As I was driving to the Mexican Consulate on the corner of Ashland Avenue and Adams Street today, I had to stop at the red light on Ashland at 31st Street, under the I-55 Stevenson Expressway.
Suddenly, I had one of those Kung Fu flashbacks–like in the TV show from the 1970s starring David Carradine. I thought, “Grasshopper, what’s wrong with this picture?” Then, I realized that the kung fu florist was missing.
Perhaps you remember him? He was an African American male between 20 and 40. His flexibility betrayed his actual biological age, so I wasn’t sure how old he was. He would stand on the median under I-55 selling flowers, although I don’t remember what kind, I remember that they were red.
You see, he had a bouquet in each hand and would execute his kung fu moves wielding the flowers as if they were weapons. Granted, he was very graceful, but the flowers suffered so much from his movements that I couldn’t tell if they were roses or carnations. However, I always enjoyed watching him perform while I waited at those excruciatingly long red lights. Of course, I never actually saw him sell any flowers! He was tireless, though. He was the epitome of perpetual motion. Today, I finally noticed that he wasn’t there anymore. I really miss him!
I have two incredible talents: 1. I can easily remember useless information for no apparent reason, and 2. I always attract people into my life who will complicate my life way beyond my personal management skills. As far as my ability to remember trivia, go ahead. Ask me a question. Do you know the chief export of Bolivia? Well, I do! It’s tin. What is Ulysses S. Grant’s middle name? It’s Hiram! Why does Homer Simpson say, “Doh!”? I know that, too. Well, Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, used to watch the Laurel and Hardy comedies when he was a boy. Whenever Stan would get them into a predicament (with these movies, if there was no predicament, there was no movie), Ollie would get frustrated and say, “Doh!” So, Groening pays tribute to Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy by having Homer Simpson say, “Doh!”
My second incredible talent involves me, a shy, quiet, nice guy, who wants his life to be as boring as possible, getting more action than he had counted on. I don’t want too much excitement in my life. I don’t get bored if I’m not in imminent danger. In grade school, I was an altar boy; in high school, I lettered in chess; my idea of a fun vacation is to stay home and read novels for a few weeks. You know how they say that every time you leave your house you risk your life and expose yourself to certain death? Well, that’s the story of my life! I have always lived under the sword of Damocles!
Let me give you a few examples. When I was in high school, I entered a chess tournament at the La Salle Hotel in downtown Chicago. Now how exciting is that? Most people would consider a chess tournament boring, but I was excited and looked forward to playing the tournament. Anyway, as I was about to board the bus to go downtown, someone ran off the bus and almost knocked me over. When I got on the bus, a man was leaning against the fare box stopping the bleeding in his leg. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I knew enough to mind my own business. I told people at the chess tournament what I had witnessed, but no one believed me. When I returned the next day, a few people saw the incident reported on the news. Apparently, the two men were arguing on the bus and then one pulled out a gun and shot the other. The gunman pushed me aside and ran past me! Doh!
Once, as I was driving away from my apartment near Marquette Park, 3006 W. 64th Street, I saw someone whom I thought was a friend of mine. He was tall, lanky, shirtless, had scraggly, dishwater blond hair, scrawny arms, and was staggering a little. He looked exactly like my friend Porky (I never did find out how he got his nickname or what his real name was). Since it was hot outside and my car had no air conditioning, I had all my windows open. He was standing on the corner, and he said hi to me. Then, he jumped into the front seat of my car. Only then, did I realize that he wasn’t my friend Porky, but rather a total stranger who strongly resembled my friend.
He began to talk to me as if he had known me for a long time. I was fine until he pulled out one unopened beer can from his each of his front jeans pockets and tossed them on my dashboard. Plus, it was only then that I realized that he was drinking a beer as he walking. Then he pulled out a gun from his waistband. I thought he was going to rob me. But then he put the gun under the front seat, “Just in case we get pulled over by the cops.” I was glad to drop him off where he was going, and he told me, “We’ll have to party again real soon!” Apparently, he thought he knew me from somewhere. It wasn’t until much later that I realized what kind of danger I was in. Doh!
When I was a police officer, I also had a brush with death. But, wait! It’s not what you think. I was working inside a building at the Alternate Response Section answering telephone calls. I loved this job because I was away from the dangers of working on the mean streets of Chicago in a patrol car. I took calls from citizens who were crime victims, and I would determine whether to send a squad car to their house or have them make out a police report over the phone. How safe is that job?
Even if someone didn’t like me, they couldn’t shoot me over the phone. I felt very safe. Then, one day, I noticed my fellow officer who worked right next to me–one with whom I had talked for hours over several months–was conspicuously missing. I asked where he was and I was reluctantly told that he had died–of tuberculosis!
And I had been breathing the very same air as him for months! Well, everyone in the building had to document their contact with a communicable disease for the police department and then take a TB test. Luckily, we all tested negative.
I realize that throughout my life I have always been in constant danger. Doh! However, I’m convinced that I am Laurel and Hardy combined. Doh! I can honestly say, “I’m lucky to be alive!”
When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time in Davis Square Park in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. The park is located between Marshfield Avenue and Hermitage Avenue, 44th and 45th Streets. There are larger parks in the city, but when I was five, the park was huge.
My mother always took my brothers and me there to play whenever it was nice out. Basically, if it wasn’t raining, my mother would take us to the park to play no matter how cold it was. I loved going down the slide, which was the biggest slide I had ever seen! All the kids said it was the world’s biggest slide and I believed them. Come on, I was only five years old at the time. One day, I fell of the top of the slide because one of the kids told me to slide down one of the supporting poles instead of sliding down the slide.
When I was too afraid to go down the pole, he demonstrated how I should go down by doing it himself. Well, my legs didn’t wrap around the pole exactly right and I fell for what seemed an eternity and landed on my right arm. I cried because I was in so much pain! My mother came running over to see what had happened to me. She took my brothers and me home immediately. She massaged my shoulder, but I kept crying.
She called a friend of hers who immediately came over. She looked at my arm and shoulder, and then boiled some herbs on the stove. She then rubbed this pungent concoction on my shoulder and arm that made me gag and massaged me forcefully. I remember crying even more while she did this. Actually, I remember feeling much worse after her “cure.”
Davis Square Park had a field house where we would go after school in the fall to play floor hockey and in the winter to play basketball. In the winter, they would hose down the baseball fields so we could play ice hockey. Every day after school, I would play hockey all afternoon and evening long. I just loved playing hockey. I would have been a great hockey player if it weren’t for my one weakness: I couldn’t skate very well! However, I was fearless. I turned out to be a very good goalie. As long as I was standing in front of the net, I could block slapshots with my stick or chest, and I could catch the puck and give it to one of my teammates. My team usually won because hardly anyone ever scored on me.
The park had a swimming pool where we spent as much time as possible, although that was extremely limited because of their schedule. For reasons unbeknownst to us, the schedule alternated between a boy’s day and a girl’s day when we could go swim without an adult. In the afternoon and evening, families could go swimming together. I could never go because you needed an adult to take you. My mother never took us because she refused to wear a bathing suit. In fact, I never saw her go in the water when we went to the beach.
Our time at Davis Square Park just flew by. When it was time to go home, my brothers and I wanted to stay. It seemed like it wasn’t until we were really having fun that my mother would decide we had to go home. But we had to go home, my mother told us, because they let lions loose at the park at night. She told us this every time it was time to go home.
At first, we went home without questioning her. Then, I started thinking about the logistics and safety of maintaining lions at Davis Square Park. But my mother always had an answer for every question I posed. “Where do they keep the lions?” “In the basement of the fieldhouse.” “How do they let them out?” “Through the steel plates that cover the basement windows.” “How come the lions don’t run away if there’s no fence all the way around the park?” “Because the love the park.” “What’ll happen if I don’t go home with you?” “Fine! Stay! But don’t come home crying to me when the lions eat you!” “Wait for me!”
I met Mayor Richard J. Daley at Davis Square Park for the first time. Our neighborhood had a slight gang problem, so Da Mayor decided to start up his own rival gang called the Centurions. In theory, the Centurions would provide an alternative to street gangs. All my friends and I joined even though we never even thought of joining a gang in the first place. But we had a lot of fun! We played all kinds of organized sports and sometimes we even won a trophy. I really loved it when they would load us up on a school bus and take us the White Sox games for free!
My Spanish classes are always nervous about how they, the students, should address me. When I first started teaching at Morton College in 1995, I always told my students to call me David in Spanish, as opposed to David in English. Whenever someone called me Profesor in Spanish, or worse yet, Señor Rodríguez or just plain Señor, I corrected them and insist that everyone call me David in Spanish. But no matter how many times I corrected students, not everyone called me David.
Last year, I stopped telling students what to call me. Now, I respond to whatever name they call me. If they call me Señor or Señor Rodríguez, I know that they recently studied Spanish in high school. So within any one class period, I may be called David (in English or Spanish), Diego, David Diego, ProfesorRodríguez, Señor Rodríguez, or just plain Señor. Señor in Spanish means “mister” or “Lord”, which reminds me of when I was little and I prayed, “Señor nuestro, que está en los cielos …”
I really don’t want my students to treat me like God. I don’t handle power and authority very well. Señor also used to bother me because it made me feel so much older to be called Señor Rodríguez, but now I kind of like it. 🙂 Perhaps, I’m finally mellowing out.
I did have one Spanish class that always called me Dr. D. and I kind of liked that. The students really enjoyed calling me Dr. D., too, because it made me sound cool. Every single time any student spoke in class, he or she would insist on calling me, “Dr. D.” before speaking. After a while, I would walk into the classroom and say, “Dr. D. is in da house!” And they loved it!
Snow was falling as I drove to school today. In all of my Spanish classes today, some students asked me if the exam might be canceled tomorrow because of the snow. Of course, there would be class tomorrow! This is Chicago!
This one particular student was sure that if it kept on snowing, I wouldn’t be able to get to campus and give the exam. However, in Chicago, a snowstorm is not merely a meteorological event. Every snowstorm, and other major climate changes, are political events of major consequences in Chicago.
You can trace this back to the snowstorm of 1979 that was improperly handled by Mayor Michael Bilandic. A few heads did roll after the snowstorm, including Bilandic’s. (I’m sure a few heads also rolled after the Chicago Fire in 1871.)
Luckily, I was living in sunny, southern California at the time. I know that even if we get three feet of snow tonight, I will be able to drive from my house in Beverly on the south side to UIC near downtown. Chicago will not be slowed down by such an insignificant snowstorm as that! Every time meteorologists predict even the remotest possibility of snow, city workers are on standby all over the city and even salting the streets before even the first snowflake has formed. Sometimes, there is more salt on the streets and sidewalks than snow. Yes, my dear students, I will be at UIC on time tomorrow morning to give you your exam. I love Chicago, the city that works (especially at Chicago overtime rates).
Chicago USA 