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.

Lynn Sweet Sweet on Bloomberg? Big Beverage and Little Voters Bad.

The Cook County pop tax: Conceived Nov. 10, 2016, when Cook County Board members approved the one-cent-per-ounce Sweetened Beverage Tax. Born on Aug. 2, 2017, its effective date. Date of death was decreed by a 15-2 repeal vote on Wednesday. The tax dies at the end of the county fiscal year, midnight on Nov. 30.
Bloomberg is crusading for higher taxes on sugary drinks as a way to reduce the obesity epidemic in this nation, with allies including the American Heart Association, active in the Cook County fight. Lynn Sweet Chicago Sun Times Cheerleader

Lynn Sweet really has a sweet gig.  Hang with the mighty and do their bidding.  Many of us out here in the fly-over land of helots are not so fortunate.

Lynn Sweet lists every government that took Mike Bloomberg's coin to kill Pop USA, as if any of these bought agencies matter to any of us.

Referendums in Oakland and Albany in 2016 approved the beverage tax, aligning these California East Bay cities with Berkeley, with a tax in effect since 2015.
Boulder and Seattle also have sweetened beverage taxes.
In 2017, however, Bloomberg’s team is hitting a rough patch when it comes to beverage taxes. Will the Cook County repeal give the beverage industry anti-tax drive momentum?

It do seem to be the case!

• Michigan state lawmakers took notice of the uproar in Cook County and last week, in a pre-emptive move, sent a bill to the governor to ban local governments from imposing soda taxes.
• On Oct. 4, the St. Helen, Oregon, city council voted down a sugar-sweetened beverage tax.
• On May 2, voters in Santa Fe, New Mexico, defeated a proposed 2-cents-per-ounce tax on sodas.
• Last spring, West Virginia state lawmakers dropped a beverage tax proposal.

Yeah, that Oakland CA is one head's up burg, Lynn, and Berkeley sends me too.

Not a bit. Not a sugary bit.

Try running a family owned gas station in Morgan Park, like Kean, and then have something like the Glorious Sugar Tax imposed upon your filling station, that also depends upon a steady flow of customers who not only gas up, but purchase pop, sweetened tea, Slurpees and sports drinks, as well.

A small fortune in revenue was lost over the past months thanks to a social engineering scam dressed up as a health issue to shore up political budgetary screw-ups.

Fat kids were not responsible for Cook County spending sprees:

. . . Preckwinkle sweetened the deal by giving each commissioner control over $500,000 in gas tax revenue to spend on transportation projects in their districts. She also rallied public health advocates to point out that downing fewer Mountain Dews could lead to a drop in obesity and diabetes.
Commissioners deadlocked, and Preckwinkle cast a rare, tie-breaking vote to impose the tax. If it hadn't gone as smoothly as Preckwinkle hoped, at least the new tax had passed, the budget was balanced and the heat was mostly on her.
Then it all started to unravel.
While the vote was taken in November 2016, providing plenty of distance from the March 2018 primary election, the tax wasn't scheduled to take effect until July 1.
The vagaries of federal law, the Illinois Constitution and state statutes meant it took months to come up with the rules of how the tax would be put in place, and changes were still being made late in the game.
For example, county officials at one point planned to tax low-income folks receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, but the state later told them that could not be done.

Not mention a sugary carrot to union County employees"

 However, it's worth noting that Teamsters Local 700 endorsed passage of the penny-an-ounce tax on sweetened beverages, saying at the time that it would "guarantee job security for hundreds of people that work for Cook County." The levy passed with Preckwinkle casting a tie-breaking vote.
It's also pertinent that Local 700 has been one of Preckwinkle's main campaign donors in recent years, with the Local and an affiliated Teamsters group using the same Park Ridge address giving her campaign fund at least $68,000 since 2014.
In the memo, Robinson is trying to build support for ratification and perhaps exaggerates a bit if only to look good.
The proposed pact includes some things taxpayers may like, with wages frozen the first year and then rising 2 percent across-the-the-board in each in the second and third years. "Step," or experience-based raises, also would be frozen for two years, but then be fully implemented.

Like the Proco Joe Chick Fil A Purge, Chicago and Cook County Values are not spun from Marilyn Katz's MK Communications, but born in the neighborhood values forge by faith and family.

Lynn Sweet of the Sun Times,  a very dependable Cook County, City of Chicago and Democratic Party cheerleader makes the argument that the Beverage Tax was merely a victory of Big Soda over Big Nanny Bloomberg. Not so.

People have had enough of this nonsense coming from political and media hacks.

People beefed loudly, because the steady streams of kids from St. Cajetan's, Clissold, Morgan Park and Chicago Ag School, as well as Mount Carmel, St. Rita, Mother McAuley, Brother Rice, Morgan Park Academy, Leo, Marist and legions of tradesmen, teachers, cops, firemen, retirees ad even an Alderman could not buy a bottle of pop, a Slurpee, or an Arizona Iced Tea without hitting a Pay Day Loan Center.

It is nice that some Cook County Commissioners were not totally tone deaf.

What would be nicer is a repeal of Cook County Ofiice Holders universal.

Sweet.

Things I Never Say Mostly

Thanks in advance!  At the end of day, we all irritate others and often without meaning to take offense.  With all due respect, hackneyed and hollow phrasing might be holding us back from better human relations, at this in moment time.

In terms of bugging people with mindlessly empty tag lines and borrowed bon mots we can do better.

It is not always what it is.   Plain English works and say what is in your heart and head.  Political gasbags and celebrities have butchered human contact.

Agreed upon pap is not a a rhetorical feast.

 A simple way to avoid causing eyes to roll, at best,or a cousin to reach for that 32" Louisville slugger that he has soaked in Quaker State 40 Weight, at worst, would be to read some of President Obama's speeches and avoid sounding anything like him  - I mean that foppish corps of milkweeds who penned his utterances.

In Joseph Heller's  masterpiece Catch 22, the Orwellian speech-shadows dimming our light of conversation was halted by the primordial utterances of Major ___de Coverly. This septuagintal Major frightens the hell out of one and all by shear dint of the majesty and bearing of his being.  Major __de Coverly puts an end to the asinine Glorious Loyalty Oath of Captain Black in Chapter 13.

Captain Black, like many high school principals, members of Congress and the 44th President of United States,  believes that he is intelligent, due to his position in a table of organization.  He wants to 'get back at' Major Major Major ( formerly Captain Major Major) for being passed over for promotion and institutes a policy where by no member of the squadron can be fed without having signed the Glorious Loyalty Oath - via executive order/zero tolerance.

Maj. ___ de Coverly ends the Glorious Loyalty by holding his mess try under the nose of a mess hall commissar  and growling " Gimme eat!  . . ."Give Everyone Eat!"

Everyone got eat.

Please, plain speaking, cousins!

I do what I can.  Note that I have never consciously used any of the following:

• ( any verb transitive) preceding "this Puppy" Start this puppy, ride this puppy, screw this puppy
• " teaching moment"
• " opportunity for conversation" People who want an opportunity for conversation never shut up.
• " let's  dialog"
• " My policy" - unless referring to life, medical, car and homeowner insurance; other than those, policy is for pussies
• "that's just sad" - clause used rhetorically by confused, challenged and snotty people, when they have run out of intellectual ammo
• " Veggies"  - You mean carrots, celery stalks, cucumber slices and midget tomatoes for dip?
• "Bro, Brah, Dude"
• Reference to any Body parts in mixed company.  Don't be a dick.
• " How 'bout them " Bears, SOX, Bulls or even Hawks?
• " Kicking the can down the road" Which can exactly?  And - why exert yourself?
• " Right side of history"  Say that and you will be on the wrong side of study of the past.
• " Do you know who I am?"  - God, I hope not. 
• "Text me!"
• "Enough"  is not a feast!

I shall wag my tongue, until the Good Lord yanks it out of my head, and with dutiful and humble attention to my words offend no one. . . .but,  those who need offending. 

N.o F.un L.eague ? - Watch High School Sport

The Autumn wind is a pirate
Blustering in from sea
With a rollicking song he sweeps along
Swaggering boisterously.
His face is weatherbeaten
He wears a hooded sash
With a silver hat about his head
And a bristling black mustache
He growls as he storms the country
A villain big and bold
And the trees all shake and quiver and quake
As he robs them of their gold.
The Autumn wind is a Raider
Pillaging just for fun
He'll knock you 'round and upside down
And laugh when he's conquered and won.  Autumn Wind - Oakland Raiders Hymn by John Facenda


John Facenda was the narrator for the wonderful NFL promotional videos decades ago.  Many of us still cling to the mythopoeic phrasing offered by the poetic Mr. Facenda as reason to continue watching, following and tolerating the National Football League and the overpaid myrmidons sporting its logo on all over-priced products, posters and on the field.

John Facenda was the poet of the National Football League



The NFL is now a robot on FOX Sports - fitting and proper.

Knots of players have consulted with their agents and PR flaks and decided to sit during the National Anthem, a s means of insulting police, denouncing racism, genocide, sexism. date-rape, drug abuse, sugary beverages and Donald Trump.

I'm fine with that.

I'm tired of the hypocrisy.

Yesterday, and the day before, I had the pleasure of watching sport live at Providence Catholic High School for the freshman football squads and the sophomore/varsity battles on the grid-iron at Brother Rice High School.

All three games were exciting, inspiring and satisfying.  I can not say the same about my Bears, my Packers, my Colts, my Falcons, my Redskins, or my Cowboys - live or on television.

Yesterday morning , in New Lennox, home of Providence Catholic Celtics (btw - no soft C in the Keltic language), the temperature was 94 degrees at 9:30 A.M.  and combat between the respective 40 and 20 yard lines was even more intense.

Celtic quarter Ryan O'Neill # 16 was sensational.  I have never witnessed a QB with such speed, accuracy and poise and I have witnessed Bishop Mac's Kelly O'Connor and Leo High School Amir Holmes.

Brother Rice Crusader quarterback Ben Somers has wowed me for the past five weeks, but this kid
is amazing!  All of the freshmen play with heart and are well coached and highly disciplined.  The Celtics had Ryan O'Neill *and put an end to dreams of an undefeated season. 4-1 is something to be proud of gents!

The defensive squads on both teams were as tight and courageous as any infantry square facing Murat's dragoons and lancers at Waterloo - an homage to Facenda.

Were he still with us, the late John Facenda would fix his eyes on the genuine athletes and avert his gaze from the preeningly artificial thugs dominating professional sport.

Nothing heroic going on in the NFL, NBA, MLB.  Just pirates.

* Ryan O'Neill: Providence Catholic High School - New Lennox, Illinois
Jersey #: 16
Positions: QB, SS
Height & Weight: 5'9" 151lbs
Class of: 2021

•  

Saloon Dominos in the 19th Ward

• Chandler's ( closed) 
• The Stadium Club(closed)
• End Zone ( for sale)*
• McNally's Pub (for sale)
• T.R.'s Pub ( closing)
• Beverly Woods Lounge (Closed) 

Ubi Sunt?  

The old watering holes of yore are going the way the way of the buffalo, two-tone wing tips, wing tips and 8-tracks.  Every time I read the news another hoary saloon with deep roots in my neighborthood's history is either closed, closing, or up for sale.  

A micro-brewery opened and Jack Kelly's cardioversion of the fabled Dubliner Pub are oddities among the closings and sales of saloons, pubs and taverns in the 19th Ward.  

The passing of the other joints into history's mist is sad, but not mysterious.  The bar business is tough in the best of times, but in an age that scorns the morning cocktail and salon as deplorable uses of time and money it is not surprising.

Working men and retirees often would gather in the mornings and early afternoons for a cold one and to catch up on community chatter.  This phenomenon has died out, due in no small part to the dangers of driving to a watering and hole and making one's way home.  Also, the stigma of meeting up for a pint before the sun's shadow went past yard arm brands a tippler as pathological boozer.  As such, bars open later and close earlier than did in days gone bye.  Tough to build a decent night deposit on that. 

Anyway, saloons are closing all over the Ward.

Maybe that is a good thing.    Maybe not.

* editorial ht/to Jack Kelly!

A$$holes are as American as Baseball and Witch Burning, Denouncing People and Whining!

Activists, a synonym for a$$holes, unfurl a banner at a recent Boston Red Sox Game. Why did these White Supremacists not allow even one person of color into their fine  moment?

Dogmatic Dicky Durbin Does Doctrine Duty - Abortion Doctrine

• Dogma - “a doctrine or body of doctrines concerning faith or morals formally stated and authoritatively proclaimed by a church.” 
• U.S. Constitution - “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Officer or public Trust under the United States.” Article VI
• Dick Durbin - “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?”
• Cecile Richards - Planned Parenthood Harpy - “In times like these, you can’t underestimate the importance of leadership.  Planned Parenthood thanks Senator Durbin for fighting for a woman’s access to essential health care no matter where she lives,”

Senator Dick Durbin is nothing if not a clown; an oafish clown at that.

Even the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board of Bruce Dold has been forced to offer a very grudging and tepid criticism of Senator Dick Durbin's oafish treatment of a candidate for the Federal Bench.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told Barrett that “the dogma lives loudly within you” and worried that it might take priority over the impartial administration of justice. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois asked, “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?”

It may seem out of bounds for senators to raise the matter of how a judge’s Catholic faith would affect her decisions. But the senators didn’t raise it; Barrett did, in a 1998 law review article examining the obligations of Catholic judges in death penalty cases. It concluded that judges faithful to church teachings “are morally precluded from enforcing the death penalty.. . . Given that Barrett said judges shouldn’t let religious faith dictate their decisions, the exact content of her Catholicism, which Durbin wondered about, is irrelevant. He and Feinstein also erred by putting the issue in terms that could easily be interpreted to mean they distrust devout Catholics. That gave Barrett’s supporters room to accuse them of indulging bigotry and imposing a religious test for office.
It’s an implausible charge on its face. Both voted to confirm John Roberts and Sonia Sotomayor, who are Catholics. So, by the way, is Durbin, and Feinstein graduated from a Catholic high school.”

Without offering the slightest suggestion of Progressive Secularist Orthodoxy within the twin Senators' Inquisition, the Chicago Tribune  failed to call-out real bigotry. Feinstein and Durbin 'tested's.Barrett's faith in order to block her appointment to the Federal Bench.

The official religion of the Democratic Party and a very husky hunk of the GOP is Progressive Secularism and worship at the altars of Diversity, Mother Earth, Abortion, Globalism and Oligarchy is all but legislated.

Chicago Tribune columnist and political Latitudinarian John Kass, honestly reported and commented on the oafish and obvious dogmatism of politicians in the pay of Planned Parenthood. This writing savaged the bumptious Durbin.

Bruce Dold seemed compelled to toss out some dish water prose to wash away the blood on Durbin's face.

Durbin went all witch-hunt on Ms. Barrett, in order to show fealty to Planned Parenthood's blood money.

Arthur Miller would have shivered the timbers of the Commonwealth were he alive to pen a new Crucible.

You see, Durbin, is a renegade.  He took the coin of the industry most out of orbit of the Roman Catholic Church - the Abortion Industry.  He not only took the coin but used the office of United States Senator to further its power and influence.

The Catholic Ordinary of the Diocese of Springfield, Bishop Thomas Paprocki noted this in 2014 -

“Senator Durbin was informed several years ago by his pastor at Blessed Sacrament Parish here in Springfield that he was not permitted to receive Holy Communion per canon 915 of the Code of Canon Law,” Bishop Paprocki reportedly wrote in response to a pro-life activist's query, the Illinois Review reported. “My predecessor upheld that decision and it remains in effect. It is my understanding that the senator is complying with that decision here in the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois.”
Canon 915 states that those who have been "obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy communion."

No taking of the Eucharist for Durbin in his home diocese, but I am certain he will be admitted to the rail at Holy Name Cathedral, where Pastor Pfleger-approved Cardinal Cupich welcomes political powerhouses.  Take that like  doctrine, brothers and sisters, because Cardinal Blase Cupich will offer no criticism of Durbin, Emmanuel, Preckwinkle, Pfleger or Duckworth.  He will offer no reminders to his media friends, Michael Sneed, Carol Marin, Mary Schmich, or Rex Hupke that the media must afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

Cardinal Cupich wants to be loved, by the powerful and their stooges - he is. He banned guns from Catholic Churches.  This Sunday I will leave my 9mm on the kitchen counter where it belongs, Priase Jesus!

The Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church and a prominent activist against gun rights, said after surveying clergy, the late Cardinal Francis George chose to leave it up to priests to ban firearms from individual parishes. On Tuesday, Pfleger praised Cupich's decree.
"There has been this kind of madness, in my mind, a growing obsession that guns are needed to be safe," he said, adding, "With that reality growing day by day, it is a tremendous statement for the cardinal to say for the church, we are not buying into this madness. In our buildings and our properties, we are not going to allow guns."  

Guns kill people, like pencils flunk tests.

Cupich sought and received the imprimatur of Pastor Pfleger and wears it like his pallium.

Even Mary Schmich, aswell as The Seeker Manya Brachear,  says nice things about Cardinal Blase.

Cardinal George afflicted the powerful and comforted the powerless.  Cardinal George acted more than he proclaimed.

Cardinal George did that and the stooge media detested the man.

Durbin is living Progressive Secularist Dogma.

He only turns to the faith of his fathers when he needs a photo op with some Knights of Columbus.

Dogma Dicky Durbin does doctrine.  He is clown, but a very dangerous and powerful clown

Chance the Rapper Cleaned My Gutters and Made Me Breakfast This Morning!!!!

I have been really cynical.  That's harsh.

I read most papers and most Chicago papers offer at least one account of Chance the Rapper

• Hands out money for arts programs at 20 CPS schools
• Raises $ 2m for CPS
• Grand Marshalls the Bud Billiken Parade
• Grills Chicken at Nando's for charity
• Explains 'becoming upper-management' to CNBC
• Announces free concerts ( hourly)
• Lectures Rahm Emanuel at La Lapalooza
• Gets Props from Obama as needed
• Changes the trajectory of North Korean missiles away from Guam, Japan and the Philippines.
• Swims the English channel
• Cuts every tree in the Sahara Forest
• Eats Kyptonite with soy milk

He does these mighty deeds and produces many dope tunes and videos

The guy is prodigious and what do a I do with my life?

Teach.  Go to Mariano's and Brother Rice Freshman football games.

I thought that Chance the Rapper was merely the figment of a public relations man's genius.

Was I wrong. 

This morning I woke to the sound of footsteps on my roof.  No it was not Santa!  It was better.

Chancery Bennett, better known as Chance the Rapper was atop my home in the Morgan Park neighborhood of Chicago, armed with 55 gallon plastic garbage bags and cleaning my gutters of branches, Maple tree whirlybirds, bottle rockets from 4th of July and other air-born gutter chokers.

The young man worked my roof like the crowds at the Apollo in Manchester, UK on November 26, 2016.

I called up to him, " What are you doing up there, young fella?"

He smiled, " I think it's so dope that I'm here in Chicago and contributing to the music scene that's thriving. People are so happy Chicago's shining that everyone is willing to say 'I represent Chicago.' That wasn't always the case."

" No, I meant specifically, Kid.  Why are you doing my gutters?"  I replied. 

The Rapper shrugged, "Music can kind of make you one-dimensional. People see what's on the surface and what you rap about, and they make their decision on who you are from there." He finished the job, emptied the plastic bags into environmentally friendly brown yard waste bags, placed the black plastic bags in a haversack for re-use, carefully took down the extension ladder and attached it to the frames of his Escalade and asked to use my bathroom.

When Chance the Rapper had given his hands a good scrubbing with Lava - the hand soap - He immediately went to my ice-box and prepared to make me a slap-up breakfast of 

• Monkey-Bread Danish. Danish meets monkey bread. ...
• Red Velvet Pancakes. Sexiest breakfast ever. ...
• Onion & Arugula Frittata. ...
• Sweet Crepes with Caramelized Pears. ...
• Candied Bacon. ...
• Homemade Toaster Pastries. ...
• Yogurt Biscuits with Honey Butter. ...
• Green Smoothie with Avocado and Apple.

I asked Chance the Rapper to join me and tuck-into the great feed that he had prepared.

With his thumb he pushed up the flat over-sized brim of his # 3 White Sox cap and with a quizzical smile said, "The whole point of 'Acid Rap' was just to ask people a question: does the music business side of this dictate what type of project this is? If it's all original music and it's got this much emotion around it and it connects this way with this many people, is it a mixtape? What's an 'album' these days, anyways?"

What, indeed?

With that, he vanished between chews.

Am I cynical?  

The Way Things Appear at the Moment.

"To watch an American on a beach or crowding into a subway, or buying a theater ticket, or sitting at home with his radio on, tells you something about one aspect of the American character: the capacity to withstand a great deal of outside interference, so to speak; a willing acceptance of frenzy which though it's never self-conscious, amounts o a willingness to let other people have and assert their own lively, and even offensive, character. They are a tough race in this."
Alistair Cooke

 “The world divorced from the God who created and redeemed it inevitably comes to a bad end. It’s on the wrong side of the only history that finally matters.”  Francis Cardinal George

  "I am for socialism, disarmament, and, ultimately, for abolishing the state itself... I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the sole control of those who produce wealth." Communism is the goal. Roger Baldwin - Founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) 

Alister Cooker saw Americans as they are meant to be.

Francis Cardinal George watched Americans turn from the things that made them tough.

Roger Baldwin planned where we now find ourselves in 1931 with the founding of the ACLU.

Old Roger had plenty of help from earnest people who despise the American miracle, but mostly from legions of cowardly and lazy opportunists. 

A Nation built upon energy and industry of individuals is quite a miracle.  Miracles are useless without faith.  

My family came to America at the very turn of the American Century.  Work in the Stockyards of Chicago, or 'cook for the rich Yanks,'  were the gender-specific options. Work they did. Between 1904, Larry Hickey and Nora Sullivan Hickey of County Kerry, Ireland, met, married and parented thirteen children. 

Larry and Nora moved from the neighborhoods adjoining the Great Stockyards to Lake Township in Chicago and built large two story home at 7535 S. Marshfield Avenue in the Highlands of Gresham.   

They made a great life for themselves, their children and their grandchildren during the labor wars of the 1920's, the Depression, World War Two when four of their seven sons went overseas and through the prosperous 1950's, the self-conscious 1960's and into the bizarre 1970's when the American Century began to peel off its clothing in public - Roe v.Wade, credit card economics, Jimmy Carter's apologetic Presidency and the birth of identity politics.

Mercifully, Nora and Larry went home to Christ, before this Nation began its three decades of public streaking. 

Naked America was told to pull up its britches in 1980 and began to get serious about itself, but then wandered off with the Bush Boys and Bubba to even more exercises of fragile individualism.

I was born in 1952 and had no part in getting America out of the Depression, stopping tyranny, or building our standard of living.  However, I was rooted in the faith and values that respect a man's right to a fair wage in union with his fellows and not to use those fellows to camouflage his sloth on the job and to honor my obligations to my wife and children. I must go to work.

In order be an effective worker, I had to take my job as seriously as a surgeon, an electrician, or a cop.  I had better be good at my job.  Know my stuff.  I did and I do. 

I have taught  hundreds of young people, via literature, history and philosophy,  to honor our civilization and America's powerful contribution to Western Civilization and to respect the traditions that allow people to come from Morocco and own a thriving business along with the Polish, African American, Italian, Mexican,Jewish,  Irish, Norwegian, Swedish and Lithuanian Americans in hot economic competition with them. 

At this moment, I am somewhat retired.  I substitute teach.  My children are grown and making their way in the world. 

Now, nearly through the second decade of the New Millennium, we are a nation divided and sensitive to the point of psychosis. 

Some people say we have evolved. Most insist that we need to get to Roger Baldwin's end-game.

As a teacher, this saddens me. As a parent this frightens me .  As a grandfather, I have faith that maybe my kids will snap us all out of it.  

Today's gospel cheers me a bit.  It reminded me of the greatest priest I have ever known, Francis Cardinal George.  This gospel recounts the pop quiz teacher Jesus gave to his disciples near Caesaria Philippi

"Who do people say that the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets." He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter said in reply,"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus said to him in reply,"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter,and upon this rock I will build my church,and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven;and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Maybe we will be tough again. Tough enough to be kind and considerate of others without legislation, slogans, marches, or the study of poll numbers.