The Chicago Project Blogger

Petrified Tree Stumps

Again last weekend, I walked through the old neighborhood with a friend. As I was recalling the changes that the neighborhood hs gone through, it occured to me that neighborhood history cannot possibly interest someone who has no ties to that neighborhood. And my friend being just 21, history is so relative. But she put on a brave 'showing of interest' and I tried to curbtail the longer winded stories that only a few of us would chuckle at. Yet, it did spark return stories of when she had visited her old haunts in a visit to New Mexico a few years back, so apparently the experience is sharable, if not the details.

Regardless, of interest to her was found along the front of Swift school sidewalk. I wanted to show her what remains of a childhood mystery for me. You may recall, as I have mentioned this elsewhere, that along the front of the school on Winthrop, were several petrified tree stumps, painted a bright yellow. Along with these stumps were deep metal plaques, cemented into the sidewalk, commemorating fallen soldiers from Chicago. As I pointed this out, there remains only two plaques and no stumps. Mostly replaced by larger grates around new young trees. I must remember to photograph these plaques for this site and posterity. I previously thought these soldiers were credited with being from Great Lakes, but it turns out that Fort Sheridan is the base etched in iron. And oddly, on one of the remaining plaques, there is a square deep carving, that may have always been there, that removes the last digits of the year in question. The other plaque is dated 1921. So perhaps this was a memorial to WWI soldiers?

And along with these painted stumps, with their plaques, were the words that "these trees were planted and dedicated by the children of George B. Swift School." Back in the day when Military was honored, education revered and the quest for Peace instead of more bloodshed ... celebrated.

kac

Patrol Boys

While I worked at The Board of Trade several years back, I waited for cabs at the corner of Foster and Clark. A nearby Elementary School brought back memories of crossing guards. There was one at this heavy traffic corner as well as a CPD Crossing Maid(?).

While waiting out a cab's arrival, I asked the lad working that corner if they were still called Patrol boys. He said they were. I was glad to hear that. It's a perfect name. And a great athoritive role for a kid in school as well. I don't ever remember a Patrol boy abusing his duties. I have noticed that the official belt worn around one shoulder and waist has changed over the years. When I went to Swift, they were all made of thick dingy white canvas. They have since changed to bright safety orange plastic wear.

Somewhere around here I still have my older brothers Crossing Guard badge worn proudly across the chest pinned to the belt. Awarded after serving a year on your designated corner. It is small, bronzed, and bears a shield depicting a boy and a girl with their belts on holding their hands out in proper guard etiquette.

I was never a Patrol boy myself. Or a hallway monitor, teachers aide, Audio Visual or anything else with responsibility attached while at school. And my brother Lee, who was a patrol boy, later enlisted into the military. Coincidence? I don't think so.

But the most lasting impression of Patrol boys of yore, was the musically sing-song call to the next corner when it was time to leave their post. They would face the next corner and shout slowly "Leeeeeet's Gooooo -ooooo" dropping a few notes at the end in a doppler effect.
As I tagged home I could hear the next corner echo it further on in the same exact presentation only fainter by distance and a bit echoey. At times I believe I could hear a third set of lungs scarcely. To me it singled that I was missing the first Three Stooge cartoon on Bob Bell's (Andy Starr) Three Stooges Theater and the quench for a tall glass of Nestle's Quick beckoned me home.

Leeeet'sss Goooo-ooooooooo.

Remembering the little things

Seriously, if you did not go to Swift School in the 60's or 70's then just skip this post.
My recent visits to my old neighborhood has brought back some of the small memories that have mostly gone the way of the SRS reading tests. I offer a list of things I had pondered while biding my time at Swift. Hopefully a few will jog your old cobwebbed memory as well.

Along the front of the school were several petrified tree stumps painted a bright yellow. They were trees planted in the 1920's to commemorate Chicago based soldiers who had fallen in the line of duty. Each one had a plaque atop it. Since they removed these stumps there still exists some of the plaques now rooted into the cement. I imagine the idea was to get a kid to ponder his patriotism each time he or she tripped over these stumps while escaping a tag partner or a TJO chase.

The old field house was a somber place for me. Noisy and crowded but yet very distant and solitary. Of course that was just me, but the only thing that held my interest there, was a small wooden board about two foot square representing a hockey rink. It had small diamond shaped pieces at each end in front of the small cutaway representing the net. With this was a small wooden "puck" and two hand held sticks in a slanted "L" shape. With distinct smacking wood-on-wood sounds, kids would put their all into this crudely made sports apparatus; the precursor to table hockey and air hockey.

Rainy days sucked because large puddles would pool under the swings making it inoperable except for the daring and foolish. And when the three regular swings were full, one would have to make do with either of the two "baby" swings that had the wooden bar that slipped down over the lap.

Bill Grandia, the human bus, would spend all recess "driving" around the playground making regular stops at the school steps, field house, merry-go-round, monkey bars, swings, benches and teeter-totters. Bill Grandia was certifiable. Yet I once hopped a ride to the fieldhouse to see how ridiculous it felt. Surprisingly, not so bad. Besides, Bill never charged a red cent.

During recess in 3rd grade Mark Hirsch beguiled about four of us with this fantastic tale about a woman with "tits" so large that two flatbed trucks had to slowly drive in front of her to support her enormous "tits". Mark often worked blue. I immediately worked "tits" into a conversation with my parents the next day only to discover why taboo was funny.

Swift has the only elementary swimming pool in the city of Chicago. Swimming class started at grade three on up. Showering was required before entering the pool and Mr. Bevins held a strict inspection of fingernails and feet before we were allowed to swim. Always a tense moment as we would mostly "wet down" briefly to appear showered. I guess being sent back to the showers would be humiliating for about a half a minute.

It did not matter what lame-ass pagent was being presented in the auditorium, any chance of attending was like winning the lottery. Anything that disrupted the regiment of school was welcomed.

Every class had a piano and every teacher could at least play "My napsack on my back" or "Streets of Laredo".

My teacher's at Swift were Miss Phillips (3rd) , Mrs. Nelson (4th) and Mr. Tannenbaum (5th). Of the three, Tannenbaum was the most noteworthy. We could devote an entire blog to this teacher. Topic one: Name at least three things Tannenbaum did to shake your confidence. Topic two: What was more annoying, watching him floss after lunch while talking history or the clever way he would "tap" your shoulder in line with three intertwined fingers driving into your collarbone nerve sending you halfway to the floor? (I merely tapped the child)

Fast impressions: The wrinkly black shiny floors in the main hallway. The standing portraits of Lincoln and Washington in the Auditorium, the desks bolted to the floor with ancient inkwell holes at the upper right corner, the way the room clocks ticked a half step backward before jumping two ticks forward. Indian clubs in the gym along with the climbing poles, chin-up racks along the wall with extendable ladders and the painted red, blue, green and yellow circles all over the floor.

Every Halloween at six o'clock sharp, we would get into our lame Ben Cooper costumes and meet in Swift's Boy's playground for a school sponsored walk through the neighborhood. Flashlights were standard requirements. One of those things that always sound like fun until you actually do it.

-kac

What goes around ...

I had only gone to Swift School for three years. We then moved into Rogers Park and I transferred to Eugene Field School. Although a fine school, I secretely wished I could have stayed and graduated from Swift with my friends. When I was in third grade, my first year at Swift, I had a strikingly beautiful teacher by the name of Miss Phillips. She was very tall, blonde and shapely. Now as a third grader this escaped my notice, but I only recollect this memory by my father's account of her. He had stated after he took I and my brothers to Swift for enrollment, that he thought maybe he should enroll me three of four more times to make sure he got it right. The gist being that he wanted to meet Miss Phillips several more times.

We had a Mrs. Phillips at Field School as well. She was a bull-dogged, hell-raised Disiplinarian, feared by all who had the good sense to fear pure evil. The mere mention of her name caused kids to look over their shoulder and cringe. Had she really hacked a kid to pieces for looking at her the wrong way? Could she actually crack a kid in two with her bare hands? Does she really keep instruments of torture hidden safely in her desk in the cramped Disiplinarian Office? One day I got my chance to find out...

I was in 6th grade at Field School for perhaps six months when one afternoon, while I was doodling up the side of a spelling list, a teacher's aide walked into our room and announced that I was being summoned to the Disiplinarian's Office. Shivers ran down my spine as my mind raced to remember what I could have done to bring this wrath upon me. As I started up the aisle I was greeted by whispers from all sides. "What did you do?" "What did you do?". I had no idea but it was certain; I was a dead man walking.

As I entered Mrs. Phillips office she was pouring over some papers scattered on her otherwise neat desk. Her white hair pulled straight back exposing her black horn rimmed glasses with the thick band wrapped around the jowls of her neck. She raised her portly head and nodded for me to sit down in front of her desk, which I did promptly.

"Keith, did you attend school at George B. Swift?" She asked sternly.
Oh Christ, what did I do there? "Yes" I barely murmured.
"Did you have a Miss Phillips as a teacher there?"
Bing! A bell went off in my racing head. "Yes, I did" I perked up a bit.

"She is my daughter."

No fucking way, I thought to myself. "Oh", I retorted.

"I remember her talking about you before." She continued.

Now, I found it hard to believe that Swift's Miss Phillips, the blonde stately looker, the mused apple of my father's eye could have ever spawned from this maniacal kid killer, demon of education, diciple of disipline. But I was completely befuddled by why her supposed daughter would have mentioned me to her. From Kindergarten until the end of sixth grade, I was the most introverted kid you have ever seen. I'm sure they would have diagnosed me as autistic had they known what that was at the time. I was a daydreamer, quiet, withdrawn and very unremarkable. I thought myself invisible and certainly not memorable and especially not worthy enough to come up in conversation. But alas, here it was, the words lingered in my mind as I was still at a lost for words. "She did?" I could only repeat.

Then it hit me. I was called into the dungeon of hell for polite conversation. This would never be believed. It was impossible. I'm having a tea party with Satan. Speechless.

Well, I could only imagine it was my utter state of non-participation in third grade that caused my amazon beauty to seek advice from her Mother. Either that or I was simply the butt of a few jokes about nutcase kids whose name had to be called six or seven times before they "snapped" out of it and paid attention. But either way it didn't matter. It was the first school experience that "humanized" the process for me. That was the defining moment that made me realize that teachers were people too.

I had always secretely liked Miss Phillips solely because my Dad had, but from that day on, I admired Mrs. Phillips, the elder as well. To be called out of class, away from the droll business of education was always a plus. To have a "chat" with the powers that be was enchanting. From then on, even though we never again made small talk, Mrs. Phillips was my secret friend.

-kac

Greasy Spoon Defined

Last Sunday I tried to go to the Thorndale Coffeeshop which I found closed. So on a whim I made my friend accompany me to dine at The Lake Breeze restaurant. The Lake Breeze sits under the Thorndale El Station and, in fact, has a doorway leading directly into the tiny station. As far as greasy spoons go, this one is classic. It has not changed an iota since the sixties. Walls plastered with misspelled hand written signs. The original menus with the prices taped over several times whenever raised. Loud friendly staff stumbling over each other.

There is a horrible mural painted on a few sections of the walls, heavily browned by years of grill cooking. About four very small booths and eight stools adorning the counter. Changes include the No Smoking signs and the selling of phone cards over the counter.

But the touches that made this a walk-by place in the sixties are still live and well as my friends water glass came decorated with a lushious set of lipstick marks all over one side. But his critique on the burger was good and the Milk Shake apparently very good. It is one of those places that brings you the "extra" shake in the tin blender cup to your table.

I will post a few pictures I took soon, but by far the best part of this miracle-to-still-exist eatery is the nostalgic feeling of stepping back into one's youth to a place much like a time capsule, unchanged by time.

...no matter how decrepid.

-kac

T.J.O.'s ...Seriously

TJO's in the sixties. Our resident gang of hoodlums. TJO stood for Thorndale Jag Offs. Let's break this down
...

How is it a good idea to label yourselves Jag Offs? Isn't that the responsibility of the people who have run-in's with the "gang"?

Although I am sure once drugs came into the neighborhood that the TJO's were sucked up into a larger gang and eventually became a threat to the neighborhood, but honestly, I have never heard witness to a TJO run-in that resulted in true violence. I mean c'mon, they were somewhat likable. Distinguished only by the blue cotton jackets and the Lark cigarette hanging from their slack jaws, they were just a little less menacing than Ralph Mouf and Potsie Webber. My only run-in with the TJO's was a chance meeting on the Swift School steps as I was passing on a Sunday afternoon during my 4th grade year. I was surrounded by about five of them, all at least 3-5 years older than me. It went like this.

TJO: Hey kid, c.mere. You, kid, come over here.
ME: Wha?
TJO: Kid, what were you for Halloween last year?
ME: Ummm ... I don't 'member.
TJO: Well next year you can go as one of the Three Stooges ...

At that moment he smeared a covert handful of shaving cream on my face.
And oh how they laughed. I just continued walking till I got home. The trauma only set in as I was trying to explain the events to my Dad, but while walking away from the school steps I couldn't help thinking ... "Is that all there is?"

-kac

My Mad Magazine Fix

Twice this weekend I drove back into my old neighborhood. Working on this project has connected me once again to the infrastructure of Uptown. On the corner of Thorndale and Winthrop, directly acorss from George B. Swift elementary school stood a stable of many neighborhoods ... the drugstore. Thorndale drugstore served many purposes in the neighborhood. Besides filling prescriptions and sundries, it served as a haven from the long summer afternoons. Where a quarter would get you an ice cream sandwich or a six once bottle of Seven Up. Where the local street gang would conjugate with their sharp prattle between servings of waxed lips, Boston Baked Bean candy and menthol Kools.

But for me this place was a warp in which I sought solice from an otherwise doldrum existance. This was where I bought Mad Magazine. I was a budding artist by the age of nine and Mad's artists were my heroes. Jack Davis and Sergio Arregarnos opened creative outlets in me that comic books could not. My thirty-five cents went a long way and not a week would pass before I would go back, magically hoping a new Mad would somehow be hot off the presses. The concept of monthly issues escaped me and I was continually dissapointed. Which led me to Cracked magazine as a fix until Bill Gaines got his act together. Then there were all the "rip-off" wannabes such as "Panic" and "Yell" and "CarTOONs", all of which I would buy in order to study illustration with sophmoric humor.

In this spot today stands a Coffee shop. A semi-upscale place with decent espresso. And the building has been greatly changed for where the magazine rack once stood is now the edge of the outside patio at which I would find myself this weekend. Having a Cappacino, listening to the kids run through the Swift playlot, and so I removed a sketchpad from my satchel and I drew.


-kac