Tag: father

Tippecanoe and Maverick, too!


1971 Ford Maverick

One of my most (im)memorable vacations was back in 1973. My father decided that we would go camping for our summer vacation. My father had never been camping before, so this was destined to be quite an adventure!

My parents had been divorced about two years by then, but my father always exercised his visitation rights. I always enjoyed spending time with my father because he always asked me what I wanted to do together. And he usually accepted my suggestions But not until after he had completed all his errands such as going to the bank, paying his utility bills either at the bank or the local hardware store. Then, we would either eat at a restaurant or buy food at the Supermercado to eat on the way to our destination.

My father worked at Curtiss Candies, located near lower Wacker Drive near downtown Chicago. I remember because both my parents worked there at one time. Curtiss Candies made Butterfinger and Baby Ruth candy bars, among other candies that I don’t recall. Oh, yes, they also made these saftey lolly pops with the looped handle. That job had its perks. For example, the employees could take home any of the damaged candy that wasn’t visually pleasing for sale. So my father worked as a mechanic mostly in the Butterfinger section of the factory. He brought home Butterfingers that were too short, too long, with too much chocolate, not enough chocolate, mangled, or doubledecked. Now matter how deformed they looked, they still tasted great.

When my father wasn’t working, he would come pick up my brothers and me so we could spend time together. Sometimes my brothers didn’t want to go, so I would go alone with him. My father and I spent a lot of time talking. He was always interested in what I was doing. When I told him about my wrestling matches or chess tournaments, he insisted on going. The wrestling meets were usually walking distance to Davis Square Park, or to another nearby park to which the wrestling coach drove us. My father would always be at my wrestling meets.

For the chess tournaments, we would just meet in downtown Chicago at the La Salle Hotel Grand Ballroom. I took the bus early and my father would drive there later. My father started playing chess because of me, and then later we, my father, my brothers, and I, visited his brother, my Uncle Chucho, in Pilsen to play chess and eat pistachios. We would also go to the Chess Pavillion at North Avenue Beach to play chess in the summer.

Well, we didn’t just play chess! at the beach My father tried to pack in as many activities as possible in order to spend the whole day at the beach. That meant packing two bicycles, balls, baseball bats, baseball gloves, a barbecue grill, and that day’s newspapers. We would all squeeze into his lime green 1971 Ford Maverick for a full day of fun. Beleive me, we had fun after driving to the beach all scrunched up!

That car was the first car my father ever bought brand new. In fact, everyone who knew him was surprised he would consider buying new car, especially after recently getting divorced. Plus, he had to pay weekly child support of $60 for six children, $10 per child. This was 1972, so it was a lot of money back then. However, part of the divorce settlement included dividing the profit of the family house. (The family house is a story for another day.)

So my father was single again with a huge cash reserve after the sale of our house. So he decides to buy his first ever new car. Many people would have chosen any other color than lime green, but my father loved how the car looked in lime green! We learned to love it, too, after a while. My friends knew when my father would come to pick us up for visitation by the lime green color of the Ford Maverick.

I learned a lot about how not to handle my finances by watching how my father handled his finances. In fact, to this day, when I have a critical finanacial decision to make, I ask myself, “How would my father handle this situation?” And then, I do the exact opposite! So my father has this huge cash reserve from the sale of our house, and he has enough to pay cash for the car, but then he buys the car on credit. He explained why to me, but I didn’t understand at the time because I was only sixteen years old at the time. Looking back now, I still don’t understand why.

Anyway, my father often asked me about my life at Divine Heart Seminary and what we did and how we lived, and he would share stories from his childhood and his life at the seminary in Montezuma, New Mexico. My father was really interested in my stories, especially after visiting me at the seminary in Donaldson, Indiana.

What intrigued my father the most was the stories about our camping trips with the Exploreres group at the seminary. We went camping at Meyer’s Lake and Tippecanoe River State Park. We also went camping at the farm of our fellow seminarian Dan G. I told my father how we pitched tents, chopped wood, built campfires, and went canoeing. My father loved hearing my descriptions of roughing it in the woods.

Soon after the divorce, the sale of our house, and the purchase of the lime green 1973 Ford Maverick, my father comes to pick us up for his child visitation one July Saturday morning. He tells me to ask my mother if he could take us camping for the weekend. I’m dumbfounded because we had never gone camping as a family. We didn’t have any camping gear, either. Well, I had my own winter mummy sleeping bag, but that is also a story for another day. My mother immediately grants my father permission to take us away for the weekend, or longer if he wanted. And the farther away the better. Needless to say, my brothers and I were somethimes a bit too much for my mother endure.

“How are we going camping without a tent?” I asked my father as we drove away. My father had a plan! Now it’s about 8:00 AM on a Saturday morning, and my father had just finished working the Friday nightshift. He came straight from work to pick us up to go camping. Knowing him, he probably didn’t sleep much on Friday before going to work because he was so excited about his camping trip! And he wanted to go camping at Tippecanoe River State Park just like I had done with the Explorers!

But my father had a plan! First, we had to run his errands before we could camping. He had just gotten paid, so we had to go to Drovers Bank to cash his check and get a $60 money order for child support to give to my mother. Then we had to go to another bank so he could make his car payment. Then we had to go to the hardware store so he could pay his utilities. Then we had to back to my house to give my mother the child support money order before we left for Indiana.

By this time, we were hungry. Rather than eat in a restaurant, my father took us to the Supermercado where he bought carnitas and bolillos for our breakfast/brunch/lunch. As I recall, we never ate at a restaurant when we were children. My brothers and I didn’t complain because we were starving and we loved carnitas! Once we where sated, I asked my father, as the oldest of the brothers looking out for the welfare of his younger brothers, “How are we going camping without any camping gear?” My father said, “I’ll show you!”

And he drove us to the Goldblatt’s Department Store. He drove around the block twice until he found a parking space directly in front of one of the entrances. We go upstairs to the sporting department and they sell camping equipment. I had never noticed before that they sold tents and sleeping bags. I would only look at the baseball gloves and bats.

“What do we need to go camping?” my father asked.

“We need tents and sleeping bags,” I said. It was July, so I said we probably didn’t really need the sleeping bags. We could take our blankets and pillows. My father approved of the two two-man pup tents I chose. However, there five of us. One of us would have to sleep in the car. I said that we would need a lantern at night since we would be out in the woods in the dark. My father got really excited when I picked out a Coleman lantern like the one the Explorers used. I couldn’t think of anything else we would need for camping.

My father had enough cash to pay for everything, but he decided to go to the finance department and buy everything on credit. So he had to fill out an application since he didn’t have an account at Goldblatt’s. My brothers and I were getting rather antsy waiting for the credit approval, but it finally came. My father was very surprised that he was approved because usually my mother handled financial matters such as these, even though he had to be by her side to show she had her husband’s approval.

And then we were ready to depart to Tippecanoe River! Or so I thought! My father thought that he should take me back home to get my mummy sleeping bag. It must have been about two in the afternoon when we returned home. My mother asked me if the camping trip was cancelled. I said that we needed my mummy sleeping bag. And then we left.

But first my father needed to go to his house in Pilsen to get some things, which only took him about forty-minutes or so. And then we debated whether we should take our bicycles on the camping trip. By now the Maverick was pretty much loaded the tents, pillows, blankets, sporting equipment, my father’s tools, including a floorjack, because you just never know when you’ll have to jack up the car in the middle of nowhere.

By now, my father is getting sleepy because he hadn’t slept all night and the day before. But then I remembered that we needed to take food with us if we wanted to eat on our camping trip. So we go to to the Jewel on Ashland Avenue. We’re parked in the lot, so my father decides he needs to take a nap. And take a nap he does. for about an hour. My brothers and I entertain ourselves in the crowded car and we get so rambunctious that we finally end up disturbing my father’s sleep.

“I feel so refreshed now!” my father says. And we go into Jewel to buy our camping groceries. Looking back, I realize that we didn’t have a cooler to store our food. When I went camping with the Explorers we didn’t need a cooler because we didn’t take any perishable food items with us. We bought mostly non-perishable food until we walked past the freezer section and my father saw the Banquet frozen chicken. He took two boxes. I thought that was a very bad idea because the frozen chicken would spoil before we could eat it. Wow! Was I ever wrong! As you shall see.

So we take our brown bags of groceries to the car and place them in the trunk because there’s no more room in front- or backseat of the car. My father takes another “short nap” and then we take off for Indiana!

It must be about 5:00 PM and we still haven’t crossed the Illinois state line. Yes, my father is so tired that he has to take another nap. We finally got to U.S 3o East about 8:00 PM. About 11:00 PM, my father pulls over at a hotel parking lot in Valparaiso, Indiana. My father is sleeping so soundly that he is snoring. After a couple of hours, we start nudging him to wake him up. Unsuccessfully, I might add. My brothers and I are starving by this time. We open the hot trunk and start foraging for food. We ate the chips, pastries, and fruit, but we were still hungry. My brother Tato sees the two boxes of Banquet frozen chicken and suggests that we eat the chicken. As the oldest brother, I suggest that we shouldn’t because it has been in the hot trunk for hours. We refrain from eating it for a very short while, but then we feel very hungry again.

Much to our surprise, the chicken had thawed in the car trunk. So we ate the chicken right out of the box. I had not thought to bring any napkins or eating utensils, because when the Explorers went camping, someone else took of the little necesseties. However, the chicken was delicious! It had thawed completely and it was warm enough to taste good. Well, we finished all the chicken. And we finished all the other groceries we had bought earlier. And we were still hungry! Then my brother Danny reminded us that my father always had candy in the car. And sure enough! Hiidden away were some mutant Butterfingers!

When my father finally woke up, he managed to drive the rest of the way to the Tippecanoe River State Park. We arrived about 2:00 AM. Surprisingly, the park ranger at the gate was still awake. He assumed we had traveled from very far to be arriving so late. My father, being the show off that he is, said, “We’ve been driving all night to get here!” The ranger, genuinely impressed, asked, “Where did you drive from?” And my father said, boastfully, “Chicago!”

The ranger rolled his eyes. I was so embarassed because I knew that the drive was only one-and-a-half to two hours long. But my father felt so accomplished by his navigational feat. Of course, now that I look back, after having also worked the night shift, that is quite an accomplishment with so little sleep.

And I will never, ever forget that camping trip. No matter how hard I try!

caricature of author
DDR

On becoming a man


Are you a man?

If you had the (mis)fortune of being born a male, you know that you must endure certain rites of passage to manhood. However, no one ever asked me if I wanted to participate in these rites. They were not optional. But they were thrust upon me. Unfortunately, no manual exists for these rites of passage. Sometimes, I didn’t even know I was undergoing one of these rites until after I had passed it.

The real question about all these rites of manhood is, “Is there a defining moment when you pass from boyhood to manhood?” You know, one moment you’re a boy, then something, je ne sais quoi, happens, and suddenly you’re a man.

I bring this up because my friend Jim, according to his father, had such an experience. Let me explain. Jim and I met at Gage Park High School in physics class, and he encouraged me to join the chess team. We soon became good friends. In fact, we’re still friends to this day.

Anyway, we would visit each other’s home and occasionally play chess. I got to meet his entire family because I visited them so often. Once when they went to a family reunion in Kentucky, I got to tag along. Actually, I think they needed another car, and I was willing to go on a road trip with them. I really liked Jim’s mother because she always laughed at all my jokes. And I do mean ALL my jokes. So, naturally, I always enjoyed talking to her. Jim’s father, on the other hand, sometimes made me feel a little uneasy. He always exuded this high-testosterone manhood, even when he fell asleep on the sofa with a beer in his hand while watching TV.  He was a hard-working man who enjoyed a beverage or two (especially ones containing any amount of alcohol) after work. Sometimes, he would talk to Jim and me. He enjoyed telling us about his work history. He was truly a working man. He was always employed the whole time I knew him. He always worked and he took extraordinary pride in that. Once, he didn’t like how he was being treated at work, so he quit his job and found a new one the very next week.

When I started working at Derby Foods as a manual laborer, Jim’s father was so proud of me. He held me up as the ideal role model of a working man. Suddenly, in his eyes, I had achieved manhood by virtue of being a working man. I felt uncomfortable because I didn’t like to see Jim be put down by his father. “Jim,” his father would say, “Dave and I are working men. I hope I live to see the day that you work.” Despite what he said, I felt very much the same as before, like an overgrown boy, but I wasn’t about to tell Jim’s father. I was a working man and old enough, at age nineteen, to buy my own beer and wine in the state of Illinois. Jim’s father was proud of my manhood. He soon started telling Jim, “If you ever worked a full day’s work and then drank a six-pack after work, you’d probably drop dead!’ He really wasn’t happy until one day Jim was working at the same factory as his father. But he would not concede to the fact that Jim was now a man.

One day, I went to visit Jim and his father answered the door. I could tell that he was either hung over or drunk, or both. He was smiling like never before. I had never seen him in such a mood. I asked him if Jim was home, and he smiled proudly. Jim came down from his bedroom just in time to hear his father say, “Dave, you should be very proud of your friend Jim. Today, Jim is a man!” He then put Jim in a headlock that looked potentially fatal. Jim immediately freed himself from his father. “See!” his father said. “Jim is now a man!’ He tried to explain further, but neither Jim nor I could fully understand him. But I had never seen him so proud of his son before. He soon decided that it was time to go to bed. Jim thought it would be better if we left the house.

Later, he explained that the night before his father had gotten really drunk and he was looking for a fight. He started up with his wife and he was holding her so she couldn’t get away. So, Jim grabbed his father, which totally surprised him because Jim had never had a physical encounter of this sort with his father before. So, his father turns to assault Jim, but Jim managed to throw him to the floor. Jim really thought his father was really going to tan his hide. At first, his father was angry as he got up, but then he realized that his son was no longer a boy. Jim then yelled at his father to go to bed and go to sleep. Surprisingly, Jim’s father obeyed.

For a few months after that, Jim’s father would beam with pride and tell me that his son was now a man. Jim had stood up to his father–who if you believed his father’s stories. he had never lost a fight–who was a real man. Jim had knocked him, a real man, down. For a while there, I really envied Jim. He was a man now!

DDR

Happy Father’s Day!


4405 S. Wood Street, Chicago, Illinois

Happy Father’s Day!

I would especially like to thank my father Diego for being my father. He’s holding my baby brother Joey in the picture and I’m standing next to him. Seated are my brothers Danny, Rick, my sister Delia, and my brother Jerry. My mother isn’t in the picture because she was the photographer. She loved taking pictures of the family!

I can honestly say that the happiest days of my life were when I was a boy living with my family before my parents got divorced. Both my parents were always there for me, although we did have a few misunderstandings. My father taught me some carpentry and how to use tools. I would always help him fix his cars because he was a mechanic at the Curtis Candy factory. He was proud to be a mechanic. My father respected anyone who was a good carpenter or mechanic by calling them maestro. Thanks to my father, I’m now able to perform many fix-it projects around the house.

As a father myself, I often think of all the things my father did with us and I try to do some of the same things. Sometimes, just being with his children was enough satisfaction and joy for my father, especially after my parents divorced. Even if we’re not doing anything together, I’ll often sit in the same room with my sons just to be with them. Occasionally, we’ll start an unexpected entertaining conversation.

My father always asked me for suggestions for trips we could make, and no matter how crazy I thought the idea was, he would take us on the trip. He never made any excuses for not going. So, now I follow my sons’ suggestions. One time, my oldest son was writing a report on Mount Rushmore, and we all became interested in the report. My son suggested that we go to Mount Rushmore, and we went the following June. Every time I go on vacation with my sons, I always think of my father.

DDR

Pilsen


Pilsen, Chicago, Illinois

The first place I ever lived in Chicago was Pilsen. I hate to admit it, but I’m not a native Chicagoan. I have always regretted not being born in Chicago because I love Chicago so much. Yes, I’m not happy to admit that I’m a foreigner. I was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. We moved to Chicago when I was about one and a half. We moved into my grandparents’ house at 977 W. 19th Street. We lived in the second-floor rear apartment that didn’t have its own bathroom. There was no back door either. There were wooden stairs leading downstairs to the backyard from our rear window. I’m sure this didn’t meet the Chicago building codes, but it was very practical. My brother Danny and I always went down the back stairs to play in the yard. We lived there until we moved to Back of the Yards shortly before I started kindergarten at Holy Cross.

I still drive through Pilsen when I go to UIC because it’s an interesting neighborhood. I’ve been taking pictures of the neighborhood for years now. Every time I take a different route, I find something I have never seen before, like the mural in the picture above. I’ve driven on 16th Street many times, but I only recently noticed this mural of the Aztec calendar. I know this mural has been there for at least twenty years. Parts of it are slowly fading away into obscurity. I plan on walking through Pilsen and taking more pictures.

DDR

Driving lessons


My father’s camioneta

When I recall that I learned to drive from my father, I consider myself incredibly lucky to still be alive. I took driver’s ed at Divine Heart Seminary in Donaldson, Indiana, but I only got to drive the minimum required hours. My father loved teaching everyone how to drive, so he took me out driving. The only one who ever refused to take lessons from him was my mother. She didn’t like him telling her what to do. Especially, since she knew his every bad–and dangerous–bad driving habits. My father had some extremely dangerous driving habits that he tried to teach everyone he taught. Including me! Since I was only sixteen, I had to follow his instructions carefully or risk never driving again. I had a permit and I wanted to drive!  

I was an extremely poor driver in driver’s ed. The first car I drove was a 1971 Pontiac Firebird with a manual transmission. We were all excited about driving a sports car! I stalled the engine every time I drove. The instructor told me I would be fine once we started driving the Chevy Caprice with an automatic transmission. Everyone was happy about the automatic transmission because the engine stalling stopped. Until I got behind the wheel. Somehow, I still managed to stall the engine! But that was the least of my worries. I didn’t know how to yield at yield signs, and from years of watching my father drive, I didn’t come to a complete stop at stop signs. I thought stopping was optional because my father never came to a complete stop at a stop sign. Now that I think of it, he never completely stopped at red lights either! Whenever the light turned red, he would slowly stop a couple car lengths from the intersection and slowly creep forward until the light turned green.  

I was surprised that my father allowed me to drive his brand-new lime green 1971 Ford Maverick. He was so proud that he was teaching his oldest son how to drive!  I was even more surprised at some of the driving maneuvers de demanded of me! For example, he would tell me to take short cuts through alleys. When I came out of the other end, he wanted me to lay on the horn in case any car or pedestrian was at the mouth of the alley. He taught me about lane position when making right turns. If you make a right turn, my father told me, you must get in the right lane. Then, when you get close to the intersection, you swing out wide to the left before you turn! I almost crashed the very first time I tried my father’s technique. My father always made his right turns like this. I’m surprised he didn’t have more accidents.  

He also told me to use a turn signal when changing lanes. But in Chicago, sometimes it was better not to let the other drivers know your intentions. I’m not sure why. I never really understood his explanation. If you got to and intersection without any traffic controls and the other driver signaled you to proceed before him, my father told me to never go. He just wanted to crash into you. To this day, I always give the other driver the right of way.  

My father always had trouble staying in his lane. On the expressway, in the right lane, he would exit on the right if he didn’t focus on staying in his lane. Before I started driving, I thought staying in your lane was the most difficult driving feat possible. My father would make everyone be quiet whenever we approached exit ramps. In the picture of my father’s station wagon, you can see the result of his not staying in his lane. he was driving northbound on Damen Avenue at 47th Street. That was the site of the infamous Damen overpass in Back of the Yards. The left two lanes took you over the overpass. However, the right lane allowed drivers to veer right and avoid going on the overpass. Well, my father was in the right lane when the exit lane pulled him to the right. Unfortunately, he crashed into the concrete barrier dividing the lanes despite the flashing yellow warning light and warning sign. Luckily for me , he was alone while driving.  

He parked for about ten minutes to calm down from the trauma before he came home. I was the first one to see him and his fender damaged. I was sorry I asked him what had happened. It took him about five minutes to explain this two-second traffic crash. Then, he told me to get in the car and he took me back to the scene of the accident. He did a reenactment of the accident. I was riding shotgun and not wearing a seatbelt because back then no one wore seatbelts because most cars didn’t have seatbelts. As he was showing me his path before the accident, he almost crashed into the concrete barrier again! That really shook him up and he had to pull over for a few minutes to calm down before we could drive home. I still have some of the driving habits that my father instilled in me. And that’s why I say that I’m lucky to be alive!  

DDR