The Chicago Project Blogger

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