Category: Chicago

Anything and everything about my beloved, fair city of Chicago.

Many are cold, but few are frozen


Pilsen, Chicago, Illinois

I’ve heard a lot of complaints this winter about how much snow we’ve had in Chicago this winter and last. People are also complaining about how cold it’s been lately. Most of these complainers are either too young or haven’t lived in Chicago for very long. These are the cold, bitter winters that I remember as a boy! No, I won’t exaggerate about how cold and snowy winters were in Chicago in the days of yore. I don’t have to. Just recall the weather since December and you’ll see how much snow we used to have and how cold it used to be. Once you get used to the weather, you can still enjoy living in Chicago. There are much colder places than Chicago.

When I was a boy, I spent a lot of time outside during the winter. I delivered newspapers, shoveled sidewalks for money, played ice hockey, and occasionally, played baseball in the snow. We liked to do things that would make adults shake their heads at us. Like staying outside in the cold. The one thing I did learn–although accidentally–was to dress in layers. We didn’t have very much money for proper winter clothing such as down coats, wool socks or sweaters, or insulated gloves. One day, while ice skating at Davis Square Park across the street, I got cold, so I went home and put on some more pants and socks and shirts, eventually experimenting until I learned the correct number of layers to wear. I would wear two or three T-shirts, three or four pairs of pants, and four or five pairs of socks, depending on the temperature. When everyone else went into the park fieldhouse to warm up, I continued skating outside. I never got cold again once I learned to dress for the weather.

And I also taught my brothers how to dress properly for winter. One extremely cold, snowy winter, our school, Holy Cross School, had a fundraiser for which we had to sell Christmas cards door to door. There had been snow on the ground since Thanksgiving Day. Even though the sidewalks were shoveled, there was snow piled up everywhere where no one walked or drove. My brother Tato and I started knocking on doors trying to sell our Christmas cards–unsuccessfully. We were at the third house and the woman who answered the door told us she was not interested in buying Christmas cards. So, we turned around and started walking down her front porch stairs. When I reached the sidewalk at the bottom of the wooden stairs, I heard my brother Tato slip on the ice and fall down the stairs. I checked to see if my brother was okay, and I helped him up. The woman who was watching us through the front window opened the door and called us back up to the porch. “I’ll buy a box of Christmas cards,” she said. Well, we sold her a box of Christmas cards and went on our merry way to the next house. This woman also refused to buy Christmas cards from us. As we were walking down her front porch, Tato again “fell” down the stairs. Of course, the woman called us back and bought a box of Christmas cards from us. We persisted with our sales pitch until we sold all our Christmas cards. In fact, the next day, we asked Sister Cecilia for more Christmas cards for us to sell. She was surprised that we could sell that many Christmas cards!

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DR 2047


1976 Chevrolet Nova

I have had the same license plate number for most of my driving years. Since sometime in the 1970s. The DR actually represents the initials of David Rodriguez. And as luck would have it, it’s also the abbreviation for “doctor.” One of the main reasons I felt pressured to get my Ph.D. was the fact that every time I looked at my license plates, I saw “Doctor” at the beginning of my plate number. So how did I get this license plate number? Well, my mother was so proud of her license plate, CR 2509, that she wanted me to follow suit. So, she told me how the Illinois Secretary of State allowed vehicle owners to request license plate numbers–two letters, followed by four numbers–and would be assigned to their vehicle if they were available. My mother was Carmen Rodriguez and she lived at 2509 W. Marquette Road, so she requested CR 2509, and she got it because it was available. My mother thought it would be great if I could get DR 2509. She was really excited about the prospect of us having similar license plates. She wasn’t this excited about license plates since we both bought our plates, at her suggestion once again, from Talman Federal Bank. Both of our plates began with the letters TF. Unfortunately, I didn’t get DR 2509, much to my mother’s disappointment. But I did get DR 2047. My initials and the year of my death. Okay, the year of my death is just wishful thinking on my part. If I live that long, I’ll be 91. Now that I think of it, perhaps I’ll want a little more time.

In general, not many people have ever noticed that DR represented my initials. Not that I ever pointed it out to anyone either. I did like the fact that my initials made 33% easier to remember my license plate number whenever someone asked for it. However, one day, I had to stop at a red light. I was about three cars back from the light in the left lane on north Ashland Avenue when I heard a car honking its horn. I look in front and to the right and then I finally look in my rearview mirror. But I didn’t see which car was honking. Finally, I look to my left, from whence the honking originates, and see a German import car in the left-turn. Only there are no other cars in front of this car and it’s not pulling up to the stoplight. A man is driving, and the female passenger is motioning for me to lower my window. I reluctantly obey. “Your plates are so cool!” She yells even though she’s less than two feet away from me. Her male companion rolls his eyes behind her and she’s oblivious to his disinterest in our conversation. She gives me a thumbs up and as I begin to explain how I got my plate number; they pull away because they have a left arrow. Suddenly, I’m wondering why she thought my plates were cool. Why couldn’t she stay long enough to explain? For weeks I’m mulling over the significance of my plate number to her–and more than likely, no remote interest in my plate by her male companion, which is why he pulled away before she could explain her logic to me. I told a few of my friends about the incident and they all thought it was weird. All I could come up with was that she perhaps thought DR was for “doctor” and 2047 was pronounced, “twenty-four seven” or 24/7. That was the only thing that came to mind and my friends agreed. But to this day, I’m still in suspense!

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Street corner newspaper


I discreetly snapped this picture.

Sometimes when I drive to school in the morning, I buy the newspaper from one of those guys standing in the middle of the street. Most of the time the vendor is African-American. In fact, I can’t think of one who wasn’t African-American. So this morning, I noticed that the vendor on the corner of Ashland Avenue and Garfield Boulevard was not African-American. After some thought, I realized that he had been there for a few weeks now, but I just now realized it. And, I still haven’t bought a newspaper from him.

Was I discriminating against him because of the color of his skin? Did I discriminate against him consciously? Years ago, I had a newspaper vendor, African-American, of course, from whom I regularly bought the newspaper. If the light turned red, he would chat with me until the light turned green. I’m sure that amounted to less newspaper sales, but he seemed to enjoy talking to me. At Christmas, I would give him a Christmas card with a crisp twenty-dollar bill inside. I did for two years, but then he mysteriously disappeared from the corner of Damen Avenue and Garfield Boulevard. I never saw him again.

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Casa de Obama


Hyde Park, Chicago Illinois.

The other day, I had the strongest urge to visit Barack Obama’s house. I don’t know what came over me, but suddenly I had this great desire to visit a famous place in the news. I told my sons, “We’re going to President Elect Barack Obama’s house!” At first, I thought they would they would look at me as if I were crazy, which is their normal reaction when I suggest any new and exciting activity. I was wrong! They actually thought it was a great idea. Only that they somehow imagined that his house was very, very far away. I explained that he lived less than thirty minutes from us.

So off we went in search of Barack Obama’s house in Hyde Park. I knew the security would be tight because I watched the news and I saw the concrete barriers around his house. There were many, many Chicago police officers around his house–a two-block radius around his house. I told my sons before we even set out on our trip that we might not even get close to the Obama house, but we could at least visit the neighborhood of the President of the United States of America.

Surprisingly, I was able to park legally at the corner right near a police car that was guarding the closed off intersection leading to his house. As we approached the corner, the police officer exited her squad car and asked if we lived on this side of the block. I said no and she said we would have to walk across the street. Before I left our house, I had no idea where Obama lived other than in Hyde Park, but I figured I’d find his house once I saw all the police cars blocking off the streets. I really thought we would have to walk several blocks. But we were extremely lucky to park so close!

There were multiple police cars and police officers standing out in the middle of the barricaded street. I saw a group of gawkers taking pictures of a house, so I asked, “Is that his house?” and they responded in awe, “That’s his house!” Lo and behold! We had arrived at Barack Obama’s house. As seen on TV! My sons couldn’t believe I had taken them all the way to the front of Barack Obama’s house, albeit across the street. I took some pictures and then we walked away. The police officer who directed us across the street smiled at us and asked if we enjoyed our visit. We said we did and walked back to our car.

As we were getting into the car, I realized that this was exactly the kind of trip my father used to take us on when we were little. He would see something on the news and then take us there. He wouldn’t tell us where we were going. It was just like, “¡Vámonos!” and we would all pile into the car and go. Once, my father saw a chess master playing 25 boards simultaneously at a restaurant in Little Italy, so off we went to play the chess master! The next day, my friends at school told me they saw me playing chess on the news!

When the plane crashed before reaching Midway Airport in 1971, my father took us to the crash site despite the fact that on the news they told everyone to stay away. We were less that a quarter-block away and we could see the actual fuselage and tail of the plane that crashed! However, no one saw us on the news that time.

Many people saw my father on the news many times over the years. He just loved the limelight. On the IRS tax deadline day one year, I was watching the news and they showed all the last-minute filers going to the downtown post office to get that coveted April 16th postmark in order to beat the IRS deadline. They interviewed several last-minute filers and all the while I thought, “What idiots! Waiting till the last minute to file their tax returns!” Suddenly, I saw a familiar face. It was my father! He was being interviewed by the news reporter. Somehow he always found a way to get on the news!

I guess by taking my sons to Obama’s house, I was keeping my father’s tradition alive. I didn’t get on the news during our visit to his house, but I realized that I did inherit my father’s thirst to go to where the news is. Ugh! I’ve become my father! ¡Ay! ¡Ay! ¡Ay!

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Chicago Public Library


Shh! No talking in the library!

I’ve been going to the Chicago Public Library since I was six. I’m not sure why, but I always loved being surrounded by all those books. For a while there back in grade school, I used to hang out at the library with my best friend Patrick. We would sit there reading joke books and asking each other riddles. We had a lot of fun while trying not to laugh too loudly.

Then, something terrible happened to the libraries. There was an enormous change of attitude toward the patrons by the librarians. None seemed too interested in helping us, the readers, in the 1970s. That was about the time that I started buying books instead of borrowing them from the library. I loved owning my own books. Of course, that was a time when I actually had time to go back to my books to reread them.

In the 1980s, the library began to computerize its tracking system. The computers were always down and they had to resort to the old paper system whenever I checked out a book. Then, lo and behold, some reporter discovered that the City of Chicago awarded the computer contract through patronage. That’s the Chicago Way! And no one was really shocked. I hated going to the library because the librarians stared daggers at you if you asked for help to find a book or if you wanted to check it out. And just forget about even trying to get a book delivered from another branch. I just stopped going to the library.

The last few years, however, our library system has been thoroughly modernized. I think it started improving when Bill Gates donated Microsoft software to the library. Lately, I’ve been patronizing the library regularly. When I got divorced and sold our house, I had to move to a smaller house. So, I had to get rid of two-thirds of the books that I had accumulated over the years. Now, I borrow books instead of buying them. And this is where the library comes in. The library in the picture above is within walking distance of my house. I don’t even have to go to the library to order the books. The computer system works perfectly now. I look up whatever book I want and if the library system owns it, I can get it delivered to my library where they will hold it for a week. I’m just amazed by how efficiently the library works now!

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