Fragments of the West Side

I consider myself lucky to have grown up on Racine Avenue in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago’s near west side. It was the late 1940’s, the beginning of an exciting new era and, in my opinion, the perfect place and time to be a kid. More and more families were buying their first TV, their first car and some of the lucky ones even were getting central heating, eliminating the need to pour fuel oil into the stoves used to heat their homes. Like many Italian families, ours was top heavy with aunts, uncles, cousins and close friends we considered as extended family. Whether it was Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter or the rare St. Joseph’s Table, our house would be bursting at the seams with family and friends. Of course, being Italian, each holiday came with time-honored traditions which had to be followed to the letter. Dad, being a home movie fanatic, thoroughly documented these special times in his endless reels of 8 and 16 mm film. Dad was a worker for the Bureau of Sanitation in Chicago and was the bread winner in our family, but Ma was its heart. She cleaned, cooked, took care of us kids and kept Dad in-line, all while working a full time job. How she did it, I have no idea. As kids, our top priority was having fun. Whatever the season, we were outside as much as our parents and daylight would allow. We played hard and we played rough. Sure, we scraped our knees, got cuts, bloody noses and, on occasion, had to make a trip to the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital to set a broken bone or, in my older brother’s case, have his tongue sewn back on. We took all it in stride. If that was the price we had to pay, so be it. Schools back then had little tolerance for kids who acted up. There were rules to follow and we were expected to obey them. If one of us caused trouble, it was a guaranteed trip to the principal’s office or, in some cases, getting suspended for a few days. Recently, I visited the various neighborhoods where I grew up on Chicago’s west side. Memories of family, friends and events always come to mind but never as strong as they did when I visited Racine Avenue. Here they over-powered me and sent me back to my days as a kid in this wonderful, old neighborhood. After Dad got up in years, and wasn’t able to drive anymore, he was always asking my brothers or me to take him back to his childhood home in Joliet, Illinois. When we would arrive he’d jump out of the car and a big smile would appear on his face. He’d then proceed to start showing my brothers and me all his old haunts. I used to wonder why visiting his old neighborhood in Joliet affected Dad the way it did. It has taken a lifetime, but now I think I understand. I finally decided I had to write a book detailing my life on Racine Avenue and the other neighborhoods we lived in. Each move meant leaving old friends, making new ones, starting new schools and a host of other challenges that seemed overwhelming. I can remember there were some great times and other times that weren’t so great. However, in looking back, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.