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Here's a few examples from the old message board of what we're missing.
August 17, 2012
By the way, a "journalist" is someone with suit and tie, styled hair, perfect teeth, and contact lenses rather than glasses. I don't qualify on any of those bases, so I don't call myself a former "journalist." I always say I am a former "newsman." Much more dignified.
April 30, 2012
We are (at least I am) so focused on men's basketball that we frequently that there are other sports at Loyola.
Congrats to the golfers. As an aside, when I was sports editor of the Academy yearbook, I was censored when I wanted to put the headline "Tee-totalers" on the article about the golf team.
Oct. 23, 2012
Here's a good war story about Hamilton's.
In my senior year (55-56), the administration decided to tweak class starting times. They moved morning (9, 10, 11) classes up ten minutes and afternoon (noon and later) classes back ten or 15 minutes. So, if you had no 11:00 a.m. class on a given day, you had free time between 10:40 and 12:15. That time obviously could have been spent in the library, but that option was not very popular.
So, a few of us formed the "11:00 a.m. Hamilton's Beer and Bowling Association." The name came about because Larry's at that time had one of those pin-ball-like games in which you slid a metal disk about the size of a hockey puck toward pins and, depending on which switches you tripped, some would flip up and you would receive points.
Membership was not selective, but there was a hard-core group, some of whom, like me, had no classes at all in the 11 a.m. time slot. Despite this wayward path, most of us turned out quite well. Examples --
I have spent the past 50 years as a moderately competent lawyer;
My Teke fraternity brother Tom Dyba, when he died much too young, was executive VP at what is now called Benedictine University;
Burke, whose first name eludes me, but was probably Bob or Jack, spent some time on the White House detail in the Secret Service;
Don Wehling, when I last met him, was lay pastoral director at Holy Family hospital in Des Plaines, where Gerri was working as a nurse.
Wehling was also one of the few civilians (not counting police and firemen) who literally could be called a hero.
In the late 50's an inbound Ravenswood (now Brown Line) el train rear-ended another train in that stretch where the line has several sharp curves before straightening out to parallel North ave. I believe Ravenswood was still using wood-bodied cars, so damage was extensive; also, of course, it took some time before power was cut. I don't remember the details, but Don led several other riders to safety.
The bartender mentioned in another post was Tom O'Connor, who started at the Academy in my class, but after one or two years transferred to, I believe, St. Gregory.
And we should not forget another valuable service available at Hamilton's. This was an era when ATM's hadn't been invented, Illinois had absolutely no branch banking, the banks closed mid-afternoon and currency exchanges not much later. But if you were a regular and found yourself in temporary financial distress the bartender would cash a check or perhaps even advance a few bucks to tide you over.
Ah, the good old days.
September 12, 2012
Pixley and Ehlers (sometimes referred to as Pixley and Ulcers) had several locations. The one I frequented was on the west side of Wells, north of Randolph. That put it directly across the street from the City News (and later the AP's) offices in the 188 West Randolph building. Not great food, but cheap, and when my starting salary at CNB was $33/week, cheap was what I was looking for.
Does anyone remember the Rieck's chain, where the only main course was baked beans?
Or Schlegl's (I think the spelling is accurate, but don't bet on it) or the Wolf. Both were on the east side of Wells somewhere between Madison and Randolph, and for lunch you could get a rare roast beef sandwich and a stein of light.
Or the Gay 90's bar in the rebuilt LaSalle hotel, where you could also get a choice of smoked or unsmoked Thuringer and on Fridays a filet of sole sandwich.
Finally, there was Sieben's brewery on Ogden just south of North. At City News it was often the site for "lunch" for the night shift. This was long before the era of the cell phone, so the practice was to leave the number of the public phone with the copy-boy, and drink lunch while hoping the phone didn't ring.
Feb. 29, 2012
Here are some ramblings (no pun intended) about how I became and remain a train nut.
During and after WW2 my dad worked for and eventually was part-owner of a company that boarded and fed the gandydancers on the B&O, the Great Western and the Monon. His first job was as a news butcher for Union News on the Erie from his home town of Salamanca, N.Y., west to Youngstown and east to I think Hornell or Binghamton.
I spent a number of afternoons sitting in the door of the kitchen car of a work train in the middle of Iowa. The bread which the cook made every day was far more tasty than what you could buy at the grocery.
An uncle was killed in '52 braking for the B&O on the old BR&P line when a car broke loose and he was climbing to set the brake when the locomotive hit the car and threw him off. It was a weird experience when in '96 my last aunt on that side died and at the funeral luncheon I was seated at the table with the daughter of the engineer who had operated the locomotive.
Gerri was from Joliet and before we married she would sometimes go home, then call me to pick her up when she came back; she would say something like "I'll be on the 7:45 train," and I had a hard time getting her to realize that Joliet Union Station served three railroads to Chicago, but each of them used a different terminal downtown -- the Rock at LaSalle st., the Santa Fe at Dearborn, and the GM&O at Union.
Youngest son is a doctor in Portland and a year ago Christmas, knowing I am a train nut, the kids chipped in to get me a sleeper on the Builder so I could visit him. I'm still trying to figure out whether there was some ulterior motive behind the fact that what they gave me was a one-way ticket -- outbound.
Because I had to spend about ten days in the hospital I had to juggle the plans and ended up flying out and taking the train back, a 44-hour trip. The return was in October and unfortunately the truly scenic part of the trip was mostly at night. However, I will attest that the scenery in eastern Montana and North Dakota made central Illinois look majestic.
January, 2012
Brot,
Your mention of Leo the Lip reminds me of the only time I ever met him.
It was either '63 or '64, before Gerri made the biggest mistake of her life by saying "I do" when the priest asked her. She was working as a nurse at Columbus hospital, and one of her patients was a woman whose name fortunately has escaped me, but who was a C- or D+ list celebrity. The two had become acquainted when Gerri was one of her treaters during a hospital stay, and after she was released she invited Gerri to a party at her apartment.
There was the usual round of introductions -- this is Gerri, this is Phil, this is Leo Durocher, and so on.
You have to understand that there were some things that Gerri was other-worldly about and baseball was one of them. (There were other things about which she could never be described in that term, as witness our six kids.) We had been talking with Leo, who, at that time, was in town as a member of the Dodgers' coaching staff, for a few minutes when she asked, "And what do you do for a living, Mr. Durocher?" I doubt he had ever been asked that question before, but answered graciously and went into a hilarious routine of signals from coach to batter that had all the guests laughing.
Nov. 16, 2011
Two Rambler fans are discussing their plans for this weekend --
No. 1 -- Are you planning to go to the game in South Carolina?
No. 2 -- No.
No. 1 -- Why not?
No. 2 -- It's too fur, man.
June 11, 2011
OK, it has nothing to do with Rambler athletics, but I thought this was too good not to mention.
Among the spam that was on my computer this morning was an e-mail supposedly from Citibank in London which read --
Is it true that your [sic] dead? Pls. Confirm immediately????
I was torn between deleting (which I did) and sending a reply something like, "Yes, it's true, so please don't waste your money by sending me anything else."
April 11, 2011
Although he was born in Herkimer county, my dad grew up in Salamanca in Cattaraugus county, which means he actually grew up on an indian reservation, since the city is located within territory of the Seneca nation. An aunt worked for the lawyer whose office represented the city in the negotiations with the nation when the treaty expired around 1985. Another worked in the park and her husband worked in the oil fields around Olean.
Had cousins who attended d'Youville, Bonnie's and LeMoyne.
Beautiful country; not majestic like the Rockies, but gorgeous in the fall when the trees turn.
Feb 22, 2011
On an evening in September,
As well as I remember,
I was walking down the street with manly pride;
When my feet began to stutter,
So I lay down in the gutter,
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
As I lay there in the gutter,
Thinking thoughts I dare not utter,
A lady passing by was heard to say,
“You can tell a man who boozes
By the company he chooses,”
And the pig got up and slowly walked away
And too many times to mention
Requiescat in pace
------------
Back attcha, Senex.
_________________
Dormio Ergo Sum
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