Chess Pavilion


The chess pavilion at North Avenue Beach, Chicago, Illinois

North Avenue Beach has always been my favorite beach in Chicago. As a boy, I loved going there because of the beach and the swimming. Then, as I grew up a little, the field house that resembled a ship caught my attention. I loved riding my bike all around it. Finally, as a teenager, I disovered the Chess Pavilion. I rode my bike past it many times before, but I never noticed the chessboards embedded in the concrete there until I started playing chess in high school.

Usually, when we went to the beach, no one was playing chess anyway. The Chess Pavilion was made entirely of concrete with a concrete canopy where we went when it rained. Once I started playing chess, I would bring my chess set to the beach with me. When I was in high school, I rode my bike all the way from the south side to the Chess Pavilion several times just to play chess.

When I got my first car, I used to love driving up and down Lake Shore Drive just for the fun of it. My favorite part of LSD was near North Avenue Beach because I could see the Chess Pavilion as I drove by.

Once I was on a first date and I took her on my favorite drive up and down LSD. Finally, she asked to stop somewhere on the lakefront. I was sure she wanted to see the world famous Lake Michigan submarine races. Anyway, I immediately thought of going to the Chess Pavilion with her. Too bad that I didn’t have a chess set with me so I could test her intelligence as long as I was sizing her up as a prospective prospect.

So we park and we start walking. “Where are you taking me?” she asked. “I know the perfect place to watch the submarine races,” I said. We walked to the Chess Pavilion and sat on the chessboards. The night was clear but very cool and damp, however, we had a beautiful view of the Chicago skyline. After a while, she was cold from sitting on the concrete, so she sat on my lap. Well, I couldn’t have planned the evening any better!

DDR

Daley and me


UIC, Chicago, Illinois

As I sit down to write this, I know I won’t finish this blog post tonight. The cast of characters keep changing, but the title is always the same. I’m referring, of course, to Mayor Daley of Chicago.

Well, actually, Chicago has had two Mayor Daleys. For anyone who has lived in Chicago for as long as I have, you know that Mayor Daley and his clan are part of the fabric of Chicago politics. Mayor Daley was the only mayor, or Da Mare as he is known in Chicagoese, that I knew since I was in grade school until his death in 1976. And just when I thought the Daleys were out of my life, his son Richard M. Daley ran for Chicago mayor unsuccessfully. Eventually, we had a second Mayor Daley, henceforth referred to as Richard da First and Richard da Second, respectively. And I just have a feeling that someday we may have a third Mayor Daley when Richard da Second’s son Patrick Daley returns from the army after he fulfills his enlistment. Yes, we could possibly have a Richard da Third.

When I was a boy, sometimes Richard the first would show up in our neighborhood unexpectedly. If we had award ceremonies for our park district tournaments, Mayor Daley would be there to pass out trophies. As I grew older, he was always in the news. His name was on just about every sign in the city of Chicago. One day, I was at the library at St. Xavier University on the south side of Chicago. I looked out the stained-glass window and I noticed a little plaque underneath. The window was donated by Richard J. Daley in memory of his father. I often went to the library at UIC to study. Then one day, they changed the name to the Richard J. Daley Library. Just like that.

DDR

PBK


I am the proud recipient of the Phi Beta Kappa key!

PBK stands for Phi Beta Kappa, which is America’s oldest honor society. Some of you probably already knew that. I studied very diligently as an undergrad and I was fortunate enough to earn a PBK key when I graduated. I actually surprised myself! I was hoping that I would be inducted into the honor society, but I was actually surprised when they wrote to me to notify me that I was. Later, I felt that maybe I didn’t deserve to be a Phi Bete. I never wanted anyone to give me anything that I didn’t deserve. I always wondered about it.

Now as a Spanish lecturer at UIC, I volunteer to review academic records to see who deserves to earn a PBK key upon graduation. So I usually compare myself with PBK prospectives. I am proud to say that I usually fit right in the middle somewhere. I wasn’t a brainiac, but I wasn’t exactly a slacker, either.

Most students who earn the PBK key have a GPA of 3.7 – 4.0 out of 4.0. I had a 3.71 GPA. Students must also demonstrate depth and breadth of study, risk taking, and a general love of learning. So if a student takes many honors college courses that contributes to his or her dept of breadth of studies. Doing a double major also accomplishes this. Well, I was in the honors college, and I did a double major in English (3.79) and Spanish (GPA 3.99), and I took a lot of upper lever-courses that I didn’t need just for the fun of it.

I attended college later in life, so I really loved school and I tried to get as much out of it as possible. After reviewing students this year, I realize that I did deserve that PBK key!

DDR

Chin …


El Gallo de Oro Mexican Restaurant

Actually, that’s only the half of it. When I was in Celaya, Sometimes my cousin Ignacio caught himself in mid-word, “¡Chin … !“, when he saw children around, and not complete the final syllables of “-gado.” My father would start out, “Chi …” and then see my brothers and me, and immediately change to the word, “¡Chihuahua!” You see Mexicans are famous for being the most notorious practitioners of swearing of all Spanish speakers in the world. And their favorite swear word has to be, “chingado.” Occasionally, when my father didn’t feel like referring to dogs or cheese with the word “chihuahua” would say, “chispas,” which merely means sparks. So if you hear someone who is frustrated by their present circumstances, and they shout, “¡Chispas!“, “¡Chihuahua!“, or “¡Chingado!“, behold (and beware), because you are most certainly in the presence of a Mexican.

¡Ay Chihuahua! is a common Mexican expression.

The other day, my Spanish class asked me about the word “chingado” and I was brutally honest with them. I told them that it’s derived from an Aztec word. Since I had the interest of the entire class, I snuck in a Spanish class without them realizing it. I began with the infinitive chingar and I conjugated it for them: chingo, chingas, chinga, chingamos, chingáis, chingan. They were so enthralled by me lesson that they didn’t even complain that I had used the vosotros form of the verb, as they usually are scared of it. I even showed them how to use the past participle as an adjective: chingado gobierno, chingada migra, chingados rateros, chingadas cuentas. Once I had their interest, I was able to teach that day’s lesson easily. They paid attention the whole class. It was simply amazing!

DDR

Taco Loco


You can’t go to Taco Loco anymore. But I often do. If only in my mind. I remember it well. On the corner of the public parking lot at the northeast corner of Wabash and Balbo, in the shadow of the Conrad Hilton Hotel. Sacrificed to expand the parking lot and Chicago’s dwindling parking availability with four more parking spaces. I should post a picture to show you where it used to be. In the 1960s, we often drove past it.

We, as Mexicans, always wondered who would name a Mexican restaurant Taco Loco. We never ate there because Mexicans didn’t eat at Mexican restaurants in the 1960s. They only worked there. In fact, I never even heard of any Mexicans ever eating in a restaurant. If we ate outside of the house it was at someone else’s home or we brought our own tortillas, bolillos, carnitas, peppers, and salsa. When my parents divorced, my father would pick us up for visitation in his fluorescent-avocado-green 1971 Ford Maverick. Sometimes we would drive southbound on Wabash past Taco Loco. I was always curious about Taco Loco, a small, white brick building that didn’t look very well-maintained. In fact, it always looked like it was about to fall over until they actually knocked it down.

As an adult, when I could finally do everything that was prohibited by my parents, I finally went to Taco Loco. I loved their food. Let’s just say that forbidden fruit tastes the best! No one who worked there was a native English speaker, if you know what I mean. Luckily, I spoke Spanish. I ate there whenever I was downtown. The food was really cheap, too, especially if considered that this was a downtown restaurant. In 1992, during the World Cup semifinals, I was eating, sitting near the window. I saw some drunken soccer fans across the street, waving German flags and singing German songs. Suddenly, they ran out of songs to sing and they started shouting, “Baseball sucks!” They were scaring me. Luckily, they didn’t see me and their bus came right away.

When I taught Spanish at Columbia College Chicago, I often ate there after class. Then one day, the Spanish coordinator told me that I had to take my Spanish classes on a field trip. I wasn’t sure where to take them. When I tried to arrange a trip, we couldn’t agree on a time because every student was a full-time student. And many of them also worked. Talk about complications. So I’m sitting in Taco Loco eating enchiladas when it occurred to me that I could take them to Taco Loco! We were only a block away from our classroom and we could meet in Taco Loco instead of going to class. This actually worked out well for everyone. Since Taco Loco was open 24 hours, we met there for our 9:00 a.m. class. Everyone ordered their food in Spanish from the non-English-speaking waitress and they spoke Spanish as much as possible. Even the Spanish coordinator liked our destination for the field trip. No one else had ever thought of going to Taco Loco. I guess I’m just a trailblazer. I can’t help it. 🙂

DDR