Saturday, April 11, 2020

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.




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