In Over My Head

Posted on 02/03/2011 by Grumpa Joe

IN OVER MY HEAD

I visited Mendel High School once before I signed up. They held an open house in the winter.  Mom and I took the tour and got to know the place, or so I thought.

On my first day, entering the main hallway, was very exciting.  All of a sudden I didn’t know where anything was.  The letter I got said to report to room 103 for home room.  “Where is room 103”, I asked myself.  I climbed the stairs up to the main floor. There were people everywhere but no one to help.  I walked the main floor looking for 103 but couldn’t find it.  I finally broke down and asked.  By this time my heart was pounding fast because it was getting closer to the 9:00 a.m. start time.  A loud bell rang and then shut off.  That scared me.  The bustle of activity in the halls was even faster now.

Room 103 was on the ground floor downstairs.  Whew!  I got into the room with a minute to spare.

The bell ruled my life at Mendel.  The idea of a bell ringing to let us know a class was over or beginning was totally new to me.  Getting up from your desk at the bell seemed disrespectful to the teacher.  AT OLH we stayed in the same seat all day, we got up when Sister told us to.  We would never think of getting up and walking out on her because the time was up.

My home room meant that it was the very first class of the day, and that is when the teacher took the roll call. My home room teacher was Mr. Mills;  he was also the football coach.

Another strange new practice was the ‘announcements’.  When the principal or a school leader wanted to talk to us, he’d turn on the public address system.  Each room had a speaker and we listened to the announcements during our home room session.   Once roll call and announcements were completed, Mr. Mills started teaching General Science.  This subject fascinated me because it covered all of the practical things in life, like water seeking it’s own level.  I’d learn much later that General Science was basic physics.  Physics is the foundation of engineering.

It always seemed like we just got started in General Science when the bell rang and class was over.  The next class was Algebra, taught by Mr. Magee, the assistant football coach.  He came to our room to teach the class.  I never heard of algebra before and wondered what it would be.  Once he started, I loved it.  The whole idea of algebra was fascinating.

Being in a Catholic school meant we always had a class in religion, which, for the first time in my life, was taught by a lay person.

After lunch on Monday, Wednesday and Friday I had woodshop for two hours with Father Hennessy.  There was also English and something called Social Science.  Of all the classes, I hated English and Social Science the most.  What do they have to do with being an engineer? The question haunted me.  Yet, in looking back over my years as an engineer, those two subjects were an integral part of my life and work.  So many times during school, both high school and college, I would ask myself the question “What does this subject have to do with engineering?”  The answer was always ‘nothing’.  The simple truth is that subjects like Social Science, Art Appreciation, Philosophy and Religion may not directly be a part of engineering, but they are a huge part of life. Knowing about many things makes me a better person all over.  I didn’t believe it or understand it back then.  I did know that I wouldn’t graduate with the credits.

Credit is another concept that was new to me.  In grammar school, everyone learned the same things, but in high school the kids in a home room could be learning along four different tracks.  At Mendel, it was Pre-engineering, Scientific, Business or General.  All of the curricula were preparing the student for college, but each one had slightly different subjects to learn.  Each subject carried credit hours and to graduate I needed a certain number of credit hours completed successfully.  Credits made it easier for the school and student to know how close one was to graduation.  Oops, the bell just rang; it’s time to go to the next class!

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NEW BEGINNINGS-Part A

Posted on 28/02/2011 by Grumpa Joe

Yesterday, I posted a story about the gang of kids with whom I went to grammar school. Today, I am beginning a series of stories related to my adventure in high school. The time is September, 1952, the school is in the Roseland community of Chicago. My story is not different from the story of all kids who were born just before and during World War Two. The activities we enjoyed were the same. We all employed the same form of communication; letters and face to face speech. Phones were still scarce within the home, with a few public phone booths scattered about in businesses. Radio was the strongest media format. Television was still a rarity within homes, but catching on quickly. Not every family owned an automobile and public transportation was abundant with trolleys that ran frequently. Kids bought single 78 rpm records to play on their hi-fi players. Portable radios were the size of a large box of Cheerios, and used four to six “D” size batteries.  It was a time of my life that I would not trade for anything.

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NEW BEGINNINGS

The long summer ended and the big day arrived.  Mom packed a lunch for me, and I set off to ninety-third and Woodlawn to catch the street car.  I was excited; I didn’t have a buddy with me.  I was on my own.  The few minutes waiting for the car to arrive made me more anxious.  Should I take a chance and walk to the next stop?  Just then I spotted the red trolley making the turn onto 93rd Street from it’s journey around the Nickel Plate round-house at Kenwood.

The ride to Cottage Grove lasted all of five minutes.  I got off to wait for my transfer onto the Cottage Grove South car. Another wait to make me anxious but there was more traffic to watch on Cottage and it relieved the anxiety a bit.  The trolley stopped near the corner and I stepped off the curb to cross the lane to where the long red trolley stood in the center of the four lane street.  The pavement was all cobblestone and rough.  Once I was on the Cottage Grove line and headed south, I breathed a short sigh of relief.

The Cottage trolley went two blocks before it made a left turn onto 95th street to cut through the via-duct under the Illinois Central (IC) tracks to where Cottage Grove continued south on the east side of the railroad tracks.  The IC tracks are elevated from the south suburbs all the way to 47th street.  The viaducts passing under the tracks are long, dark and noisy.  As soon as the trolley broke out of the viaduct it swung right to head south again.  At this point the trolley tracks were between the street and the raised Illinois Central tracks. Because of the separation the motorman could make time between stop signs and cross streets.  The electric motors accelerated smoothly, and since the tracks were off the street and there was no traffic in the way, the trolley sped along at 40 miles per hour and more.

At 103rd we had to slow down for the stop light.  After that, we slowed down once more for the viaduct at 107th.  The 103rd and 107th cross streets were a lot lower than the track bed, so the trolley dipped as it approached these intersections.  There was always the chance that a car or truck would break out from the viaduct into the path of the trolley.  For this reason, the motorman slowed the trolley considerably to cross the intersections.

I started to get nervous again because my stop at 111th was nearing.  The conductor called it out and the car stopped.  Many boys of my age got off.  Some were on the car when I got on; others joined us at stops along the way.

Again, I crossed over the street to catch the trolley going west.  It was waiting there, and I had to run to catch it.  I jumped up the stairs with my transfer ticket in one hand and my lunch bag in the other.  The trolley took off, and before I could get settled into a seat, we were at South Park Avenue.  I got off at the rear door next to Pullman Bank.  There, across the street was the gate that opened onto the drive that led to Mendel Catholic High School for boys.

The walk up the drive was pretty because the forty acre school campus was large and well landscaped.  At this point there was a crowd of boys all headed in the same direction to the tall, stately building in the center overlooking the pond and 111th street.  I ran up the front steps and opened the door to a new world and a whole new segment of life.

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Burnside Teen Gang

Posted on 27/02/2011 by Grumpa Joe

Yesterday, Grandma Peggy  had the distinct pleasure of meeting a group of my grammar school buddies. Eight of us who lived within a few houses of each other, and hung around with during the seventh and eighth grades met with their wives to have lunch at Papa Joe’s in New Lenox, IL. It is amazing that after sixty years we can still relate with each other. We had a grand time, sharing our lives. I felt like I was back in Burnside on Avalon with the old gang.

When I retired ten years ago, I wrote a series of stories about my earliest recollections as a kid. I self-published the collection in a three-volume book titled Jun-e-or. Many of the tales are from the seventh and eighth grade years. I’ve chosen the one below because it best describes the relationship we enjoyed as friends. Five of those who were there are named in this piece. I hope I didn’t tell too many whoppers, but it is what I remember.

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TEEN GANG

By the time I was in seventh grade, I felt like hot stuff.  I had many friends around the block.  Most of them were classmates from Our Lady of Hungary grammar school (OLH).  Others went to Perry school.  Today, they would classify us as a gang.  Back then, we were just some friends who hung out together.  If I needed companionship, I walked down to 93rd street after supper. Within a few minutes, someone would join me.  Our group had boys and girls. Eventually, each of us paired off with a partner.

I hung out with Rich Makowski, Joe Barath, Jack Adams, Bob Golden, Kenny Zivkowich, and Larry Somodi.  Joe Barath was a year behind me at OLH. Joe’s parents owned and operated Barath’s Grocery Store on 93rd Street. Jack Adams lived across the alley from me on Woodlawn Avenue. Bob Golden lived a block south on Avalon.  Ken Zivkowich came from Kimbark where he lived in an upstairs apartment.  Larry Somodi lived on Avalon, and then moved to 93rd Street.  Jack, Kenny, and Bob all went to Perry school, the rest of us went to OLH.

The girls in the group consisted of my sister Maria, Mary Ann Lihota, Mary Ann Pavel, Carol Cometic, Rose Ann Pfaff and Sherry Zajeski.  Usually, my group ignored Sis and Mary Ann.  Joey Barath had a crush on Sis, but she pretended not to like him. Eventually, he gave it up.  Rich Makowski had a romance going with Rose Ann Pfaff and Joe Barath finally paired off with Carol Cometic.  Jack Adams liked Mary Ann Pavel, but so did Ken Zivkowich.  Carol Cometic’s girlfriend, Sherry, is the one I fell for head-over-heels.

The gang had many other kids too, but I forget them all. We hung around together, sitting on the front steps of someone’s house, fooling around.

We were at an age when music became a very important part of our lives and we often played records together.  By then each of us had a television. After school, we all watched American Bandstand with Dick Clark.  Soon we were meeting for dance parties at someone’s basement.  Each of us brought our favorite records to play. We listened, sang along with and danced to the music with our partners until it was time to go home.

Once, Kenny Z came dressed in a pink shirt with the collar flared out. He matched the shirt with a pair of electric blue pants pegged at the heel.   They had white stitching running down the seams.  He was hot stuff and started a trend which all the boys followed, or at least the ones who could afford the clothes.  Another fashion statement was to add a narrow knitted tie to the pink shirt.  The knot was big and ugly because the knitted material was so thick and the tie was so narrow. The uglier the knot was, the better it was.  We also put pressure on each other to dress alike and to wear our hair the same way.  The DA (duck’s ass) hair style was popular with the guys as was the Brylcreem sheen.  We used Brylcreem on our hair to keep the waves in place, and our long sideburns swept back, and up sharply at the end. Our hair looked like the tail end of a duck, therefore the term “duck’s ass.”

One of the most popular guys in the neighborhood was “Dago.” His real name is Bob, but his nick name was “Dago.”  Bob combed his hair in the DA style.  He wore a black leather jacket over a white tee-shirt, Levi pants, and black engineer boots decorated with chrome carpet tacks on the heels.  Dago was our real life version of the “Fonz,” he hung around with Billy and Ray Anna from 93rd Street.  Dago was a little older than most of us and the very first to own his own car.  It was the coolest car in Burnside; a Black 1949 Mercury with fender skirts.  It had really smooth lines and was a trend setter for car designs of the future.

Our group was inseparable unless a couple went on a formal date, which was rare.  We hung out together throughout the seventh and eighth grade and up to the moment we separated to go to high-school.

I chose Mendel Catholic High School. Ken Zivkovich, Bob Golden, and Jack Adam, all went to Chicago Vocational High School, (CVS).  Joe Barath followed me to Mendel.  Larry Somodi went to St. Francis De Sales on the East side.  Most of the girls enrolled at Bowen High School.

Going into high school was a beginning for all of us, and the old gang didn’t hang together as often as it did before.  Each of us had unique excitement in our new environments. We were making new friends, and going to school events that were very different from each other. Many boys took part-time jobs selling shoes. They made money for car fare, lunch, and clothes. Each of us had extra excitement generated by the sports teams of our school. Football games, pep-rallies, and sock hops kept us busy on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. In the evenings we were loaded with homework assignments. Our time for hanging out became very limited and precious. Often, when I walked to the corner to find someone to hang out with, I was alone. Many of us had telephones in our houses, but we never used them to call each other. We still relied on meeting our friends on the street. It was several years before we began to call each other.

By the time I finished high school, I had a new set of friends, and activities. My old friends all went their separate ways too. Some paired off with new partners, some had no partners, and some, like Joe and Carol, were going steady.

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We Think We Have it Rough

Posted on 26/02/2011 by Grumpa Joe
White rye-type bread

Image via Wikipedia

HOT WATER

My dad walked home from work nearly every day.  He rarely took the car unless it needed work, or he was in a hurry.  When he arrived home, he followed a ritual that very seldom changed.  I remember him coming up from the basement into the kitchen and going directly to the fridge for the slab bacon. He cut off a square chunk, then sliced a slab off the rye bread. The bacon was too big to eat in a chunk, so he sliced it into thin pieces and laid them on the bread. Finally, he cut the bacon-covered bread into small squares.  He ate the squares, one by one. If  I was there, he shared. Hmmm, hmmm, good!

After this snack, Dad went back downstairs to light the fire in the small stove. He had modified the stove to run a pipe through the firebox and  into the water tank.  He kept a box of  kindling to fuel the fire.  The fire heated the water in the tank.  Once the fire was going, he started a project around the house like cutting the grass, or fixing something.

By six o’clock, the water was hot, and Dad went upstairs to take his bath.  When he was squeaky clean, he came down for supper.  Afterwards, Mom still had enough hot water to wash the dishes.

The small wood stove served to heat water during the summer months.  During the winter, the coal furnace heated the water. Another pipe routed water through the furnace into the water tank. Dad opened a valve to switch the water flow from the stove to the furnace.  During the winter we had hot water continuously because  the fire was going in the furnace.

Dad installed a gas-fired  water heater in 1950.  He bought the heater from Sears with instructions for how to do it. After that, he never used the small stove for heating water again.

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Lazy Summer Days Spent Lolling On Custom Lawn Furniture

Posted on 22/01/2011 by Grumpa Joe

This post is excerpted from “Jun-e-or” a book of my “Recollections of Life in the 1940’s and 50’s,” available from Amazon.com

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There is something about winter that sets me into recalling times from the past. In early 2010 I posted several stories about my Grampa Jim.  This year, I will do the same. Here is the first of a series.

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Lazy Summer Days Spent Lolling On Custom Lawn Furniture

Every summer, Dad packed us up and took us to the farm in Michigan to live with Mom’s dad Grampa. That twenty-acre spread like seemed a vast wilderness at the time. Gramps’s house was set back from the road and trees lined each side of the drive giving the feel of going through a tunnel. Three tall cedar trees stood in a row with two pear trees next to the ditch. They hid the house from the road.

The front door faced the road, and served to let a breeze flow through the house. Gramps never did finish building the front steps. The main entrance was from the side door facing the yard at the end of the drive. A huge willow tree, opposite the living room window, filled the side yard with shade. The weeping boughs nearly touched the ground, and my arms reached less than half way around its trunk. A few feet away stood a very mature mulberry tree that appeared tiny next to the willow

In early summer, the birds came to eat mulberries.  I climbed the low branches and sat in the tree with them. Mom knew what I was doing because my lips and hands were purple. The low branches were easy to climb, not like the tall willow whose first branch was many feet above my head. Dad used a ladder to climb up to that branch to make us a swing from a recycled tire from his 1929 Buick

The outhouse stood across the yard from the mulberry. Grampa Jim didn’t have running water, nor a bathtub or toilet. The outhouse was the third point on a trapezoidal yard formed by the side door, and the two trees.

Grampa Jim had a unique set of lawn furniture sliced from the trunk of a huge tree.  The Table was twenty-four inches in diameter, and just as tall.  The chairs were slightly smaller in diameter and were cut to form a seat with a backrest. The set was old, and gray with no signs of bark on the wood.

I spent endless hours playing on, and around that furniture. Sometimes, I sat on a chair and watched the big black ants run crazy patterns all over the table. Often, I tried counting the rings, but got lost in the weathered and worn grooves of the cut surface.

On the very hot listless days of summer, Grampa Jim, and his buddy Mr. Toth sat on the tree furniture in the shade drinking a beer. They chatted and smoked; Grampa dragged a hand rolled cigarette of Bull Durham while his friend puffed a corncob pipe filled with Prince Albert. Often, I sat with them and listened. They spoke in Hungarian, and I did not recognize many of their words, but I understood the gist of their thoughts.

I wondered then, and I still do now, if the table and chairs all came from one tree.  If they did, the tree had to be magnificent. I asked myself, how tall was that tree? How old was it? Why was it cut down? Did it fall down, or did it die of natural causes? All I know is that I loved sitting and playing on that furniture.

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