I took my sons tonight to see the new movie Get Smart. I remember watching the original TV series created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry when I was a boy. (I still think that anything created by Mel Brooks is funny and I will watch it.) I used to laugh so hard while watching Get Smart that my mother thought that I had a serious mental problem. Sometimes, I would laugh at something funny hours later. My mother would ask me why on earth I was laughing, and I would attempt to tell her what made me laugh between laughs, but she still didn’t understand why I was laughing.
So, when my sons and I saw the previews for Get Smart, I told them about the old TV series. They didn’t seem that interested. I showed them some old clips from the TV series Get Smart on YouTube.com, but that didn’t capture their interest, either. Then, when they least expected it, I would describe some of the funniest scenes that I remembered from Get Smart. They laughed at them. I told them that we had to see the movie the first day that it came out. Every time we saw the preview, there were more scenes, and they were very funny. I was hoping that those wouldn’t be the only funny scenes in the movie. I was really pitching the movie to my sons, otherwise they might not want to see it and I would have to see it when it came out on DVD. But we did see it tonight, the first day it was released.
Well, the movie was based on the original TV series, but was not totally dependent on it. Steve Carell replaces Don Adams as Maxwell Smart, Agent 86. Anne Hathaway plays Agent 99, replacing Barbara Feldon. But I was happy that they brought back some of the objects and characters from the original. I don’t know why, but I always loved it when Max insisted on using the Cone of Silence even though it never worked properly. I also loved seeing the shoe phone back in action. I loved when they brought back Hymie at the end of the movie. Okay, you Hymie lovers, I should have yelled SPOILER ALERT! Sorry!
Well, I loved the movie even though it was different than the original, but if it would have followed it too closely, I’m sure that I would have been disappointed. I guess they got Smart, though. I was especially pleased that my sons liked the movie!
My sons often ask me what video games I played when I was growing up. They cannot conceive of a world or a childhood without video games. So, the next question is something along the lines of, “Were you bored?” or “What did you do all day?” For fun, I told them, we played board games, but they heard “bored” games. They never play games like Monopoly because they think they’re boring. That’s because they’ve gotten so used to video games.
On the other hand, they can’t understand why I don’t play video games with them. I just can’t get into video games. I never played them when I was little. The only video game I ever played was Pong! And that was in high school. Pong was so boring. I preferred to play chess, another board game (not bored game!). But my sons also like to play an occasional game of chess with me.
Some people think that video games are bad because they make the players lazy and they don’t get enough exercise, but they do develop a different kind of intelligence as recent research has proven. Grand Theft Auto is supposedly bad for children because of all the violence. People criticize me because I allow my sons to play every video game that they like regardless of the content. Well, two of my three sons played GTA and the one who didn’t play the game had the lowest grades in school. The two sons who played it eventually lost interest in the game. Perhaps because I allowed them to play and didn’t criticize them for it.
I like the auto thief (in real life) who attempted to use GTA as a defense for his having stolen multiple automobiles. GTA made him steal the cars. Verdict? He was found guilty of auto theft! What a poor excuse for lack of self-control.
When my sons played GTA, they never asked to drive a car, much less attempted to steal one. My sons also like to play World of Warcraft, which they first discovered from watching South Park. I like WoW because it occasionally involves reading and writing. I haven’t played it all, but I like to look on.
The players can IM each other about the game or anything else they like. I like it when they dance like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever even though they’re supposed to be in the Middle Ages. What I like best about WoW is that the game hardly has any bugs or glitches. In fact, I have a very, old obsolete Pentium III computer that I have upgraded several times with a bigger hard drive, more memory, and a better graphics card, but it’s too slow to even check my e-mail. However, WoW runs quickly and smoothly on this computer. They must do all the graphics and computer processing on their servers. These people really know how to deliver a product!
When I was in the seventh grade, we began studying music appreciation. Most of my classmates hated this class because everyone was into the Top-40 music that we heard on the radio. I enjoyed the class because I always liked new and interesting things.
Slowly, but surely, we learned about all the different instruments that comprised the orchestra. We listened to individual instruments on a phonograph so we could recognize them when the orchestra played in unison. These music appreciation classes continued through the eighth grade. As a result of these classes I have had a life-long love of classical music. In the eighth grade, we listened to Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird and his music made a lasting impression on me. It’s funny how this association with Stravinsky’s Firebird always connected me with other Firebirds.
When I was at Divine Heart Seminary, I used to go to the library for study hall and listen to The Firebird on the phonograph with a headset. For driver’s ed, our first car was a 1971 Pontiac Firebird! It had a four-speed manual transmission. Our first day of actually driving in a car, we got to drive on U.S. 30 Highway at 70 miles per hour. We weren’t allowed to play the radio in the car, but I kept imagining Stravinsky’s The Firebird playing while I drove the driver’s ed Firebird on the highway. This was one of my greatest driving experiences ever. The Stravinsky’s music accurately described the Firebird’s forward motion on U.S. 30. The Pontiac Firebird was my fantasy car throughout high school.
Until I was eighteen and I worked at Derby Foods. Despite not wanting to work in a factory as a manual laborer, I made the best of a bad situation. I earned enough money to buy my own car. So, I bought a brand new 1975 Pontiac Firebird.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough money to buy the souped up Trans Am version. But I was the only student at my high school with a brand new sports car. It was Buccaneer Red with white interior. I remember it well. I immediately regretted the white interior because it got dirty very quickly and it was very tough to clean. This was during one of our many previous gas crises (Americans just never seem to learn from the past), so the speedometer only went up to 85 mph since the national speed limit was lowered to 55 mph.
Suddenly, a lot of girls started talking to me because of my car. I ignored the ones who were suddenly attracted to me because of my car. My friends thought I was really cool because of my car. The only thing the car lacked was an 8-Track Player! Well, I drove all over the Midwest in my Firebird with my friends, and later my girlfriend whom I eventually married. That is still my most memorable car. I always think of it whenever I hear Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird.
I met Patrick Fahey when I attended Tilden Technical High School in the Back of the Yards. We were incredibly good friends, but only when we were in school. I’m not even sure when and where I met him. He just somehow materialized at school, and we often sat together in cafeteria or the library. Sometimes when I walked home from school, I would walk over to his apartment because he only lived two blocks from the school.
His apartment didn’t have very much furniture, and no one was ever home. Patrick was Irish with brown hair and freckles. He was tall and thin. His face wasn’t exactly symmetrical, and it reminded me of Pablo Picasso’s portrait of Gertrude Stein. I often found myself staring at the dimensions of his face, but he never said anything. Perhaps he never noticed since he always was off in his own little world. He didn’t have a girlfriend that I knew of, other than his imaginary ones. Sometimes he would show me a model in a magazine ad and say, “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed.” But I couldn’t even picture him approaching any girl even to say hello to one since he was so painfully shy. I didn’t think he would ever attract a beautiful girl like the models in the magazines, or any girl at all for that matter, because of his extreme shyness.
But, one day, as I was putting my books in my locker between classes, I closed my locker door and I suddenly saw a girl standing there, smiling nervously. We were both speechless for a moment. She looked Irish to me. She was pretty in a plain sort of way and pleasantly plump. I finally said hi. She said hi, but then the bell rang, and we went our separate ways. The whole incident was overwhelming. I couldn’t fathom why this girl would be standing by my locker.
I forgot all about her until the next day when I saw her by my locker again. “Do you know Patrick Fahey?” she asked. “Yes,” I responded feebly. “Do you talk to him a lot?” “Yes.” Then, the bell rang, and we went to our respective classes. I told Patrick about the incident, but he didn’t even acknowledge what I had told him. That was quite normal for us because we didn’t always talk to each other. We often just sat there in the library, just reading. We were like Pedro and Napoleon in the movie Napoleon Dynamite, only I didn’t have a mustache then. Now that I think of it, we spent a lot of time together, but we hardly ever talked, even when we walked to his house together.
A few weeks later, the girl was at my locker again. This time she talked and talked so much that I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Her name was Maureen, and she was in a history class with Patrick. She said she really, really liked Patrick, but he would never talk to her. So, she approached me to help her. I said I would talk to Patrick. When I saw him, I asked him if he knew Maureen. He did. But he wasn’t interested in her. End of conversation for the day.
I would see Maureen by my locker regularly and she would ask me for progress updates. What I gave her was more like lack-of-progress updates. Patrick just wasn’t interested in her, not even as a friend. I eventually broke the news to her gently, but she was in denial and only tried harder. Finally, it was the end of the school year, and it was time for the spring dance. Maureen came to my locker and asked me if I was going to the dance. Then, she asked if I knew if Patrick already had a date for the dance. I knew he didn’t because we both confessed that we weren’t going. Maureen then told me to ask Patrick to take her to the dance. She stood there by my locker, the epitome of woeful lovesick misery, so I agreed to talk to Patrick about her. Patrick immediately said no. When I saw Maureen again, I told her his response. She cried and said, “But I love him!” She begged me to talk to him again. To ask him to please take her to the spring dance. I felt uncomfortable because she had her arms around my neck and everyone in the hall was staring at us.
I told Patrick everything that had transpired between Maureen and me, but he was unmoved. He said he wouldn’t go to the dance with Maureen. He just wouldn’t. Just because. For me that wasn’t a good reason. Somehow, I had to help Maureen. And by helping Maureen, I was also helping Patrick. “Just take Maureen to the dance!” I finally said. “I can’t.” “Why not?” “Because she’s fat!” “That’s not true!” Suddenly, I had to defend Maureen since I had gotten to know her a little better with all the time she spent talking to me by my locker.
Besides, to a Mexican, she wasn’t considered even remotely fat. “She just wants you to take her to the dance,” I said. “She’s not asking you to marry her.” Well, this sad tale eventually had a happy ending. Maureen, with all of her perpetual persistence–with a lot of help from me–, eventually went to the spring dance with Patrick. Afterwards, he wouldn’t talk about the dance or Maureen. In fact, Patrick acted as if the spring dance had never occurred, as if it were some sort of void in his life. But I knew they were happy together because Maureen would constantly update me on their relationship on her regular visits to me by my locker. I don’t know whatever happened to Patrick and Maureen because I transferred to Gage Park High School the next year. I like to imagine that they’re still together, happily married with children. Only Patrick doesn’t tell his friends about her.
Canaryville is a neighborhood that is south of Bridgeport and southeast of where the Union Stockyards used to be. I spent a few years there visiting friends who lived there.
I was from Back of the Yards, so not many people from Canaryville knew me. I was risking life and limb every time I went, but I liked the sense of danger I experienced every time I visited. When I left Divine Heart Seminary, I had to attend Tilden Technical High School at 4747 S. Union, right in the heart of Canaryville. As luck would have it, the school had a lot of daily racial fights between blacks and whites. But that was my school and I was stuck attending it. I made the best of a bad situation.
I lived about a mile and a half away from school. After the first snowstorm, it was too cold to stand at the bus stop to wait for the bus, so I started walking to school in order to stay warm. I planned on getting on the bus when it eventually showed up. However, I walked all the way to school without ever seeing the bus.
I didn’t mind walking at all since I used to walk seven and a half miles to town every weekend when I attended Divine Heart Seminary. The next day was even colder, so I left the house a little earlier and walked all the way to school without looking back over my shoulder for the bus. I ended up walking to school the rest of the year because I was able to spend the bus fare on magazines and books. A few months ago, I was talking to my cousins about high school and it turns out that they also walked to school so they could keep the bus fare for spending money.
I never had any trouble with anyone until I got near the school. Someone, they would either be white or black (I was an equal opportunity crime victim), would ask me for money, implying that I should comply with their request or they would use physical force if necessary. I never gave anyone any money. I always had a response for them. “If you need money, you should get a job!” Or, “If you want my money, you have to take it from me.” I would then give them my crazed look that implied they might get the money, but they would be sorry they did because I would inflict some pain on them in the process.
Surprisingly, no one ever accepted my invitation to take my money. Although I did get close once. Two Canaryville residents on their way to school saw me and told me to give them my money or they would beat me up, only not in those words but a rather more colorful vocabulary. They looked like they were really going to beat me up but good. I collected myself and focused deep within. I clenched my fists and gave them a deranged look that I hoped would scare them off. Suddenly, they looked at each other, and as if by silent agreement, they walked away from me. They continued looking over their shoulders at me as they walked away. Then a police paddy wagon passed me from behind. They had walked away from me because they had seen the police! The police asked me if the boys had threatened me. I said that we were friends. I don’t think the police really believed me, but I stuck to my story. Those boys never bothered me again. In fact, they were so grateful that I didn’t rat them out that they even protected me on a few future occasions when I really needed some help at school.
Chicago USA 