Dem Bridgeport Boids Are in Beverly Well, Morgan Park Anyway

The Starling Flock has swarmed "from Bridgeport to Beverly" . . . like the song* says . . . . in search of perches for the South Side Irish Parade. These birds did not get the word - The Parade's Cancelled.

Me and my Police Detective neighbor just shoo-ed a couple of hundred off the cars, decks, bikes, baby-buggies and trees here on 108th Street. The place is lousy with winged warblers.

Which posed a head-scratcher - why they visiting in this time of Global Warming? Al?

I'll ask Mrs. Fields at the Department of Energy! Thus!

Question - Why do starlings flock in such large numbers in the
winter? Flocks never seem that big in the summer .
---------------------------------------
While some starlings do not migrate, many of them migrate from north to
south and back. This normally occurs in large numbers. When you see big
flocks of birds in colder weather, they are probably heading south (late
fall) or north(early spring). Once they reach a warm area they tend to
spread out into smaller groups. If the entire group stayed together it would
be difficult for them to find enough food, water, and shelter for each bird.
If small groups break off and spread out, then food, water, and shelter will
be available to each bird in the small flock. Flocks also help with safety,
as there are many eyes to be watching and with larger groups it provides
heat when they are all together. My guess is that the reason you see such
large flocks in winter compared to summer is that in the summer the smaller
groups have already dispersed.

Grace Fields

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/zoo00/zoo00763.htm

*

South Side Irish Song ( Click my post title for the sweet sounds of Terry McEldowney!)

Written by Tom Walsh, Tom Black and Terry McEldowney

We're the Windy City Irish-where the craic is always best
Where every day is Paddy's Day and everyone's a guest
If you're Irish on the North Side or Irish on the West
Welcome to the South Side come join our Irish Fest!

(Chorus) We're the South Side Irish as our fathers were before
We come from the Windy City and we're Irish to the core
From Bridgeport to Beverly from Midway to South Shore
We're the South Side Irish-Let's sing it out once more!
Our parents came from Mayo, from Cork and Donegal.
We come from Sabina, St. Kilian's and St. Gall
St. Leo, Visitation, Little Flower and the rest.
The South Side parishes are mighty-they're the best!

Chorus

We live on the South Side-Mayor Daley lived here too
The Greatest Irish Leader that Chicago ever knew
he was always proud of his South Side Irish roots!
So here's to Hizzonor to his memory we'll be true.

We sing the songs our fathers sang when they were growing up
Rebel songs of Erin's Isle in South Side Irish Pubs
and when it comes to baseball-we have two favorite clubs
The Go-Go White Sox... and whoever plays the Cubs!

Ted and Me - It was the Summer of 1980 and . . .I was not teaching school . . .and Drinking and Fishing in the Kankakee!

Aug. 12, 1980: In an emotional speech to the Democratic National Convention, withdraws his bid for the presidency.

I was not moved. It was politics. God, I am such a mean cynical bastard about our elected officials.

Senator Ted Kennedy died of a brain tumor, actually the brain tumor does not kill but complications to all the other organs ( renal failure e.g.) due to the tumor put out the lights. This I know.

Everyone with a thigh is moved. . .moved I say . . . to recount their tales of the Old Lion of the Senate and to somehow insinuate themselves into Ted's Tale. I have a brace of them -thighs -not tales - nicely fleshed but masculine. I got one tale of Ted.

Here goes. In 1980, I was in my fifth year of teaching English at Bishop Martin D. McNamara High School in Kankakee, my third year of dating the lovely and witty Mary Elizabeth Cleary whom I would be blessed with in marriage, partnership in parenthood in 1983 and forced to send back to God in 1998, and in my sixth year as 5-string banjo ( C tuning)/Guitarist ( Gibson J240) with Sons of Reilly's Daughter with Terry McEldowney ( singer) and Willie Winters ( Vocals Guitar). On special occasions we'd be joined by the great Whitey O'Day!

We were practiced and for the most part profesional.

Sometime that summer we were asked to play in the Auditorium of Mother McAuley High School to warm up the house for Senator Ted Kennedy who was running for President against the aimless Jimmy Carter. I was a Jimmy Boy until about two weeks into the Carter White House when the Man from Plains revealed himself to be the Bunny Phobe Bored Round the World.

Anyway, we were excited to play a freebie for a Kennedy. We had played at the Old Beverly House on the triangle at 103rd/Ashland/Vincennes for Sarge Shriver who could not pack a phone booth a couple of years earlier, but this was the Bloodline Himself.

We played Irish songs, Italian songs, Polish songs, Jewish songs, and C/W hits much to the thigh-tingling excitement of the crowd - Teddy was late. Congressman Marty Russo got there ahead of Teddy and pumped up the crowd some more . . .still no Teddy.

Terry McEldowney asked the crowd if Marty Russo were not the "Tallest Trunk-Stuffer they had ever seen?" Much to the amusement of the best Congressman the 3rd District ever had. Still no Teddy.

We were asked by impressario Boz O'Brien to do one more set. We did. I broke two strings on the 5-string Willie did guitar work for Ballads Danny Boy & Kevin Barry. I was bent over getting out strings and got knocked over by security Teddy was on!

He said "Hhhhhhhheerrrrreeeee innnnn SHA-Caw-wah-Gow!!!!!! . .. .yadda yadda" Five minutes and gone all the while I was monkeying with two strings I'd not need that day. I never saw his mug, shook his mitt or said Howdy. I was on the floor stringing my banjo. Show Over. Ah, Teddy, I hardly knew ye! God speed.

Senator Edward 'Ted' Kennedy - Show Over.

Father McKenna and Sunday's Jewish Gospel of John 6: 60 - 69

Mass at Sacred Heart Church is a genuine joy. The tiny French Mission Church in the Washington Heights neighborhood east of Morgan Park on the south side of Chicago cradles a crowd of devout, humble and interesting Catholics.

At the 8:30 a.m. Sunday Mass Irish baritone Terry McEldowney rattles the stained glass widows and Aves with his inimitable -"Hey, Midget! ( Terry's sobriquet for the author of these lines) Good to see your dwarfish hide darkening the Lord's Banquet,Son!" and Vales the crowd out with America the Beautiful. At 10;30 a.m. Mass I get to run into John Sheehan and Jerry and Kathy Schumacher and the post Eucharistic giggles out on Church Street.

The celebrants tend to be retired Maryknoll or Archdiocese of Chicago priests and one of the best of the homilists is Father Edward McKenna.

Yesterday's treat was a tour de force commentary on The Gospel of John -

John 6: 60 - 69
60 Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?"
61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at it, said to them, "Do you take offense at this?
62 Then what if you were to see the Son of man ascending where he was before?
63 It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
64 But there are some of you that do not believe." For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him.
65 And he said, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father."
66 After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him.
67 Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?"
68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life;
69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."

Father McKenna noted the Jewish quality of Questions and the Responsorial Questions, summed up in the exchange with Peter -Jesus said to the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God."

Father McKenna reminded all of us that we pester our God, our neighbors and ourselves with questions demanding a final answer. As Catholics, we say we believe in the Resurrection - end of story. Christ invites us to joy and we look for certainty and the frustration of somehow having our 'Final Answers' like the Regis Philbin show. It is the questions answered by more questions that should lead us to living better lives.

The beauty of Judaisim lies in the endless questioning and self-examination. Judaism washes over the walls of bigots and the certain folks who want to get up a pogrom. You never hear of a Jew calling another Faith, 'a gutter religion.' Atheists have all the answers. Some Fundamentalists coreligionists have the answers and too many of us Catholics demand final answers.

Father McKenna reminded us at Sacred Heart that through Faith one gets no empirical answers, but all the joy one should possess. That requires humility on our part and jerks like me tend to be too embarrassed to appear not to know something. It is tough to remember that "We Believe in One God & etc." - we got caught up in Life's minutiae and the quotidian care of the common place. If we KNEW we'd all be Lotto winners.

Thanks Father McKenna!

Pentecost,Memorial Day and a Young Man's Death

Veni, Creator Spiritus is the hymn that Terry McEldowney will sing at today's 10:30 Mass for Sacred Heart Church at 116th & Church here on the south side.

Terry McEldowney has one of the most powerful and rich baritones in Western Civilization - he is especially poignant when remembering our Fallen Veterans and in reminding weak Catholics like me of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Max Weissmann is the Director of the Center for the Study of Great Ideas at University of Chicago. Mr. Weissmann, an architect and philosopher, helped Mortimer Adler develop the Center. Max sent me the photos posted above.

Terry and Max know loss. Terry and Max know the power of Faith. I am proud to call each man my friend.

This is the Feast of The Ascension of Christ.

Next Sunday is the Feast of the Pentecost, which memorializes the Descent of the Holy Ghost upon Mary the Mother of God and the Twelve Apostles. This might be considered a more powerful Feast than Christmas or Easter to Christians, as it recounts the sense of loss experienced by the Apostles and Christ's Mother following the Ascension of Christ. All of us lose those we love. The saddest of us are the ones who lose themselves - forget our roots, our family, our obligations and our place in God's Hands.

Tomorrow, we also celebrate the loss of men and women who have given their lives for our Country. My Dad was a seventeen year old who went to the Solomon Islands in 1943 with the 3rd Marines, and then fought at Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima and mopped up Guam some more until he was mustered out of the service. He is now a seventeen year old octogenarian, who has witnessed the ascension of his mother, father, brothers and sisters, friends, and daughter in law ( my wife Mary). He will be at 9AM Mass in Orland Park with his bride. He will hear Veni, Creator Spiritus

A family near me, lost their baby. Jack Callahan was a big strapping eighteen year old Marist football player who died following a seizure hours before his graduation from high school. ( click my post title for Mark Konkol's touching story)

My baby son, who worked at Di Cola's Fish Market until late last night, is sleeping. My baby girls are sleeping.

On the Pentecost, God sent his Spirit to revive us. On Memorial Day, we as a nation recall the babies who sacrificed themselves for Liberty.

Tell me God does not know what He is doing. Tell me that God not only sent the Holy Ghost, but also Terry McEldowney and Max Weissmann, outside of His Plan. Faith happens, when we let go of what is meant to return to Him according to that plan and also, when we try to make sense of the beautiful, as well as the terrible, sent as a gift to each of us.

Veni, Creator! We'll remember.

Veni, creator Spiritus
mentes tuorum visita,
imple superna gratia,
quae tu creasti pectora.

Come Holy Spirit, creator, come
from your bright heavenly throne,
come take possession of our souls
and make them all your own

Merry Christmas! God is Great and the Rest Ain't Too Bad!

Merry Christmas*! This morning cops and fireman and City Workers were getting coffee at White Hen at 103rd & Artesian as well as Kareem's Dunkin Donuts over on Western. They were bundled in arctic gear for a full day of serving all of us.

Two young coppers and a young lady EMT had been among the worshippers at Sacred Heart Catholic Church on 116th Church Street last night, when Terry McEldowney held forth with Oh, Holy Night and Adeste Fidelis. The tiny French Mission church built in 1904, during the Chicago Stockyard Strikes was packed with Faithful and devout neighbors from all over the 19th Ward. Terry McElligott and I were asked to pass the Offering baskets after Father Dempsey's sermon explained that 'God does not read computer print-outs for his Beloved, but sends his Son among us, to share our Joys, Set-backs and Sufferings.' Sacred Heart Church did Okay! It took four good cranks on the hopper of the Offering Box to load the offerings.

My kids and I slept in Peace, because public service angels were out and about on Duty.

The young Police officers and Fire Fighters and all the public servants from the City of Chicago's Water Department and Streets and Sanitation and the Peoples Gas crews and the frozen wire warriors on the ComEd trucks are out with the Little Guy in the Manger - keeping watch, while the angels sing.

* I found this manger scene on the Net; done a by a young artist when he was 7 years old. Click my post title for his site.

God Bless Us All - He has and he does!

1958 St. Pat's 79th Street Parade- Click My Title for Full Video

Tom Stumpf sent me this wonderful color slide show of the 1958 St. Patrick's Day Parade that marched from Ashland to Halsted on 79th Street. Note the absence of goofy green hats.

Leo High School is the dominant institution of the parade route and continues to be an Auburn-Gresham Anchor.

Get a load of the great floats including Dressler's Baker and Borden's Dairy.

Terry McEldowney, himself a 79th Street Institution, leads the keening on the anthem South Side Irish which chonicles the litany of Catholic Parishes that comprise - the South Side Irish.

Thank you Tom Stumpf!