I’m not sure what happened to me, but I was the last kid in Holy Cross School to learn about the latest phenomenon sweeping the country known as the Beatles. To this day, I’m not sure how I remained so oblivious for so long.
One day in the third grade, Sister Francine announced that the Beatles had come to Holy Cross and everyone one in class started screaming hysterically–except for me. I almost panicked since I didn’t understand the true nature of this Beatles invasion.
Luckily, my best friend Patrick who was wise to the ways of the world informed me that the Beatles was a British rock band and that I could come out from under my desk now. Later during the school day, there was a mysterious knocking on the classroom door and Sister Francine opened the door and shouted, “The Beatles are here!” And again the whole class screamed hysterically–except for me, again. But this time I didn’t dive under my desk.
Four girls with black hair who had bangs and their hair tied back were dressed in black turtleneck shirts and black pants. They had electric guitars and a couple of snare drums. They were the Beatles. They also brought in the school phonograph that looked like a small suitcase and played some 45 rpm records of the Beatles on it. The only songs I remember are “She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”
They lip synced the words and the whole class swarmed around them and screamed continuously. I was the last student sitting until Patrick cued me in to swarm around the band, too. When the Beatles finished playing their set, everyone asked for their autographs. I really didn’t understand what they were doing until Patrick explained everything to me and handed me a pencil and a piece of paper. He pushed me toward the Beatles in order to get an autograph. I approached the drummer since no one was near her and I knew her as Teresa Rosiles from the neighborhood. She signed my paper as Ringo Starr. I didn’t even know who Ringo Starr was, but Patrick explained all about the Beatles and Paul and John and George and Ringo to me. To be truthful, I don’t know where I would be today if I had never met Patrick McDonnell.
A few years later when I delivered newspapers on the 4800 block of south Honore Street, I saw a poster in the window of one of those mom and pop grocery stores in the middle of the block. The Beatles were advertising their concert in Comiskey Park in August of 1965. Every time I saw that poster, I would remember fondly the time I went to my first Beatles concert at Holy Cross School!
As you may have noticed, I like jokes. Here’s a riddle. What do you call a person who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call a person who speaks three languages? Trilingual. What do you call a person who speaks one language? American.
A Swiss man, looking for directions, pulls up at a bus stop where two American tourists are waiting. “Entschuldigung, koennen sie deutsch sprechen?” he asks. The two Americans just stare at him. “Excusez-moi, parlez vous francais?” he tries. The two men continue to stare. “Parlare italiano?” No response. “Hablan ustedes español?” Still nothing. The Swiss man drives off, extremely disgusted. The first American turns to the second and says, “Y’know, maybe we should learn a foreign language.” “Why?” says the other. “That guy knew four languages, and it didn’t do him any good.”
A man tells his friend, “I’m going to learn German.” His friend says that German is a hard language to learn. The man replies, “How hard can it be? I’ve heard three-year-olds speaking it.
“I’m glad I wasn’t born in France.” “Why’s that?” “I don’t speak French!”
A man gave his wife a parrot. The next day, they’re eating dinner and the man notices that the parrot isn’t in its cage. He asks, “Where’s the parrot.” The wife says, “We’re having it for dinner.” “What? That parrot spoke three languages!” “Well, why didn’t it say something?”
A student fell asleep during an English professor’s lecture on pronouns. Upset, the professor wakes up the student by asking him to name two pronouns. The student replies, “Who? Me?” “Very good,” says the professor.
This linguistics professor was lecturing the class. “In English,” he explained, “a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, such as Spanish, a double negative is still a negative.” “However,” the professor continued, “there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.” Immediately, a voice from the back of the room piped up: “Yeah … right …”
I’m often amazed at what my sons can talk me into doing for them, but when I really think about it, I’m not really all that surprised. My father used to ask me for suggestions for things to do when he would pick up my brothers and me for visitation. I always suggested things that sounded wild and farfetched to my father, but for some reason he always took us wherever I suggested. I once suggested going camping even though I never thought my father would take us. But he did! And now, because of that, I take my sons wherever they want to go. In such instances, I realize once again that I’ve become my father.
Once my oldest son suggested that I take them to Skatopia for our summer vacation. Of course, I had never heard of Skatopia. Have you? Besides, it sounds like a made up name anyway. Well, I partly planted the idea of Skatopia in them when I bought them the Tony Hawk video game as a Christmas present. There’s a little film clip of Skatopia in the video game. They showed me the clip, but I said that didn’t mean Skatopia existed. I wanted to know where Skatopia was geographically, but they didn’t know.
Later, they told me they saw Skatopia on the cable TV show Viva La Bam starring none other than Bam Margera. My sons are really into skateboarding and they have all kinds of skateboards so I’ve taken them to several skateboard parks in Colorado, Arizona, and Illinois. However, they don’t actually skateboard once we get there. They are too intimidated by all the good skateboarders.
Anyway, they asked me again to take to Skatopia when school was over. I still didn’t believe such a place even existed, so I said to them, “Okay, find their website and then I’ll believe you!” I was sure they wouldn’t have a website. That’s the funny thing about me, though. I really don’t believe that anything exists unless it has a website. I was really surprised when my sons called me over to the computer and yelled in unison, “See! There’s a Skatopia!” Okay, where is it? It was in this little town named Rutland in the southeast corner of rural Ohio.
Well, when I go on vacation with my sons, I don’t just go to one place. I try to cram in as many sites and activities as possible. So the plan was that we would go to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, first. Cedar Point is famous for all of its roller coasters. I remember going there years before with my friend Jim Harmon.
For some strange reason, I can no longer ride on amusement park rides without getting nauseous. However, I can ride roller coasters all day long and not get sick. Perhaps because the roller coaster ride resembles my driving. Anyway, since we were in Ohio, I told them I wanted to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, even if they didn’t like idea. That visit was for me. After all, wasn’t I taking them to Skatopia? But once we got there and they saw all the musical exhibits, they loved the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And as long as we were in Cleveland we went to a Cleveland Indians baseball game who just happened to be in town for our visit. For some fortunate reason, whenever I’m on vacation I’m extremely lucky with timing. We also went to the children’s museum there before heading out to Skatopia in Rutland.
As I was driving south in Ohio, I saw signs for a the Football Hall of Fame in Canton. This was so fortunate! But, alas, my sons were too tired to go to another museum and soon fell asleep.
I’m not sure what I was expecting when I got to Rutland, but there were no signs for Skatopia. I stopped at a pizza parlor to ask if anyone knew where Skatopia was. Yes, they did! And they gave me directions, but it was already dark and I had to drive on a gravel road for miles before I got there. Just when I was finally beginning to believe that Skatopia actually existed, the road ended and there was nothing but trees in front of me. I thought for sure that we would all die victims to the hatchet murderer you always hear about in Chicago. Suddenly, I wished I was back home in Chicago where I know how to deal with muggers and drive-by shootings.
As I was driving around, I saw a man walking in the dark. He looked kind of dirty and he was drinking beer out of a bottle. He also had the remainder of the twelve-pack in a brown paper bag under his arm. I asked him if he knew where Skatopia was and he said that’s exactly where he was going. I don’t know what possessed me at that precise moment, but I told him we were going there, too, and I offered him a ride. I’m so used to doing these types of things when I’m by myself, but this was the first time I ever did anything like this with my sons. Needless to say, we all arrived safely at Skatopia.
Everyone there greeted us cheerfully even though it was already 11:00 p.m. They showed us around even though it was too dark to see very much. I really liked the skateboard museum they had. This museum consisted of skateboards from every era since their invention to the present day. They were hanging on the walls, from the ceiling, stacked up in the corner. There were skateboards everywhere! I even saw a skateboard like the one I had in the 1960s! Skatopia was a very appropriate name for this museum and the rest of the place. Whenever they traveled, they bought whatever skateboards they saw at yard sales and antique shops. I was truly impressed.
It was late and we were all tired, so they offered to let us stay on their land for the night. Unfortunately, we didn’t have tents and sleeping bags, so we went to a nearby motel. We returned the next day and spent most of the day there. They taught my sons some tricks on the skateboard. Yes, I actually saw my sons skateboarding! Even I tried skateboarding. But I kept falling down. Then I remembered why I stopped skateboarding as a kid.
I was amazed by how many people stopped by because their kids wanted to see Skatopia. We got to seethe half-pipe where Bam Margera filmed his show. They were so happy that we had visited them that they sold us the very same skateboard that Bam Margera used for the video for a mere $60. All in all, we all had fun and still recall that summer vacation fondly.
Traffic crash scene at the corner of Clark and Randolph.
Oftentimes, I will meet one of my present or former Spanish students unexpectedly. I’m always happy to see them again, but I usually meet them long after I’ve forgotten their names.
Once I was at the McDonald’s Playland near Midway Airport with my twin sons when they were about four years old and one of my former students greeted me with a loud and friendly, ¡Hola! I was happy to see her again, but this time she was with her young son and she was happy with her life.
Once while I was on duty as a police officer working in a patrol car, I was assigned to park my squad car with the blue lights flashing so other cars wouldn’t crash into a car that had crashed into the Cook County / City Hall building downtown. This must have been a slow news day because all kinds of cameramen came by to film the car that had crashed into the building while I just sat there in my squad car watching everyone come and go.
Then, I noticed that one cameraman was looking at me as he walked past. I couldn’t help but notice him, too. Then, we both recognized each other! He was in my Spanish class at UIC! He also recognized me. We kind of looked at each other with a look that could only mean, “This is what you do for a living?” I never imagined him as a cameraman. And he definitely never imagined me as a police officer.
Another time I was downtown where an employee of Dunkin Donuts was a theft victim. As I walked into Dunkin Donuts, one of my students saw me. We greeted each other and that was about it. However, I realized afterwards that he saw me in full police uniform walking into a Dunkin Donuts. How cliche! I was actually responding to a radio assignment, but I appeared to be acting like a typical cliché police officer going for coffee and donuts.
Last Saturday, as I was leaving the Burger King in Mount Greenwood with my twins, I saw a former Spanish student in the parking lot. We said hello to each other and then I noticed that he was with Mark Pera who is running for Congress so they gave me a flyer and asked me to vote for him. I responded that I would think about it. When I got home, just by chance, Mark Pera’s campaign office called me and asked me to vote for him. I told the caller that I had just seen him, but she didn’t believe me.
Attention, men. The man meeting is now called to order. Wait a minute. I’m sorry but no ladies are allowed. I’m sorry, sir, but she can’t stay. Well, if she won’t let you stay, then you don’t really belong here. Good riddance. Wus! This is a man meeting after all. The man meeting is now called to order.
There really is no such thing as a man meeting per se.
However, I have been involved in conversations that could only have occurred among just men. Usually as we gather around under the hood of someone’s new car. And we’re male bonding over a few beers. These conversations delve into various topics that we males feel comfortable discussing with other males exclusively. And it’s not that we haven’t discussed these topics with women before, but the tone of the conversation is different.
I guess you could say it’s male bonding in action. And it can occur anywhere and under the most unusual circumstances. I’ve had these conversations with total strangers, for example, as we waited for our womenfolk outside the women’s restroom when they have to wait in a long line.
Of course, the conversation ends abruptly as soon as one of our women joins us. Because we can’t divulge our man secrets!
Chicago USA 