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Random Thoughts 

We are rapidly drawing to a close of my childhood memories of growing up in Chicago. Pa is home from the wars so the 4 of us are living together as a family. I see a little less of my older brother who now goes to a different school than I do. I am in the 4th grade at George B. McClellan Elementary. More on this later. Chicago has a crappy climate which is cold in winter and hot in summer. During the hot days of summer it was common for someone to find a wrench and open up a fire hydrant so the kids could play in the water. I used to just love running through the high pressure stream of water. Back in those days workers used to come around and pour hot tar in the cracks in the pavement and fill in pot holes. The tar they used back then was different than the tar they use today. It was a pure form of tar with no dirt of sand in it. It was very soft and seeped down into cracks before turning solid. During hot weather it got very soft. We used to follow the road workers and when the tar had cooled just enough to pick up with our hands we would make a little ball out of it an try chewing it like gum. The word was it was supposed to clean your teeth but I doubt that now. In any event it had a nasty taste and was very difficult to chew as it cooled. However being kids we had to try it. The corner lot across the street was vacant and would grow up in some kind of tall weeds that were about the same height as we were. We would play army and cowboys and Indians  using the tall weeds to hide in. We even found an old shovel and dug some fox holes. All the kids had cap pistols that would hold a roll of caps on a tape. I can still remember the smell of the caps after they went off. The Mommycopters of today would have a heart attack if their little boys had guns like that. The toy guns were very, very realistic. I doubt the average person could tell them from real a few yards away. I had a toy Tommy Gun that was a perfect replica of the real thing. Chicago had cold winters as well as hot summers. We never got any long lasting snow cover but several times a winter would get a few inches. During recess at the elementary school the kids would roll the wet snow into balls and make little forts to hide behind. Then we would throw snowballs at each other. A group of us would make up a couple of snowballs and rush the other groups fort and shower them with snowballs. Then we would run back to our own fort and they would do the same. Great fun. George B. McClellan Elementary still had corporal punishment back then. I never personally took advantage of it but all the boy were terrified of being sent to the basement. The janitor was the one that administered the whacks with a flat wooden paddle with a handle on it. More on Gerorge B. McClellan later. State Street was a couple of blocks past Comiskey Park so Danny and I would sometimes wander over that way on Sunday mornings to listen to the black churches music. They were called Holy Rollers back then and they would play this music with a frantic beat and jump and shout and wave their arms and work themselves into a frenzy. They were called Holy Rollers because some of the more enthusiastic members would get down on the floor and roll around in some kind of trance. As there was no air conditioning back then they would leave the church doors and the windows open so we could stand across the street and watch and listen. State Street on Sunday mornings would have drunik sleeping it off sometimes two or three to a block. The Packanowski family didn’t attend church every Sunday but from time to time I would tag along with Danny to church. They had a huge Polish Catholic Cathedral a few blocks over and once a month they did the service in Latin. You haven’t lived until you have attended a Polish Cathedral service done in Latin. Back then the priest  did the homily from a little round box on one of the church pillars. It had a little winding stair case leading up to it. The back wall had a huge, and I mean huge, organ. The combination of the Cathedral, the organ and the mass in Latin was really inspiring even though I didn’t know a word of what was being said. By now we are into late 1947 and my days in Chicago are rapidly drawing to a close. I passed the third grade and in 1948 I was to enter fourth grade. 1948 was a real year of change and the world as I knew it was rapidly drawing to a close.