at the Beverly Woods Banquet Hall in Morgan Park on the weekends and raised the four boys Terry, Austin, Brice and Maurice, who later went by Maurey eschewing the Turkey bird*cognomen.

Terry was my age and pal'd it up all through grammar school and into high school.  Terry became "Barks," in 6th Grade when he came to school each day with a nasty chest-deep cold and emitted massive Barks when he coughed and annoyed the perpetually annoyed Sister Doralese, RSM.  " Barking, Barking Barking Terry Coleman! Ye'll bark yer last on the next go round, my fine man! No room in the TB home for the likes of ye?" She was as pretty as she was nice.

Barks has that name, like every young person who grew up on the south side and a handle attached by dint of signal flaw, physical, ancestral, or moral to his/her presence on earth.  Barks fit Terry Coleman like a glove, or cheap pants.  He will carry that name into eternity.

Barks learned button accordion from his father and transferred his talents and skills to the Farfisa Mini-Organ in 1966 and played with a local garage band at dances, block parties and beer summits in the abandoned house Ronnie Graff and Al McFarland discovered over by Lindbloom High School.  Barks Coleman was in demand as a musician and was picked up by Cyrcul Jerques - 
Five neat guys from Little Flower, Tommy More and St Sabina's parishes - That's Barks at the keys in the greaseball shades.

 Barks could do all the requisite organ and piano riffs to the best tunes of 1960's. He could Paul Revere, Young Rascal, Wilson Pickett, Vanilla Fudge, Kingsman and Steppenwolf with the best of them.

His old house is up for sale, just like Uncle Fester of Smashing Pumpkins. 

* "In the South side of Chicago, the term "turkey bird" is often used to describe a person who was born in Ireland. Although both my parents were Irish American, my father was a "turkey bird," while my mother was born in the United States. My siblings and I often affectionately referred to our father and his Irish-born friends as "turkey birds." Neither my father nor his friends ever took offense to this term and, in fact, used the term themselves to define a person’s exact roots. Recently one of my brothers was at a family party and started to discuss the origin of this term with a nephew (whose father also was born in Ireland). A woman, who is not of Irish heritage herself, but whose husband was born in Ireland, overheard the conversation and took great offense to the discussion. From where did this term originate? Is this term used throughout the United States? Has the nature of this term changed? Is it now considered offensive? Was it always offensive and my father and his friends just had thick skins?"  Kathleen Klinger

Tate Buckthorn - King of the Knitting Cowboys: Cadets Ain't G-Men

Tate Buckthorn Knits '. . .you have a problem with that? Let's hear it on your hind legs, barkside out, Pard.'

Some cowboys sing, some play the Guit-box, some others toss the lasso, but Tate Buckthorn's knits.  He knits sweaters, throw rugs, baby socks and when perturbed his bushy eyebrows.  Many a dry-gulching, back shooter learned that the purl'n and stich'n irons in the thick calloused hands of Tate Buckthorn can be as deadly as the shoot'n irons on his hips and  tied to his thighs.

Back in '38, when the Amerikadeutscher Volksbund was grabbing all of the best tables in Chicago's beer-gardens, Tate Buckthorn drovered a herd from the louvered rail-cars on the tracks above Canaryville's Root Street and into the Union Stockyards of Chicago.  He was tall on the saddle and knitting away like a widow woman with an eye for the Sears Catalog boys in swimming trunks, but her mind on the gospel messages. Yep, he was busy on the saddle, but with an eye on the 94% of beeves that survived the rail passage to the slaughter pens.

A group of boys from Morgan Park Military Academy were on field trip to the stockyards that day and noted the tall, bronzed figure standing on the ornate Charro saddle hugging the back and belly of  his14.2 hand bucksin stallion, Purl. Tate was doing what the Mex charros call a suerte - showing off.

The teenage boys were wowed by the cowboy's balance and command.

One big, red-headed lunk with jug-ears and buck teeth under his garrison cap halloed, " Hey Lady! Better take a chair and tend to your knitting!"

Tate slowed the pace of Purl some and went as bright-eyed as that school marm back in Fort Smith went,when Tate presented her with a hand knitted sampler containing a pornographic two-dimensional  suggestion for a mutual  day off and answered, " Pard, let me tend to your knitting."  With that, he sprung from the back of Purl and landed square in front of the cadet.





" Well, Red, ain't you the curly wolf, just!   I knit to keep focused and focus is the difference between keepin' a whole skin and taking a steer's antlers in the ribs, Pard.  Some Pokes sing, some twirl the lasso and I knit."

Tate leaped back into the saddle, " Follow me, Red and drag along all them army loafer Pards of your'n and we'll all get familiar with some Sasparilla."  They repaired to a corner store at Wentoworth and Root streets with a blue and white painted  coffin- like ice cooler packed with bottles of root beer next to the store's front steps and entrance to the shop.

Tate Buckthorn treated each of the score of boys ( that's twenty Bufflao Head, brethren) in caps and green uniforms to a bottle of Old Dutch a piece while he squatted on his haunches and knit. The boys petted and cooed over the great horse caparisoned in silver latigos and saddle strings. The door swung open with great noise and violence.  A man emerged wearing  very tight fitting black top-coat.  Under his black bowler hat set the pair meanest grey eyes this side of the Old Man.  He had a muscular thick neck that challenged the collar of his tan shirt and bulged the knot of bow tie out into the public.

" Move on away from my door so people can traffic into my shop  You have ( he said Half) your Pop now go!.  This is private, now!"

" No reason to put the bulge on, Pard. Me and these h'yar saddled-chaps and my old Cayuse, Purl, don't mean to obstruct the trail none."

" Well, take your knitting elsewhere."

It got quiet. . ..two quiet.

Tate stood full to the flush, but let the insult pass.

" Hombres, lets move across the street to that other corner." Indicating the sign above the grocery and notions shop hung sign bearing the name of the owner.

" I take it you are Mr. Hintern-Schnüffeln."

" I have that honor. Why?"

"Some handle.  I see you do not sell beer to Indians.  Get a crowd of Comanch are these parts?"



The Bowler'd square head went blood red,  " There are many tribes of Indian."

Tate Buckthorn sized up the warning sign as well as the owner proprieter.

" I'appears to me, that you lay claim to a wide field."

"  Soon, we will not need such signs, nor require an explanation to the likes of you and all Untermenschen."

" Well, Juniper, I'd wager my next six packets of hard money that you arfe one of them Papier-Aufhänger Liebhaber Wer hasst Juden, Schwarze, Katholiken, Zigeuner und Fuller Brush Männer.

" I do not hate Fuller Brush Men!  You . . . Sie sprechen sehr gut Deutsch für eine Satteltramp.

" Do you sabe un culo kansas antaño patadas?"

The store owner pulled a Ruger MK III .22 automatic from his coat pocket and threatened Tate, but more so the twenty cadets.

" Alle von euch Ratten, weg von meiner Tür bzw. diesen Cowboy, der der Jude Krankenhaus auf 29th Street senden!"

The threat of violence and race-baiting rhetorical flourishes by the bowler wearing Bunds had taken the rag of the bush and Tate's wrists rolled yarn by the yard from the twin needles yet clutched in his gnarled hands.  The Bowler'd bully boy's Nazi heater clattered to the cement and the big buck-toothed red-headed cadet from Morgan Park Military Academy kicked the gat far way from the two combatants and into the Canaryville gutter,

With the Teutonic trouble-making desparado ensnarled in butternut wool, Tate tightened the yarn on the Heinie Hyena until the coppers arrived.

The man was charged with threatening boys with and unlicensed hand gun and taken to hoosegowl on 35th Street.  He was booked.

Tate was surrounded by the boys who had had an adventure in the stockyards.  The big redhead thumbed back the brim of his garrison cap and offered, " Mr. Buckthorn I learned a great lesson today."

Tate smiled high wide and handsome, " Tend to your knitting Red! Tend to your knitting and visit the gospel mill every Sunday!  . . .and drink Old Dutch Root Beer!."

Tales of the South Side -The Victim

Aunt Olympia thought him "Sharp! Real Cool Man!"; his contemporaries . . . not so much.

Listen to your relatives . . .with a handful of salt.  Uncle Jim might suggest a tatoo.  Cousin Buck might offer a suggestion on head-gear akin to Elmer Fudd's haberdashing noggin.  Aunt Stell might think you'd look cute in a slutty-biker chick's leathers and Dad might even suggest WWI leggings for cold winter days.  Listen, nod, but be wary.

Quinn Swallowski  listened to Aunt Oly and selected only really stylish low-priced menswear from Zembski's Family Store on 41rd by Archer and dressed accordingly.  Quinn wrapped himself in smart low-priced fashion and does so to this very day.  Others might find a Brooks Brothers look at a modest tariff but Quinn went full Zembski's at retail . . .and looked it.

"Forget them Baskins, Sears, Munky Wards, Joe-College Red Hanger wallet lifters, Quinn; go by Zembski over by Archer there. Save you money and look nice." the large and meaty mouthed Aunt Olympia commanded.

God generously featured Quinn corporeally -" He looked nice.  Nice hair, nice eyes, nice teeth - nice.

Quinn never ripped his trousers or dirtied his shirts.  Aunt Oly told him of those dangers though she dressed like an auto -mechanic at lunch.  Oly told and Quinn bought it.

This confidence shared between aunt and nephew proved daunting, when young Quinn attended Hubbard High School in 1991.  It seems that some of his school mates found the pretence and self-attention challenging themselves.  That was in a time when bullying was not a one way street,  not  like Hamlin, or today.


Quinn's parents were old country DPs with barely enough English to cash a check at the currency exchange across the street from the Giant Indian at 63rd & Pulaski.

Quinn learned fashion from Aunt Olympia, who was divorced from Uncle Bogdan three days after their wedding and lived with Frieda above the pet store at 63rd Kolin. Aunt Margie was a hoot - she could open non-twist off beer caps and had been a softball All Star for ten years running.   Uncle Bogdan beat it to Tinley Park, or Oak Forest somewhere.  He dressed like a machinist and refused "to wear nice powder blue leisure suit to wedding."

Quinn was named Quinn after his father's foreman at Tootsie Roll by Cicero Ave. and thought the given name might counter pollack jokes from the ever diminishing Irish around 63rd Street. Not so much.  Better Arabs, Mexes and Blacks than crook Micks - kiepska banda drani.  Quinn's parents respected American born little sister Oly's judgments, "She first went by Zembski's; is nice."

Quinn Swallowski dressed nice and he was nice boy like Osmond Brother.


Such things mattered not to the Insane Popes around Hubbard High.  Quinn found things unsettling as the only snappy dresser among a herd of RPN ( Royal Popes Nation) bedecked in White Sox gear only.

Name calling directed at Quinn was identity specific and colorful.  Quinn ignored taunts and managed his time according to curriculum schedule, detention and shift changes at 8th Police District over by St. Louis Street.

Aunt Oly even picked Quinn up from school when her shift at Tootsie Roll allowed -some weeks day; some weeks nights.  Afternoons?  Run, Quinn!

Run Quinn did, like a hobbled Llama.  His running gait only added to the reactive scorn from his contemporaries.  His friends all went to Maria High School, or St. Rita.  Hubbard was tough . . .is tough.

Quinn became a model for Zembski's catalog and eventually landed a great gig with Sears.  He was making money hand over fist over hand.  Quinn's gang banger antagonist had matriculated to  getting tequila and 40 oz. empties collaged around their graves over by St. Mary's Cemetery on Pulaski.

Three years after graduation, Quinn was asked to model for Chicago Public Schools literature and made even more money.

Quinn still deferred to Aunt Oly's fashion judgment.  Soon, Quinn's services were no longer desired at CPS.

Quinn Swallowski was the wrong face in the wrong duds.

Aunt Oly moved to Florida with Frieda, when the damn Mexicans bought the building and kicked out pet store and cancelled the rent of two old bags. Quinn is unemployed, but still looks great within the fashion context set by Aunt Olympia.

Quinn remains a victim.

Hey, I'm just sayin'!

.