The Merriest Springald in Our Pandemic, Part VI: March 25, 2020- Declan The Horse and Jimmy Bond

“To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others. ”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“‘All in’ is our anthem and point of pride. Illinoisans staying home for the good of each other and the good of our state . . . Be all in. ‘All in Illinois’ means we care about one another, we care about our communities. We are one Illinois, and we’re all in this together.” JB Pritzker

Recap of Parts I-V

Wesley Dioneo is the only son of Chicagoland real estate tycoon, Martin Dioneo and his society maven wife Allyson.  Martin Dioneo caught the COVID-19 virus from his Laplander personal trainer and is on a ventilator in Chicago's Northwestern Medical Center.  Allyson is holed up in the couple's massive east Lake Shore Drive apartment building a score of yards from the iconic Drake Hotel.
Allyson has sent Wesley Dioneo to the family get-away home at Stop 30 lake Shore Drive in Long Beach, Indiana. Wesley is a senior at St. Ignatius College Prep and had been since the school shut down on March 16, 2020.  Ally immediately sent Wesley to Long Beach, where he can be safe.
Wesley invites over his pals and trusted companions, the Nardo Bothers and Habib( Declan & Brian) and Habib Samer for a few days of social distancing, Super Smash Brothers and Pater Dioneo's Czech beer cellar.  The quartet do what young men do - eat, play and spirit up the atmosphere with verbal assaults upon cant and cowardice. They tire of Super Smash Brothers, if that does not stretch the imagination, wit and Wesley proposes a story telling contest with the prize of his high-end kayak going to the person declared the winner.


Into this subjective yarn tossing arena will arrive six LaPorte County lovelies: Addison Pawliak, Paisley Ewan, Aaliyah Justice, Genesis Mullen, Kennedy Lynch, and Amy Kinsley Briddlestone.  Wesley decided to allow Declan Nardo the opportunity to tell his tale about beating Chicago Bulls 1993 Title winning Myrmidon John Paxson at a game of horse, when the aging NBA star visited La Lumiere's Marsch Gym, a few years after that school own the national high school basketball title.   Addison Pawliak, Paisley Ewan, Aaliyah Justice, Genesis Mullen, Kennedy Lynch, and Amy Kinsley Briddlestone arrived at the Stop # 30 address of Wesley Dioneo at different times and by different modes of transportation.

Part VI - March 25, 2020

On this Wednesday, while the COVID-19 plague gave elected officials all over the nation an opportunity to exercise executive authority over the people who elected them - shutting all business, mandating a universal stay-at-home order, stopping travel and dominating the very compliant news media.

No one rebelled, but some tried to exercise common sense and were immediately arrested and hauled into court.  Essential businesses, like the vitamin factory where this writer works remained open and employees were mandated to wear masks, gloves and maintain a social distance of 6-12 feet from one another. People shrugged and went about shipping Gummie Vitamins for Women, Men, Children, Stressed, Sleepless, or WOKE Americans.   In Chicago 12 people were gunned down; Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot extended the stay-at-home-order to well past April 7, 2020. What can you do?  Get a haircut?  Well, only you if you are the Mayor. 

But our tale about tales is set in Indiana!  Most definitely.  Northwest Indiana is a part of the Chicagoland market for media, politics and consumption.  Smart Chicagoans buy homes in this lake front region, because the quality of life is far superior to the Big Windy.  Kids do not get gunned down every three hours, as they do in Chicago and Indiana is not a bankrupted oligarchy run by a Governor who waddles with penguins and traffics in marijuana. 

The waddling oligarch of an Illinois Governor put Illinois on its knees and under house arrest. 

The Governor of Indiana responded to the threat of the mystery virus with far more common sense.  Therefore, citizens felt more at ease walking, riding bikes and visiting friends and loved ones. 

In Long Beach, Indiana  ten young people, high school seniors, ate submarine sandwiches from Jimmy Johns and began a story-telling contest.  Jimmy Johns sandwiches all tasted the same, be it turkey, beef, ham or vegan.  The taste was secondary to the filling of the maw and bags of Salt and Vinegar Chips overcame whatever disappointments the purchase might allow to creep into the smart and savvy minds of early adults. 

Wesley Dioneo had a disarming smile and a thick head of brown, uncombed hair over a wide forehead that indicated a broad intellect and inquisitive nature. His dark brown eyes radiated warmth and inviting membership to people with good hearts, but also acted as an early-warning system for frauds and bunkum-slingers. 

After eating half of an erstatz Italian sub from Jimmy Johns, Wesley intoned, " Let the contest for the Old Town Sportsman Minn Kota begin !  Remember.  Each story must fulfiill each of the five following requirements


1. The story must amuse
2. The story must teach a lesson
3. The story must reveal the character of the person telling that story
4. The story must be something to bring people together

5. The story must acknowledge our own mortality 

Ladies, Declan has a yarn that would reignite a campfire on the plains of Wyoming long cooled by the Western Winds.  Declan Nardo, ladies and Gentleman!"

A round of enthusiastic catcalls and faux fanfare greeted the thick-set basketball star of La Lumiere ( local teams only and not the national tour squad, mind you - Declan was good but not destined for D-1, D-2, or D-Zed college teams. ) Basketball. 

" Last November, when we getting ready for the season, JohnPaxson, the old GM of the Chicago Bulls came to talk to us about team building and trusting your teammates. Paxson went to LeMans Academy in Rolling Prairie - the schools that's now a priest school for some Mexican Catholics.  He went there knew all about La Lumiere and followed the Lakers when we won the national title,

I play on the local squad, me and Brian.  My left-handed shots suck donkeys.  Brian is way better than me.  Anyway, Paxson went on and on and on and everyone wanted to get to the main house for dinner with boarders, but I liked him and stuck around.

He asked me, " How 'bout a game of HORSE?"  Now, he is number 5 and scored the winning basket in 1993.  None of us were even born, but you know . Anyway, I figured he's an old guy and how good a shot can he have now. "

The game of HORSE is played between two people and called shots are the courtesy.  If you call your shot, Hook, Set, Jumper, Backboard, In with Rim, Nothing But Net, that is what counts. If one makes the basket, the opponent must make the exact same shot and from the exact same position on the floor.  If one misses he gets a letter, until the first player with HORSE totals out.

" So, Paxson gave me first shot.  I went to the top left side of the Key and called Set Shot - Nothing But Net.  Missed.  Paxson went to half court and called Jumper - Backboard - nailed it. 

We shot back and forth for twenty minutes, and Paxson called Under Hand from Free Throw Line SWISH and Nailed it.

I did the same and nailed it.  

Then he says Left Hand Set Shot -Back Board!

I am so screwed. I am dead!

He missed. 

I called Shot from the left top of Key Swish.  Dropped like a bad habit!  John Paxson Missed.   HORSE!!!!!!  I beat Number 5!

John Paxson shook my hand!"

At that, a weak round of applause nodded a nice bit of approval for Declan Nardo's true account of his victory over a legend.  He was only "dead" for a moment. 

Wesley called up the lovely Amy Kinsley Briddlestone. 

Amy tossed her golden locks and chirped, " Mine is a tale of struggle and courage in the face of circumstances of birth.  Jimmy Bond owns the great Jamaican Restaurant and Pub over on Route 12 near the old Knoll Brothers gas station.  Jimmy is half Chinese and half English.

He was born in Jamaica - a Jamaican Woman's Detention Center called Fort Augusta.  Portmore, Jamaica.   His mother had been a secretary to British Colonial Governor in Kingston in 1962.  She was a beautiful bi-racial woman whose father had been a drunken Hong Kong police man and mother a gorgeous Irish prostitute. Her name was Moira Taro.  

Miss Taro was enthralled by Dr. No, a nuclear engineer who bedded the young Moira and put her to work spying on the British.

She was told to study the actions of a British MI-6 agent James Bond and to intercept any reports she may have filed concerning Dr. No's radioactive wave experiments on his private island at Crab Key.

Miss Taro invited Bond to her mountain cottage for a tryst - that's a date, boys - and try and get him killed by Dr. No's many agents on the island nation.

They did the deed.

Miss Taro secretly enjoyed her dalliance with handsome James Bond, but she was betrayed by him and arrested as a terrorist. 

After Dr. Julius No died in an explosion that destroyed Crab Key, Miss Taro was tried in a colonial British Court to ten years at hard labor.

She was pregnant by Bond. In August 1962, Jamaica became a Commonwealth Nation, but Miss Taro was still considered a dangerous enemy of the Crown. 

Her son James was born in 1963, on the same day that JFK was assassinated. The lovely, but vile Moira Taro died of uterine cancer in January 1964. 

Jimmy was handed over to a Jamaican family by the child courts one year after his birth.

They had a Jerk Chicken cantina and huge following.  Jimmy Bond learned to jerk meats, as well as run a restaurant.  He was not a black man, but grew long dred locks and learned to play the bass guitar. For a while he had hoped that Michael Manley would improve the lives of Jamaicans, but he was just another Communist gangster and his policies ruined the business of Jimmy's adopted parents. 

When Manley was re-elected as Prime Minister in 1989, Jimmy Bond moved to Miami and applied for United States Citizenship. 

Jimmy played bass for Jimmy Buffet on two national tours and bought in on a Jerk Chicken restaurant in Bonfield, Illinois.   Jimmy Bond's became a regional hotspot with great food and hot music. 

In 2010, Jimmy Bond bought his restaurant on Route 12 and moved to Michiana Shores. 

Life had not treated him well but hard work and a sunny outlook made Jimmy Bond, Shaken but Unstirred!"

Habib spilled Russian dressing out from his Jimmy John's sandwich all over the carpet.  " Sorry, Dude!  My bad. Amy, that's the Bond Movie.  Is that plagiarism?  Besides, Cool Runnings is way better food.  Dude, I got the spill.  God. "

Wesley began cleaning up the Russian dressing. 


Part VII - Russians and Hamlet

The Merriest Springald in Our Pandemic: Part V. Enter the Ladies

A Plague 1492

The Plague du jour

My media diet is the literary equivalent of vegan.

The background to this is that I am as far as possible from being a political junkie, which reduces greatly the prospect of my having ever become a news junkie. My saintly mother, early in my youth, pronounced, with an amused hauteur, all politicians thieves and sixty years of my own experience watching the breed has turned up nothing to confute her sensible pronouncement. With the exception only of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, whom I knew slightly, there has not been a single member of either body of the United States Congress during the past half century whose company I should want even for the duration of a cup of coffee.   Joseph Epstein " What I Read "  The Atlantic

“Even as we face an unprecedented public health crisis, our first responders, city workers and street outreach partners from across Chicago are coming together in an all-hands-on-deck effort to keep residents safe this weekend and throughout the summer,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said. “While I encourage all residents to celebrate the holiday, it remains imperative that we do so by staying inside and social distancing so we can continue to save lives and keep our fellow neighbors safe and healthy.” NBC Five

Recap of parts I-IV
Wesley Dioneo is the only son of Chicagoland real estate tycoon, Martin Dioneo and his society maven wife Allyson.  Martin Dioneo caught the COVID-19 virus from his Laplander personal trainer and is on a ventilator in Chicago's Northwestern Medical Center.  Allyson is holed up in the couple's massive east Lake Shore Drive apartment building a score of yards from the iconic Drake Hotel.
Allyson has sent Wesley Dioneo to the family get-away home at Stop 30 lake Shore Drive in Long Beach, Indiana. Wesley is a senior at St. Ignatius College Prep and had been since the school shut down on March 16, 2020.  Ally immediately sent Wesley to Long Beach, where he can be safe.
Wesley invites over his pals and trusted companions, the Nardo Bothers and Habib( Declan & Brian) and Habib Samer for a few days of social distancing, Super Smash Brothers and Pater Dioneo's Czech beer cellar.  The quartet do what young men do - eat, play and spirit up the atmosphere with verbal assaults upon cant and cowardice. They tire of Super Smash Brothers, if that does not stretch the imagination, wit and Wesley proposes a story telling contest with the prize of his high-end kayak going to the person declared the winner.
Into this subjective yarn tossing arena will arrive six LaPorte County lovelies: Addison Pawliak, Paisley Ewan, Aaliyah Justice, Genesis Mullen, Kennedy Lynch, and Amy Kinsley Briddlestone.  Wesley decided to allow Declan Nardo the opportunity to tell his tale about beating Chicago Bulls 1993 Title winning Myrmidon John Paxson at a game of horse, when the aging NBA star visited La Lumiere's Marsch Gym, a few years after that school own the national high school basketball title






Enter the Ladies of LaPorte County


Addison Pawliak, Paisley Ewan, Aaliyah Justice, Genesis Mullen, Kennedy Lynch, and Amy Kinsley Briddlestone arrived at the Stop # 30 address of Wesley Dioneo at different times and by different modes of transportation.

Amy Kinsley Briddlestone was dropped off from a 2019 Lexus by her older sister who was going to Meijer's on Franklin, after coming home from Ball State, when the Corona-19 shut down all places of higher learning in Indiana. " Thank God, you are staying at Wesley's for a day or two, or there would be no sushi for anyone.  Mom bought a shit-ton of California Rolls, Crispy Crab and Crunchy Shrimp and I get home - nothing."

Amy was non-plused, but should have been plused as she had in fact hogged down six trays of cold fishy goodness, while binge watching Peaky Blinders on Netflix, " Mom had some too, Miss Bitch."

Mom had twoof the fishy treats and the fetching Miss Amy gulped down the remaining six tasty sorta- sushi treats.  They were cheaper than Hokkaido'son Franklin Street and adequate to the needs of cold fish consuming American women.

Amy Kinsley Briddlestone was a powerful self-advocate and no stranger to the loneliness of getting everything that she wanted immediately.   She wanted Wesley Dioneo, but the swashbuckling young man had set his cap for an ideal young woman that he would not meet for many years to come.  Amy Briddlestone was what young women of the current generation refer to as a Homey Hopper.  A Homey Hopper is usually a male who would cozy up to a lovely young lady in order to have his wicked ways with her much more attractive best friend forever.

Predator Amy had shamelessly led -on Habib Samer and Habib could have cared less, as the fetching Amy K. Briddlestome was his . . .for a while. Habib will remain madly loved the tawny-haired, ambitious and sexy young siren.  He wouldonly  get over Amy Briddleston sometime in late 2020s, while serving his medical residency at Indiana University Medical Center and would capture the heart of Romanian blood technician.

Kennedy Lynch and Paisely Ewan were co-captains of the Marquette Volleyball team and lived in Long Beach.   Paisley's Mom and Dad were partners with Winston & Strawn in Chicago and decided to practice in Illinois, but live a very pleasant and full life in Indiana. Ewan family of five were immersed in all aspects of Long Beach.  Paisley was the oldest child and doted on her younger brother and sister - both five years her junior.  Buck was in  8th grade.  Hannah was in third grade there and still grieved that Mr. Lynch was no longer her Principal.

Kennedy Lynch had a very hard time when he father was accused of sexual harassment by a young woman teacher who could not accurately tell her class what city was the capital of Michigan, " It is Detroit.  The most important city. Anyway we live in Indiana and its capital is South Bend. Our next President is South Bend's mayor!"

Kennedy knew that her father was a sweet, caring and affectionate gentleman and well-respected by everyone who knew him.  However, these are strange time.  A young woman can accuse any man of any misdeed and not need to back up her claim; especially in the Catholic Diocese of Gary, where the leadership avoids unpleasantries and possible public obloquy at the expense of truth.  The new bishop's motto should be Vitare super omnia quaestio Above all Things Avoid The Question.  Ken Lynch signed a non disclosure agreement and a contract to run a Catholic school in the Diocese of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Kennedy was sad to witness her father's heartbreak, which he patched up with hard work and a cheerful demeanor. The accusing teacher received a payment from the Diocese of Gary and was promoted to assistant principal.

Kennedy was a lovely redhead with a fierce sense of justice and an athlete's determination.  Kennedy and Brian Nardo were "dates."

Addison Pawliak was prettier than Amy, less athletic than Kennedy, but a better student than Paisley and could dance and sing better than both Genesis Mullen and Aiyliah Justice,  Addison rode her bicycle from her ranch house in Queen of All Saints parish on Woodland Avenue. Addison worked as a car-hop for Carlson's Drive-In on Coolspring.  Addy was excited to begin work there again, but the virus pushed every elected official in America to shut the door on normality and order shelter in place universal.  Even Indiana  erred on the side of panic.  She does her schoolwork on a computer and helps her Mom around the house.  Getting out for a stay-over is just what she needed and Mom was only too glad, because she and her husband loved and respected young Wesley and his circle of friends.   Mom id not care much for Amy K., but Addy loved her even though she treated people like ATM cards.   Some people do.

Addison's Dad worked in Burns Harbor at the steel works, as had his father and his father's father.  He made good money and Addison's mother Rita was a stay-at-home Mom in world of have it all feminists.   Addison wanted to be a Michigan City cop.  She was accepted at Purdue Northwest for the 2020-2021 academic year.  Addison was madly in love with Declan Nardo. Addison had recently led three other Marquette Students to Chicago's Daley Center, as President of the school's Right to Life Society.

Cousins Genesis Mullen and Aaliyah Justice were grandchildren of the Reverend Titus Justice,STD of the Pines AME Church on Route 12 on northwest corner of Michigan City.  Genesis and
Aaliyah were seniors at Marquette High School and regular speakers for the Rotary and the Junior Chamber of Commerce. Both girls played softball and participated in every musical and dance feature the high school provided.  They were activists and members of the Michigan City Junior Police Commission that helped local African American youth groups find common ground through sports and arts programs.  Blue Chip Casino recognized both young ladies as urban achievers and offered both post-secondary scholarships to Purdue Lafayette where both ladies would attend in the fall of 2020.   Their grandfather, who served on the Michigan City Police Commission and served as the voice of the soul to the African American Community profited little from his ministry, because he gave away most of his salary to needy families and sent each of his children and grandchildren to Catholic schools for the discipline that he established at the family dinner table.

The girls were best friend of Amy Biddlestone and shared her admiration fo Wesley Dioneo. They arrived at Casa Dioneo with a bags loaded with Jimmy Johns Submarines.

The level of noise increased and Wesley commanded everyone's attention with his proposed Tale Telling Tournament.  " Everyone tells a story, but me.  Here are the Rules

1. The story must amuse
2. The story must teach a lesson
3. The story must reveal the character of the person telling that story
4. The story must be something to bring people together
5. The story must acknowledge our own mortality

I will determine which story best fulfills each of the five points, amuse, teach, offer a revelation, build community, admit to Life's brevity."

 Declan asked for a do over. It was agreed that Declan would re-tell the story of how he bested John Paxson in a game of horse.

Part VI - Declan's Game of Horse and Amy Tells the Story of James Bond's Bastard Son







A

Are You A Person Who Requires Justification, or Are You a Worker?

I always wanted to be regarded for my worth.  My family valued hard work. Hard physical work was the litmus test.

My Grandfather, Lawrence Hickey of Crinnie Hill, Castlisland, County Kerry, Ireland, held that " NO man could DIG like Martin Ford!"

If one had been presented the Medal of Honor and three honorary degrees from Columbia University, Harvard and  a life membership to Total Fitness, it would mean less than nothing compared to Martin Ford, of Scartaglen, Count Kerry, and his ability to dig a 6' by 4'12" deep trench for plumbing.  As if???!!!

I worked at Chicken Unlimited on 79thst & Wood Street in Chicago, Illinois,  from August until October 1968 and  I was fired.  Gene Mahony fired me, because I could not deep fry chicken pieces in a consistent manner.  I could not.  No how. No way.

I went to work at Gee Lumber on 79th Street and did so there for as long a as I wanted.  I cut lumber, mixed cement, threaded pipe for plumbling and bent pipe for electrical uses.  I was and remain a very hard competent and hard working employee. From 1975 until I was very discourteously fired by a dull, but WOKE scold Catholic high school principal  in December 2019,   I worked as a very honored and respected English teacher.  My heart is broken and choose not to teach again.  Kids and parents are wonderful, Catholic schools seem to be run by people who could not cut it in the classroom and political play-actors.  I'll have none of it.

A person must work in order to fulfill the obligation to God, who opens our eyes in the morning.

I work and will do hard labor.

I work 8-12 hours per day as a packer and shipper of vitamins in Port of Indiana, Indiana.  I am very happy to do this work.

The work is tiresome, but not hard.  The work is important, but not crucial.

After 8, or 12 hours of work, I go home and read  The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Anabasis, Contra Catalina, or the latest issue of Jugs and Ammo.

Now, some cousins might find my tone here  to be a bit sardonic.  That is true and I tend to be sardonic and I tend to be a bit of a know it all.  Well, dang me, dang me, they outta take a rope and hang me. Hang me from the highest tree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Woman would you weep for me. Do Doit Do Duh Doit Doin Do!!!!

That aside.  I value hard work.

Today, we seem to honor work that was normally doing one's job.

" Oh, Thank you!  Thank you, for your service!!"  is chirped at every small courtesy performed by a waitress, attendant, or hanger-on.

Nurses are now Sgt. Stryker, taking that last puff on a square and that Jap bullet in the back while the six Lads raise Old Glory on Suribachi.

Clerks at Service Six on Route 12, wearing masks and palming the "losing" Hossier Lotto tickets of dowagers and dumb-asses, are deemed the sons of Audie Murphy and Sergeant York.

Let me just say that during this, our Months of Infamy & Days of Harrowing Sorrow, that I am a hero.

Yes!

I am a son of the Myrmidons!  The Greave wearing Greeks!  The Baddest of the Bad!

I have been making Gummy Vitamins as an Essential Worker in Port of Indiana, Indiana!

Listen up.  I rise at 4:15 A.M. and that is Four Fifteen Ante Meridian, Bub! Every day.  Unless some event, or upset, interrupts that condition, mind you, I get up at the first chirps of the sparrows.

I immediately  S, S & S  and, if you need to know the full meanings of that tripling consonant acronym, it means to shower, to shave, and to see that the internal gastronomical organs are evacuated - soundly.

Sounds like steam escaping!

My boots are drawn on with great care and attention, as I know that socks can bunch up and cause an eight hours of serious agitation and irritation.  My boots are Red Wings #401 and made in Minnesota.

I drive from Michigan City on the historic Route 12 and wind the tree-lined road with great care as the route is winding and deer are incredibly stupid. Deer wait until the car gets within killing distance before they 'decide' to take the plunge across the road and blast from fender, to hood, to trunk over your car.

The drive takes 20 minutes - tops. I had been taking the lovely and winding Route 12, but several encounters with Bambi and his cousins shifted my course to the more direct Route  20 - a few miles to the south and somewhat parallel.

I arrive, punch in, and wash my hands with great care.  People put our product in their mouths and every person in the plant pays careful attention to that fact.  We wear hair nets, beard nets, gloves, safety glasses and of course PPI masks. The masks properly worn tend to fog up my glasses and so when social distancing allows I shift the mask under the old schnozoola.

I immediately grab a pallet jack and find a stack of undamaged pallets and deposit them at my line station.  Then, I check with my line boss about the codes on the labels and the product to see how many boxes I will need to make for the shift.  Generally, two to three hundred for starters.

An hour later, the person packing the plastic wrapped bundles of three bottles of Gummy Vitamins will signal me that product is coming down the line.

The line begins in the sealed-off production room where six to eight of my co-workers separate hundreds of pounds of Gummies, place caps on a conveyor, place bottles on another belted line and monitor the weights.  The bottle capping machine is whirling miracle of mechanical madness.  The nine bottle cap-ers look like Oscar statuettes pounding and twisting plastic caps and seals onto the bottles containing exact weights of product.

Then the hundreds of bottles waddle to the labeling station, the plastic wrapper and to the packer.  The packer inspects the bottles for damage, flawed Gummies, or bad labeling and tosses any package that does not meet standards.  I pack as well as stack.  The packer must check for proper codes that are inked onto the bottles just before they get bright labels.  My old eyes fail me at this task and when I can no longer properly check for the code, my line boss will send over younger eyes.

Four packages of three bottles go into each box and then the box is thrust into the automatic taping and sealing device and conveyed to my mighty mitts, which I use to begin stacking boxes on the pallet.

Generally the boxes weigh between five and ten pounds each, but the Large Tall Boy weigh about fifteen pounds.  I get a  very good work-out lifting and twisting and running and re-working the flawed bottles and product.  My pallets have ten stacks of fourteen rows arranged according to product shipping manifest.

I wear a back brace and lift with my legs.  The work is tiring, but easy and nothing like waitering, bar tending, walking a police beat, nursing, or carpentry - to say nothing of cement work, garbage collection, farming, or clerking.

The hardest part for me is shrink wrapping the full pallet which requires me to Limbo LOW, while wrapping plastic wrap around the pallet with ever increasing speed. " Look at that white man, Go!!!"

I get very dizzy and winded doing that onerous task.

I wait for my line boss to begin making up two pallet tags which I attach, after the Quality Control Officer inspects my pallet to ensure that the boxes are arranged according to the shipping orders.  I have yet to undo one of my pallets, I am proud to say.

Once tagged, I grab a pallet jack and haul my stack to the warehouse where a fork-lift driver picks it up and takes it to a waiting trailer.

After eight to ten hours, we will have completed six to seven pallets. That's 140 boxes times six or seven.   Not a bad day' s work,

I have been blessed to work all through this COVID-19 pandemic.  I have an essential worker paper in my car.  I was never once stopped by law enforcement during the Stay at Home months of March-April.

I enjoy the work and the lovely people with whom I sweat on a daily basis.  These people humble me.  Black, Mexican and white.  I am the oldest person on the floor.  Most are fighting to feed,clothe and house their families at a very low wage.  Think National Minimum Wage and some change.

They are the heroes and they are so without that damn bug, or grifter politicians using a crisis to lord it over people.

Workers are heroes; not Sgt. Stryker, or Audie Murphy.  That is plenty for me, anyway.

The Merriest Springald in Our Pandemic: Part IV - Outlaw Yarns of Long Beach, Indiana in the Time of Plague

Fame is but a fleeting shadow,
Glory but an empty name;
Spite of all that I have gone through,
’Tis, I find, a losing game:

Without interest, without money,
Nothing can a soldier gain;
Though he be the sole survivor
Of a host of comrades slain:

What avail these glitt’ring honours,
Which a queen laid on my breast;
Though I’ve sought them from my childhood,
Would I’d fallen with the rest:

Then my heart had not been broken
Life had fled without a sigh;
Hunger presses—I am fainting—
Ought a soldier thus to die? - The Old Shekarry

n.b. from the word shikaree, or hunter

“I actually am calling you about, I think you appoint his replacement, don’t you,” Pritzker said in one 2008 call.

Pritzker was asking about a report that Blagojevich was going to appoint Alexi Giannoulias “to something in Washington.” Giannoulias was the state treasurer at the time and if he was appointed to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, it would have opened a vacancy for the treasurer’s position, which Pritzker wanted. . . . “We still have politicians in this state who are on the take. We’ve got to get rid of them. We’ve got to make sure that we find them out. We’ve got to make sure they get prosecuted.” JB Pritzker the Illinois Panic Governor and pandering panjandrum. 

n.b. - the old BS

                                            Part IV - Outlaw Yarns of Longbeach

Recap Parts I-III

Wesley Dioneo is the only son of Chicagoland real estate tycoon, Martin Dioneo and his society maven wife Allyson.  Martin Dioneo caught the COVID-19 virus from his Laplander personal trainer and is on a ventilator in Chicago's Northwestern Medical Center.  Allyson is holed up in the couple's massive east Lake Shore Drive apartment building a score of yards from the iconic Drake Hotel.

Allyson has sent Wesley Dioneo to the family get-away home at Stop 30 lake Shore Drive in Long Beach, Indiana. Wesley is a senior at St. Ignatius College Prep and had been since the school shut down on March 16, 2020.  Ally immediately sent Wesley to Long Beach, where he can be safe.

Wesley invites over his pals and trusted companions, the Nardo Bothers and Habib( Declan & Brian) and Habib Samer for a few days of social distancing, Super Smash Brothers and Pater Dioneo's Czech beer cellar.  The quartet do what young men do - eat, play and spirit up the atmosphere with verbal assaults upon cant and cowardice. 

                                                                  ___________


The Martin Dioneo house at Stop 30 Lake Shore Drive in Long Beach sits on the dune above the lake.  Long Beach was created as a resort town for weekend getaways salving the bumps and bruises of the affluent from Chicago.  There are three Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes in this beach community, where females out number the males.   This haven is thick with Irish Catholics from Chicago's once blue collar neighborhoods who have made it in politics, the markets, the courts, or through honest knavery. 

The Dioneo House*, is modest for a real estate mogul and at $1.5 million dollars offers the connection to the middle class that helps keep Martin Dioneo grounded and centered beyond his fabulous wealth.  His father, Bosco, helps with that and steers his son and grandson back to the real people and away from the celebrated lamprey eels who swim only to find new life sustaining backs to do their swimming.  Long Beach, indiana boasts a few of such. 

Hunter Biden resides here and the former Vice President and would-be President has a habit of stumbling upon youthful beach bonfire parties and offering a little of touch of Uncle Joe in the night.

Long Beach is a happy community of year round residents and their weekender neighbors.  Martin loved getting away to his house above the waters.

Now, ventilated and under constant care at Northwestern Medical Center, Martin is in a medically induced coma under constant care and attention.  What goes on in that coma is Martin's to know. He was a heavy cigarette and cigar smoker, until this past year and the virus spawned by that bat dinner in Wuhan is no friend of  pink gray or black lungs.  Mrs. Dioneo, Ally, saw no purpose in wringing hands and hovering near her cell phone and got herself appointed to Governor Pritzker's COVID-19 Task Force where used her entitled voice on all matters medical and political. 

Ally sent Wesley to Long Beach - away from harm and out of from under her feet.  Wesley was cool with that. 

In this time of the Coronavirus plague many youthful refugees find themselves isolated and lonely.  Wesley Dioneo never gets bored.

Wesley plays chess on the computer,   writes essays to himself on many subjects and plans his next moves beyond the pampered nests that he is privileged to call his homes.  He is accepted at Yale, Princeton and Northwestern for the Fall of 2020. However, Wesley Dioneo has been infected by his grandfather Bosco with a sense of obligation to God, Nation and himself.  Bosco lost a number of toes from the retreat from Chosin Reservoir in 1950 and added a level of honor that seems far above of the reach of lesser men and women. Wesley's sense of honor and duty is as terminal, but as yet untested. 


After two weeks of isolation and unable to take in the glories of Spring in Indiana - the  dogwood is emerging from cold black bark of Winter's Maples, Cedars, White Pines and the Black, Blue and Green Ashes.  The pines are thick and unchanging and so is this self-Quarantined life.


" Brian are you working for your Dad?" The Nardo Brothers worked at the family's Submarine Sandwich Shoppe on Karwick Road.

" Wesley, how is your Dad? and No he and Mom have suspended operations for a few days until they get an Ok from the City about PPI's , sanitizers and plastic screens.  We are free for the time being."

" Dad is still in the coma and no change.  This sucks.  My Grandpa goes to Northwestern every day and gets turned away.  Mom is working with the governor.  You and Corm want to stay over for a couple of days?  Dad's cellar is load -ED with Staropranen and Krušovice. ... let's fire up Smash Bros and tell tales. Habib is getting dropped off when his Mom goes to the hospital.  He says she is expected to be on call forever, now. How about the girls?  Think they can get away? "

The girls were six lovely ladies who had been friends and even 'dates' with the four young Social Distancing Outlaws.

Principally they are - Addison Pawliak, Paisley Ewan, Aaliyah Justice, Genesis Mullen, Kennedy Lynch, and Amy Kinsley Briddlestone. They seemed a Northwest Indiana demographic composite. Addison was a second generation Steel Family girl who worked as car hop at Carlson's Drive-in on Coolspring.  Paisley's father and mother were partners with Winston & Strawn. Aaliyah Justice and Genesis Mullen were cousins whose grandfather was pastor of the most important AME Church in Michigan located in the Pines along Route 12, Kennedy Lynch's father had been the long-time principal of Notre Dame Grammar School, until a teacher accused him of verbal sexual harassment. The Gary Diocese went along with the specious claim and summarily discharged a wonderful and effective school man, Such are the times and customs of a people who abandon their liberties out of fear. Last among this garland of roses was Amy Briddlestone, whose family owned a horse riding academy near LaPorte on Johnson Road. 

Amy Briddlestone had set her cap for the carelessly dashing Wesley Dioneo and had teased Habib in order to find her way into the meditative Mr. Dioneo's heart. 

The four young men caucused up first for twelve hours of Smash Brothers and ice cold Czech beers with pizzas and snacks engineered from the Dioneo larder.

Wesley descanted, " Gentlemen!  You three have been my anchor and my engine.  I have never wanted with men such as yourselves,  Were we garrisoned on the Pecos and facing hordes of Comanche, I know that each one of you would spend his last .44 in my defense.  That said, I propose that when we have best one another on the game console and quaffed just the right amount of Saromparmen, that we organize a story fest with the women.  Each of you will tell a story and I will judge the best of the lot. The prize will be my kayak."

A chord of notes accompanied the outburst of "Dude" in a triangle of spontaneous agreement. 

When the ladies would arrive the next day at 1 PM, Nine tale tellers would compete for the kayak.  In the mean time, Declan  told this yarn.

" A few years ago, my freshman year at La Lumiere, I met John Paxson the Boss of Bulls.  We were shooting outside the paint and in came the man who scored the winning basket in 1993 - Old # 5!!1 Well, he and I played horse."

Declan, a stocky but solidly athletic man of 6' with a bush of black curly hair often referred to as a JewFro, was greeted with trio of disbelieving voices, including his Irish twin brother Brian who also played for the La Lumiere Lakers and was teammate of Declan and present when John Paxson made a visit to the National Champion's Marsch Gym.

" NO WAY!!!!  You lying sack of shit, Declanc!  WHEN?  When, did you best John Macbeth Paxson at horse? "

Nonplussed? ( I love that contronym!) Not a bit!  Declan drew himself to his full 6' of manhood and rejoined, " Look, Dipshit, you and the Champions were bored with the old man and hit the showers and the Main House as quick as boiled asparagus.  I however, eschewed the buffet and played the man. H. O. R.S. E.  that's horse and no horseshit.  He was cool.  He wasn't always bald you know."

Declan would take his tale to the grave.  

Declan was an Outlaw and an honest man. 

PART V - Enter the Ladies



*"One of the best buys on the water, this well-built home sits on 60 x 125 lot with 5 bedrooms 3.5 baths, and fantastic views from every level. Great opportunity to create your own memories at your own private beach! After a fun day of swimming and romping in the sand, more fun awaits on the deck where you can watch the sunset and hear the beautiful sound of the waves. Many updates over recent years, including roof, gutters, down spouts, and new Thermopane Anderson windows. This is a prime location offers plenty of parking space for guests (6-7 spaces!) plus an attached 2-car garage, won't last," 

The Merriest Springald in Our Pandemic: Part III - Wesley Invites Over COVID-19 Refugees

Fear is a survival characteristic, but it makes us vulnerable to the impulse—or demand—that we surrender control to somebody else." J.D. Tuccille in Reason

"The current outbreak is thought to have started in a food market in Wuhan, China. But uncertainties remain: Researchers are still not sure which animal started the outbreak. DNA evidence suggests it’s likely related to bats (which also were the origin of the SARS coronavirus outbreak in 2003). But there’s also new, unconfirmed evidence, that the illegal pangolin trade may be implicated."  VOX

“To be clear, there is nothing good about twice as many people having this virus, or worse, dying from it, no matter how long the increase takes,” Governor JB Pritzker

" Wellington, Come on back!"  Governor JB Pritzker


Recap Parts I-II

Wesley Dioneo is the only son of Chicagoland real estate tycoon, Martin Dioneo and his society maven wife Allyson.  Martin Dioneo caught the COVID-19 virus from his Laplander personal trainer and is on a ventilator in Chicago's Northwestern Medical Center.  Allyson is holed up in the couple's massive east Lake Shore Drive apartment building a score of yards from the iconic Drake Hotel.

Allyson has sent Wesley Dioneo to the family get-away home at Stop 30 lake Shore Drive in Long Beach, Indiana. Wesley is a senior at St. Ignatius College Prep and had been since the school shut down on March 16, 2020.  Ally immediately sent Wesley to Long Beach, where he can be safe.

PART III:  Wesley Invites fellow COVID -19 Refugees over to Stop 30 after Easter is Cancelled

Imagine that you are an eighteen year old male, you come from  great wealth and privilege, that your father is leaning heavily on Death's Door with a virus that began because some goof wanted to dine on an exotic bat in Red China and that you have been living in isolation at a vacation home on the shores of one of the planet's most beautiful inland seas - a fresh water sea, mind you and that you are a person of great personal charm, intelligence, wit and Ambition - imagine.

Well, Wesley assessed all of his plus column blessings against the force of State and municipal executive orders, the skewed evidence of the dangers the virus COVID-19 might pose, the maternal apothegm hung around his neck upon stepping aboard the 509 South Shore Line eastbound train from Millenium Park  to Carroll Street Michigan City, " Behave and have fun, but no parties." and determined after two weeks of isolation that enough was a feast.

Wesley said to himself, "  The Nardo Bros.  are lonesome and Halib keeps texting me. We can social distance right at home."  Wesley text messaged his three pals, the Brothers Nardo, day students at La Lumiere and Halib Samer, teh smartest student at Marquette High School. to come over and Supe Smash Brother Ultimate the hours away and quaff some of Dad's Czech beers.

Declan  and Brian Nardo lived in Long Beach year around  with their parents and three sisters.   Their Dad Sal Nardo was a Machinist with Areclor Mittal in Burns Harbor and their Mom was a grammar school principal in Chesterton.  Halib Samer lived in a ranch house  near the Botanical Gardens with his mother.  Halib's Dad was killed in a car wreck in 2016 and his Mother worked in HR at Franciscan Hospital and grieved mightily.

Halib was accepted for admission to University of Michigan where he planned to study biology.  Halib was a master of the intricacies involved in staying alive in Smash Brothers and ran teh Marquette High School Friday Smash Brothers after classes set-to that attracted scores of would be Smash Brothers winners. Halib took down most comers.  He could not beat Amy Briddlestone.  Not only the prettiest member of the student body but the most aggressive and deadly Smash Brothers paddle smith.

Halib was madly in love with Ms. Briddlestone.

Wesley was plagued with text messages from the fetching young Amy, Marquette HS Class of 2022.  Amy made nice with Halib, in order to get close to the yummy and brilliant Wesley.  There was no way that Wesley would have anything to do with Amy of a 'relationship'  nature, because Halib was a friend.  Wesley had developed a code thanks to his Grandpa Bosco.  From his earliest memory, Wesley learned the lessons of human obligation from a man who lost toes walking that rigorous walk out of the Frozen Chosin in 1950.   Wesley wanted to aspire to be just such a man and no Amy could ever part him from that path.

Wesley asked his three best friends over and they would eat pizza, subs, ice cream and quaff Czech beers, while trying to destroy one another in Smash Brothers Ultimate.

Wesley called Northwestern and talked to Dr. Jay Standring, MD - Notre Dame & Loyola Med.  His Dad's temperature was still scary high and struggled to breathe on his own.  He was off the ventilator.  Wesley prayed.

An hour later called the Nardo Brothers and Halib Samer.

Coming in Part IV - Four men and six ladies violate the Executive Orders.

The Merriest Springald in our Pandemic - Meet Wesley Dioneo, Class of 2020: Part II

"I'm the public face of this city.  "I'm on national media, and I'm out in the public eye. The woman who cut my hair had a mask and gloves on so we are, I am practicing what I'm preaching." Mayor Lori Lightfoot on violating her Executive Orders.

Part One: Recap

Martin Dioneo, a top Chicago real estate Developer, is felled by the Coronavirus and placed on a respiratory ventilator in Northwestern Medical Center in March 2020.  His wife, socialite activist Allyson, waits out the virus in their massive East Lake Shore Drive Home and sends the couple's only son Wesley, a senior at St. Ignatius College Prep to the family vaction home in Long Beach, Indiana.  There are no schools, businesses, barbershops, saloons, or eateries open and citizens hunker down where they can.  Wesley will invite ten friends to his home to tell their stories and drink Martin Dioneo's supply of Imported Czech beers. 

Martin Dioneo had one son, Wesley.  Wesley was tall and lanky and had a slightly smirky quality about him that disarmed even the most hardened cynic.  Wesley had good genes from a his second generation Italian American Dad and his Midwestern Methodist WOKE mother Allyson -  the family conscience. Born in Long Grove, Illinois to Chuck Percy Republicans, Malcolm and Libby Coldtiquer.  Mal had been a co-pilot on a C-87 that flew Gen. George Marshall anywhere he wanted to go in the continental United States. Libby worked at Bell & Howell in Wheeling, Illinois. Libby worked with the future Illinois Senator Chuck Percy, when he was that camera and lens manufacturer's legal wunderkind.

The Coldtiquers were major players in the Illinois GOP and Planned Parenthood. No family should have more than one kid.   "Plan for one and act on the rest," was Libby's mantra.  Allyson was Libby's girl and trained the offspring t o speak her mind even when not asked or needed and to be always assertive.  Mal was always a co-pilot and let Libby turn Daddy's little girl into a force of nature who would dominate her peers from Campfire Girls to League of Women Voters to Mayor Lori Lightfoot's task force on Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Allyson was a crowd.  Her opinions and thoughts were always backed by wealth and privilege.  Marrying a titan of Chicago's real estate Olympus helped metastazize those impressive waves utterance.  WTTW included Allyson Dioneo to every panel on women, wrongful imprisonment, LGBTQ issues, legal Weed, fashion and philanthropy and don't get her started on the late-Cardinal Francis George.   Thank Gaia for Chicago' s new Catholic Ordinary, Allyson could now attend Christmas and Easter services ( well not this year anyway) at Holy Name.

Allyson Dioneo was what one might call an attractive female, were one not WOKE.

She attracted a young energetic DePaul University  School of Business MBA who bore a striking resemblance to a young Tony Curtis. Allyson set her hooks for Martin Dioneo after their second abortion together.  They had three over a period of six years, while lived in Old Town tear-downs and later  Lincoln Park brownstones.  Martin was bothered by the abortions more because for his traditionalist mother and father, than by the loss of tissue with his DNA.  Allyson worked the same doctrinal charms on Martin as she did upon Joel Weiseman and Phil Ponce.

When Martin could afford a plot of land and air-rights on East Lake Shore Drive, the Dioneo's could add a third member to their living space.

Wesley Bosco Dioneo was born on October 14, 2002.  He was a beautiful baby, an adorable infant/toddler,  a fiesty pre-schooler and an able, affable and athletic elementary and high schooler.  He was the kid that Moms and Dads wanted their kids to hang-out with, if not become.

Wesley mattered.

He was captain of soccer team, a reliable substitute on the basketball teams up until senior year when he called it quits, a witty and skilled forensic debater and a constant A Honor Roll member who was not interested in NHS in the least bit.   Wesley could care less about the service requirements.  He was a scholar, a leader and his character rejected the notion of do-gooder play acting at soup kitchens and old folks homes.

Wesley was not a cynical smart-ass.

He was genuine, direct and honest.

In fact, he was very much like his Dad and Grandpa Dioneo. Old Bosco Dioneo was a Korean War hero of the Chosin Resorvoir.  He lost three toes to froistbite and carried a few ounces of Chinese and Russian metal in his back, legs and fore arms.  He refused to accept the Purple Heart, because, in his words, " I was never hit.  No Chinaman could shoot me."  Bosco had been raised a few doors down from Saint 's Mother Cabrini's Columbus Hospital - it is a hipster real estate development now. What is not?

Bosco Dioneo was a lumber man and taught his grandson Wesley to respect the beauty, the smell and the sacred nature of wood.  He taught Wesley to carve, as well as cut lumber like a man.

Wesley was tall, lanky and as darkly beautiful as Sandro Botticelli's St. Sebastian.   Like a Chicago Medici, the son of Martin Dioneo could afford to commission painting of himself, but that called too much attention away from who was Wesley Dioneo

His peers and class mates knew Wesley Dioneo and that loved and respected him. He liked girls and respected them, in the old world manner of his grandfather.

When COVID-19 felled his father and his mother exiled Wesley to a  Long Beach self-quarantine, The girls of Saint Ignahtius, Mother McAuley, Marquette Catholic and La Lumiere School called Wesley with sympathy - real and feigned.

Wesley had three close males friends  The Nardo Brothers, who attended La Lumiere School and Halib Samer, the son of Lebanese immigrants who went o Marquette High School in Michigan City.

Wesley invited seven girls and his three buddies over to tell their own stories and punish Martin Dioneo's supply of Czech beers.

Wesley was a good kid.

The Merriest Springald in Our Pandemic: Wesley Dioneo Has the Gang Over for Tales and Tall Boys. Part One

“For the vast majority of you already taking precautions, your lives will not change very much,” Governor J. B. Pritzker March 2020


In this sore affliction and misery of our city, the reverend authority of the laws, both human and divine, was all in a manner dissolved and fallen into decay, for [lack of] the ministers and executors thereof, who, like other men, were all either dead or sick or else left so destitute of followers that they were unable to exercise any office, wherefore every one had license to do whatsoever pleased him. Many others held a middle course between the two aforesaid, not straitening themselves so exactly in the matter of diet as the first neither allowing themselves such license in drinking and other debauchery as the second, but using things in sufficiency, according to their appetites; nor did they seclude themselves, but went about, carrying in their hands, some flowers, some odoriferous herbs and other some4 divers kinds of series,[7] which they set often to their noses, accounting it an excellent thing to fortify the brain with such odours, more by token that the air seemed all heavy and attainted with the stench of the dead bodies and that of the sick and of the remedies used. Giovanni Boccaccio Decameron  1492

Along the  Northwest  Indiana shoreline sits a rosary of beach communities hugging the evaporating shores of Lake Michigan, which has burglarized the sandy real estate, as is its wont every thirty years.
This year was special as the Great Lake flung iits doors open to an air-borne global pestilence - Covid 19. In one of these beads of the affluent rosary sat the get-away home of Martin Dioneo.

Martin Dioneo operated a real estate realm that included most of the prime suburban properties on the Chicago metropolitan necklace - Barrington, Winnetka, Wilmette, Hawthorn Woods, Glencoe and many holdings in Beverly touching on Longwood Drive, Hyde Park along the Midway and Evanston near Sheridan Road.  Martin Dioneo rubbed shoulders with the John Bucks and Jim Carlins, but was quite a few pegs below their august places on the urban corporate taxonomy.  Martin Dioneo was beyond comfortable, but retained his working class sensibilities honed to the heel of his moral blade, as opposed to the point.   He respected a working man, but what do his damnedest to avoid actually putting spade to soil.   Martin's father had been a lumber man and very successful one in Bridegport and later Evergreen Park, Illinois.  It was lumber that allowed Martin to make his foray into the cut-throat world of urban and suburban real estate development.  Martin  Dioneo was felled by a bug that originated in Wuhan China, because someone wanted to eat a bat.

Martin was a member of the East Bank Club, until he had his apartment building
on East Lake Shore Drive fitted out with the latest and greatest physical fitness equipment and a personal trainer from Lapland in Finland to bully-rag and encourage him through his ever changing regimen of workouts.  Gaelbu , Martin's Sami trainer from the great state of Ustjoki, travelled to Paris over the Christmas Holidays and was infected with the Covid 19 bug and brought the affliction home to Martin Dioneo - Et in Arcadia, Ego!  Also, in high-priced real estate along Chicago's Lake Front.

In  early March of 2020, Martin Dioneo was in the isolation unit of Northwestern University Hospital.

Martin's wife Allyson sent her son Wesley, a senior at St. Ignatius College Prep to their vacation home at Stop 30 in Long Beach, Indiana,  to wait out the plague. 

Wesley Dioneo was a very popular young man who had only just been accepted to begin classes at Yale in the fall of 2020. 

While Martin struggled for breath on the ventilator at Northwestern Med Center, and Allyson hunkered down on East Lake Shore Drive, Wesley could be trusted with the keys to the family vacation compound in Indiana. 

What to do?



Coming up next - Wesley operates the garage doors and lets in a half score of privileged young people for beers and home-made stories.