Tag: Marquette Park

Marquette Park Track Club


Proudly wearing the Marquette Park Track Club colors of black and gold!

When I returned to Chicago after three years in the Marine Corps, I moved back to Marquette Park. I lived at 3006 W. 64th Street for six years before I moved to Bridgeport. I loved living so close to the park because then I could go running every day. While in the Marines, I began running seriously after I ran a marathon in California. I thought that if I trained well enough, I could become a good runner. I joined the Marquette Park Track Club after running the Roy Bricker Memorial 5 Mile Race where I placed third in my age group. Roy Bricker was the best runner that the club ever produced. All thanks to Coach Jack Bolton whom all his runners adored. The club would meet every weeknight at 5:30 p.m. rain or shine, snow, or sleet. Jack never missed a practice.

Jack Bolton came from Ireland many years before, but he never lost his Irish brogue. We all loved it. Some of the runners imitated him lovingly. He was a world-class miler back in Ireland and when he came to the U.S. he coached high school teams in Chicago. He always had great runners running for him.

When I first joined the club in 1981, all the practices began with six laps (one mile) on the cinder track at Marquette Park. Jack would lead the pack, and everyone had to stay behind him. This was a group warmup. Jack’s philosophy for this warmup was twofold. 1. Runners learned to run in a pack and 2. Runners learned to run at someone else’s pace, as sometimes happens in a race. In later years, Jack’s ankles gave out on him, and he didn’t run the warmup with the club anymore.

Jack especially loved working with younger runners. He was known for the female runners that came out of his club system. In fact, some high school girls would join Jack’s club in order to develop as runners and qualify for running scholarships at the universities of their choice. Most girls achieved their goal. Of course, many boys also received running scholarships, too.

What everyone loved about Jack was his eternal optimism. He always believed that one of his runners would win the race outright, no matter how overwhelming the odds. I once entered a race and learned at the starting line that Jack had predicted that I would win. I wanted to live up to his expectations, but I had a difficult day and faded halfway through the race. But Jack was always touting some up-and-coming runners from his club. He was usually right, too.

Click here to read an article that I wrote about Jack Bolton for the CARA Finish Line the January/February edition of 1985:

http://davidrodriguez.us/docs/bolton.html 

DDR

México


Marquette Park, Chicago, Illinois

One difference I noticed when I entered México was that EVERYONE speaks Spanish–as opposed to Chicago where only half the people speak Spanish. México is like a totally different country!

I may be Mexican, but I’m not a real Mexican who grew up in México. When I checked into a hotel in Matehuala, I realized that my name, David Diego Rodriguez, even though it sounds Spanish, is really American. My name if I were really, really a Mexican, would be David Diego Rodríguez Martínez. But so far, I’m blending in here in Mexico. Or at least, I’ve convinced myself that most people don’t really notice that I’m from America. I found this Internet Café in Celaya and it has accent marks and ñ just like a real Spanish keyboard!

Well, I must go now. My time is up at the Internet Cafe. Hasta pronto.

DDR

My two incredible talents


The green limosine

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!”

DDR

My Chicago neighborhoods


West 110th Street, Beverly, Chicago, Illinois

Chicago is the greatest city on earth! It’s a microcosm of the world. Many of the world’s languages are spoken in Chicago. My greatest regret in life is that I wasn’t born in Chicago. Unfortunately, I was born in a place far, far away, called Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Where my parents led, I followed. To be honest, I wasn’t in on the pre-natal decision-making process. I was conceived in Mexico, but I was born in the U.S.

I have lived in several neighborhoods in Chicago. My grandparents came to Chicago in the 1950s and lived in Pilsen. So, naturally, when my parents moved to Pilsen, so did I. We also lived in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. When my parents divorced, my mother, my brothers, my sister, and I moved to the Marquette Park area. My father moved back to his father’s house in Pilsen. I bought my first house in Bridgeport and lived there until I started my own family and moved to Ashburn on the southwest side. When I divorced, I bought my present house in Beverly. Some people have told me that I live in a black neighborhood, but that’s not true at all. This is one of the few Chicago neighborhoods that is truly integrated! This is the best neighborhood in which I have ever lived.

DDR