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Random Thoughts Of A Tired Old Man
 

One of the most important facets of living on the South Side of Chicago was Comiskey Park. Comiskey Park was fabulous. It had a huge green space area with a sidewalk all around it with park benches every 20 feet or so. People would wak their dogs or picnic under the shade trees in the summer. It was a well used park. It had a ginormous swimming pool that was open to the public. When you entered the pool area there was a changing room much like an athletic locker room. After you changed into your swimsuit you took your street clothes and shoes up to the counter and the attendant would bring you a numbered bin to put your stuff in. Once you put your stuff in he would give you a round brass disc with a number on it which matched the number on the bin. It had a safety pin so you could pin it to you swimming trunks or put it in the little pocket most swimming trunks had back then. To get to the swimming pool you had to pass through a hall way with spray nozzles coming from every angle to make sure you were clean enough to get in the pool. After you were done swimming you went back, turned in the brass disc and changed into your street clothes. We used to make a little extra money at Comiskey park selling newspapers with score cards. Apparently that was a big thing back then. We would buy 5 papers from the vendor for 5 cents apiece. We sold a paper with the scorecard for 10 cents thereby doubling our money. Some evening we could make several dollars doing that. I had the good fortune to be in the stands the day Babe Ruth gave his farewell speech in New York. The played it over the Comisky park loud speakers and I heard every word. Don't remember all them now but I remember his gravelly voice coming out of the speakers. We had one candy store back then we frequented more than the others. They had a thing called the numbers game. For a few cents, usually a dime, you could pick a 3 digit number and if you won you would get 600 times your bet back. I never won. Sort of a prehistoric lottery. They also had punch boards on the counter whereby you purchased a chance and punched out one of the holes to get a little slip of paper with a number on it. I never won anything with those either. Life was good to be totally free and have a little money in your pocket. I should point out where my freedom came from. Pa was drafted in December 1944. He got a bad break. 2 months later in February 1945 they stopped drafting 35 year olds with children. Pa was 35 when he got drafted and had 2 kids. Pa went off to the Army and Ma went to work in a meat packing plant. The theory was Gram, who lived in the next building by then was supposed to take care of us. That gave us pretty total freedom. Gram was pretty close to being witch doctor. She could read stool samples in a toilet bowl and deduce the state of our health. Whenever we didn't look right or act right she would tell us not to flush the toilet. She would go in there with a stick and stir it around and from that deduce the state of our health. She had one sure fire remedy for her deductions after reading the stool samples and that was one large tablespoon of Castor Oil. Must have worked because here I am all hale and hearty. More on Gram later.