Jim Siergey: Etelvina Turns Ninety
On El Dia De Los Tres Reyes, Three Kings Day, I shall turn ninety years of age.
You might say that’s quite an accomplishment. There’s really nothing to it. You just need to keep breathing.
Es verdad that I am weakened and wracked with pain. Walking, even with the aid of a walker, is muy dificil. The wheelchair comes in handy.
For my ninetieth birthday, my daughter has arranged for me a party. She will take me from this frozen land of Chicago back to the sun-baked streets in the village of my youth—Zacatula, Mexico.
I look forward to this. The journey will not be easy so I must rest.
I am here. I am back in Zacatula. My cousins, Eloisa and Yolanda greet me. How old they have grown. Yet, they are still vibrant. Que vibra.
I’m back in Zacatula….
I visit with them and then un otra cousin, Hortensia, comes to take me to her house and her familia.
This is where I will stay during my visit. The home of Hortensia and Lucas is filled with life. Nearby lives their children and the children of their children.
The warmth of their smiles and hugs is enough to fill the sun with envy.
Today is the day. A ramada in the nearby town of Lazaro Cardenas has been rented for the big event. The grounds are beautiful. Tall palm trees, bougainvillea and Birds of Paradise are in abundance.
And the flowers are in bloom….
I am wheeled in under the thatched roof of the ramada and placed in a position of prominence in front of the head table which sits under a halo of white and gold balloons.
The room is filled with family and friends.
Who is this coming toward me? He wears a wide sombrero and a white shirt. He uses a cane and moves very slowly. Can it be? It is! It is my older brother. Several years older than me even. He still lives!
I feel the tears warming my cheeks. We greet, we hug. We sit together as photos are taken. Que buena.
A mariachi band enters. They surround me and play the most beautiful music. I smile and sway. I know all the songs. They are wonderful.
As the mariachis finish and leave, a deejay sets up and plays more musica. It is loud and lively. The floor is filled with women dancing, laughing and singing.
I used to be quite a dancer. I used to laugh and sing and dance at parties too.
All one’s woes and miseries disappear when one dances. It is as if they no longer exist.
I used to dance and dance.
Dinner begins to be served. A young cow was purchased and slaughtered the day before. Fresh beef, rice and green sauce is hand delivered to each guest.
Coronitas are passed around. I am handed one. I drink. It is cold. It is good. Muy buena.
It is karaoke time. My cousins and nieces take turns holding a microphone and singing with the music. Their voices are well oiled from the Coronitas and they sing loudly and strongly.
The microphone comes to me. I sing. The words do not escape me. I remember them well.
Ay dame un poquito
y despacito poquito a poquito
besito a besito
y dame un poquito
besito a besito
It feels so good to sing.
Night has fallen. There is a full moon. Luna llena.
It looks like a balloon that has escaped from my party. It hangs high in the sky and seems to bounce and sway with the music.
It is time to end the party. With the high spirits and the full moon, mischief is sure to take place deep into la noche.
In my day, I was no stranger to mischief either but now that must happen only in my memories.
The party has ended. We are heading back to Zacatula. My daughter has done well.
The moon and my heart are full.
Que buena fiesta.
Editor’s Note: Jim‘s last post for The Third City was Book Signings….
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Patrick Murfin: Uncle Sam’s Guest — Induction Center
In the last installment, Patrick reports to the draft center….
Next we were instructed to strip to our undershorts and socks and put our clothes, shoes, and personal crap in wire baskets. Everyone who was ever inducted remembers in vivid detail the hour or two of standing in lines with other nearly naked guys trying not to look at anything while waiting to be poked and prodded at a succession of stations.
Despite my dismal eyesight—I was 20-200 in one eye and completely un-functional without my thick glasses—I somehow managed to clear that hurdle.
I tried to convince the doctor who examined my feet that my foreshortened Achilles tendons, which caused my feet to stick out at 45% angles and made my ankles subject to easy and repeated injury, was debilitating enough to be rejected.
The bored doc was having none of it. I passed my physical with apparent flying colors. So did almost everybody else.
I wondered how so many of us, including some guys who looked to be in bad shape by my untrained eye, could have passed.
Then I remembered Audie Murphy’s account of how he finally got in the Army in World War II despite being an undersized runt and 16 years old—it had gotten to the point when they were taking anyone “who could piss a hole in the snow.”
It was clear that in the Vietnam War, the Army had reached that point again.
We were given back our clothes and seated in uncomfortable fiberglass bucket seats to wait to be called for actual induction in batches of twenty or so. After twenty minutes or so, my turn came.
Audie Murphy….
We were called into a smaller room and told to form two lines along tape on the floor. I was in the back row. We faced a young Army officer and two NCO’s, one of them carrying a clipboard. A flag was off to one side. The sergeant read our names off the clip board. We were instructed to respond, crisply, “Here, Sir!”
When they ascertained that we were all present, we were instructed to raise our right hands. The officer read our oath which we were to repeat. Then we were to take one step forward to seal our entrance to the army. When the oath was read, I remained silent. And I didn’t step forward.
The officer looked confused. “You’re supposed to step forward, son,” he said although he was barely older than me.
“I’m refusing induction,” I told him.
This seemed to confuse all of them. Evidently none of them had ever had this happen.
The new official recruits were told to march in line out of the room and to retrieve their belongings. They would be loaded on buses and on the way to Basic Training by the end of the afternoon.
I was taken to a small office and seated by a desk. After a wait, the officer sat down at the desk, offered me one last chance to change my mind, then picked up the phone to call the FBI to come and arrest me. Then I was sent back to the same holding area where the recruits were waiting for their busses. I found a seat off by myself.
A woman moved through the seats with a paper box filled with little pocket sized Gideon New Testaments, earnestly handing one to each of the boys. She gave me one in a bright green cover.
But when I told her that I was not going into the Army and had refused induction, she angrily snatched the book from my hands. Evidently I did not need the consolation of the Lord where I was headed.
It was about two o’clock by the two-dollar pocket watch I carried when I sat down. Time dragged. At four I began to get nervous. I knew from talking to American Friends draft councilors that I needed to get to the Federal Building and before a Judge by five o’clock in the afternoon.
I tried to tell the fellas at the draft center I was unfit to serve….
Most hearing magistrates would release a draft resistor on personal recognizance. But after five, I would have to spend the weekend as a federal prisoner in Cook County Jail until Monday morning court. Even though I was potentially looking at years behind bars if convicted, I was sweating those two days.
About ten after two youngish agents showed up. They were pretty low on the FBI totem pole to get duty like this. They took me into custody.
One of them said if I didn’t cause them any trouble he would handcuff me loosely in front instead of tightly behind my back. I assured them I was peaceful. We drove the few blocks to the Federal Building in a big sedan.
I babbled nervously—complemented them on how neatly dressed and groomed FBI guys were compared to the fat slobs of the Chicago Red Squad.
I especially admired their shoes. They seemed to take it as a complement. I even expressed my concern about spending the weekend in jail.
They even seemed sympathetic to that. “We’ll get you in front of judge,” one of them said.
I was unloaded in the basement and taken up a secure elevator and buzzed into a holding area. I once again surrendered my coat, cowboy hat, and personal items—a wallet, keys, change, the pocket watch, a shirt pocket address book, cheap cartridge fountain pen, and an old Boy Scout knife. In those long ago days no one even blinked at the weapon.
Then with the remarkable efficiency for which the FBI was famous, I was finger printed and mug shot in a trice.
After a few moment of waiting I was escorted through a hall way to judge’s chambers. The clock on the wall read 5:55. The magistrate was as eager to be done as I was. An underling from the Federal Attorney’s office had no objection to my release on personal recognizance. Trial was set for March 17, 1973, by coincidence my 24th birthday.
After signing once again for my property, I was on the street joining the rush hour crush in minutes. I climbed on a packed El car and was home for dinner.
Friday was usually a work night—pay day in fact. But this week Cecelia drove me to Glascott’s Groggery at Webster and Halsted, half a block from the new IWW Headquarters storefront office.
My Wobbly friends were out in force. We took up a huge round table and then some. Pitchers and shot kept coming. I didn’t pay for a thing all night. We laughed.
We sang at the top of our lungs. I got blind, stinking, falling down drunk. Cecelia hauled my sorry ass home in her VW bug and manhandled me up the stairs and into bed.
She was not happy.
Editor’s Note: Patrick’s last post was mentioned in the first sentence.
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Patrick Murfin: How I Became an all-Expenses Paid Guest of Uncle Sam — Reporting as Ordered
In part one, I explain a lot of stuff….
Life was pretty good for me in late 1972 despite the election of Richard Nixon that November.
After leaving the staff of the Chicago Seed, I had gotten a fairly good paying factory job, my first fulltime real pay check in years.
I was on the second shift welding line at Schwinn Bicycle’s frame plant. There was a bicycle boom back then and the market wasn’t flooded by imports. Schwinn had three plants in Chicago working around the clock.
I was living in a spacious first floor apartment of a two flat on Fremont Street just south of Addison and a couple of blocks from Wrigley Field. The neighborhood wasn’t gentrified yet, so the rent was reasonable.
I shared the place with my girl friend Cecelia. She was several steps above me on hotness scale. We had met on an IWW picket line at the Three Penny Cinema on Lincoln Ave. She was one of the strikers. God only knows why she took up with me. We also had an extra room and various friends rotated in and out kicking in a share of the rent.
I had even gone out and bought stuff, after years of living out of a duffle bag. We bought real furniture—a nice used couch that featured a floral embroidered upholstery we referred to as Puerto Rican chic, some of those heavy carved end tables and matching coffee table you could get on time from Nelson Brothers, a brand new dinette table with a bright yellow lemon design on top, and a little component stereo system from the discount electronic store across from Wrigley.
Cecelia looked liked sort of like this….
I spent my weekends at the IWW hall working on the Industrial Worker. And every Saturday night I partied hard with my Wobbly friends or hit my favorite Saloons on Lincoln Ave. Weed was plentiful and cheep. Life was good.
Naturally this uncommon state of bliss could not continue. The gods had other plans. Or at least the Selective Service System did. In late November, out of the blue, I got a letter ordering me to report for induction in December.
It was a dismal, gray rainy Friday afternoon when I climbed on the El platform by the ball park and headed to meet my fate.
The Induction Center was in a non-descript building in the seedy South Loop. Upon entering precisely at nine o’clock in the morning, as ordered, I was shown to a large room filled with nervous young men of various shapes, sizes, and colors and handed sheaves of forms to fill out.
Because I planned to refuse induction that day, I answered some of the questions rather flippantly and what I thought of as a great deal of witty sarcasm. I highlighted my association with the IWW, which was still then on the official list of Un-American and Subversive Organization. Some of those bon mots would come back to bite me in the ass later.
Editor’s Note: Patrick‘s last post for The Third City was the aforementioned How I Became an all-Expenses Paid Guest of Uncle Sam….
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Grabowski: Self-intervention
Author’s Note – I originally had grandiose plans of making this a fifteen-part series, but to spare you the pain and boredom, I simmered it down to a single two-pager:
For as long as I can remember, I have obsessively made lists and built spreadsheets. Additionally, I exhibit the following symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder: an excessive need for perfectionism, control over all aspects of my environment, and a preoccupation with details, rules, order and organization.
Recently I took a close look at the three main Excel spreadsheets in my life. In total, they contained twenty-seven separate worksheets.
Not that I‘ve seen any surveys on the subject, but this just felt like an abnormally large amount.
So I decided to step in for a self-intervention.
But first I asked myself what gratification or satisfaction I was actually getting from all these lists. The answer was…almost none. In fact, it felt more like a stressful obligation than anything enjoyable.
After all, do I really need a list called “Nine Lives” to keep track of the close calls where I’ve almost died? (In case you’re wondering, I have four left). Or another one called “Top Tens” where for example I have a column ranking Hefeweizen beers from best to worst tasting? Not that I need a spreadsheet to know to order a Franziskaner or a Paulaner, but it is useful to see that I have tried Hofbrau and Pyramid and hated them both. Otherwise how would I remember?
Which is the same reason why I have reviewed 359 restaurants and bars on Yelp, and why I use Netflix like a coke-fiend to rate every movie I ever see.
Got to change my way of drinking….
Still, too many lists, I needed to rid my life of as many as I could. I figured it might allow me to start living a little more, and maybe be more spontaneous. My plan was to keep the ones I really couldn’t live without, and archive the rest in a file that I would vow to never look at again.
Except, of course, under an extreme emergency.
The Nine Lives and the Top Tens didn’t make the list. They’re gone. Additionally I got rid of the following: Music to buy. Books to read. Places to go on vacation. A list of words I wanted to learn the definition of.
For example, what’s the difference between “alleged,” “supposed” and “apparent?”
The list tracking every time I went to the gym to see if I was getting my money’s worth out of the membership. The spreadsheet I built so that I could look up my current salary and see what my average annual raise has been since starting my first job in 1998. In total there were nineteen I decided to archive.
On the keeper side there are eight, in addition to Netflix and Yelp, which I didn’t count in my lists of lists.
Some of the lists I decided to keep include one that tracks all of my paychecks dating back to 2004 so I know how much I am, and should be, contributing to my 401k. And another one where I record my bike commuting habits. How else would I know that in 2011 I rode to work 62 times for a total of 739 miles, and that the coldest ride was on Dec 12, in the morning, when it was 29 degrees?
Not going to obsess over haircuts….
I am also keeping the record of how often I get my haircut. After a year of keeping track, I have concluded that waiting 48 or 49 days is perfect. Any longer and my hair will start getting a bit too untamable, while any shorter and I’ll have to make more trips my stylist than necessary.
You would be proud though, because I deleted the section that calculated how much money I would save per year if I extended the time in between cuts by an additional two or six or however many days. The bottom line is it doesn’t add up to much, so it’s not worth thinking about. If you want to run this analysis on your own haircutting habits, let me know, and I’ll send you the spreadsheet.
Oh, and for nostalgic reasons, I have to save the paper list that I recently found in a box. It’s written on the back of a Discover Card envelope where I scrawled “Aug, Sept, Oct and Nov” with tally marks next to each counting the totals as 23/31 in Aug = 5.2 days per week or 74% of days and so on for each month. It is then summarized by the following text:
From Aug 1 – Dec 1, 2000
Avg socializing 5.05 nights per week
Try for 3.25 – 3.75 dpw
13-15 days per month
In this self-intervention exercise I have concluded that there is a gray area between normal and abnormal list keeping. While I personally find lists to be quite useful in many cases, I have let it get out of hand, so now I am making efforts to only create a list if I think it absolutely necessary.
And I’m happy to have taken the first big step from twenty-seven lists down to eight.
Editor’s Note: Grabowski‘s last post for The Third City was My Birthday Party with Barack Obama….
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Paul’s People: Luis Gutierrez
Luis Gutierrez — election night, 1986. This was several years before Gutierrez was elected to congress. Having just emerged from the first round of a heated aldermanic election and heading into an even more divisive runoff, he was addressing his followers in a Humboldt Park social club. copyright: Paul Merideth.
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Lorenzo Toia: The Dry Cleaner
It’s 2012. It’s January 7th. And it’s 45 degrees.
I wake up to sun in my eyes. The glorious sun in my glorious eyes.
I notice there’s not a cloud in the sky and I think — this is gonna be an awesome day.
After falling back asleep for two hours, getting a charlie horse in my thigh, and again being blinded by that GLORIOUS sun, I wake up and make some coffee.
I’ve got a big Saturday ahead of me: Groceries, dry cleaning, laundry, getting crunk. And this sunshine is throwing an awesome monkey wrench into all of it.
Andy and I live together, in a total bro way. With another bro named Jeff, just to prove how sincerely ‘bro’ this place is.
I propose to Andy a walk to the beach. By doing this, I’ll have to set back groceries, dry cleaning, laundry, getting crunk… but this was a rare occasion. This is something I could tell my grandkids about.
We’re off to the beach.
I carry along my dry cleaning to drop off on our way. Too bad we didn’t have time to try that rustic looking breakfast house. Andy and me: Just bros.
We’re passing Perfect Laundry, and Ronnie’s outside. He works there: Mops, folds laundry, restocks detergents.
Along with his daily duties, we also know about his ENTIRE LIFE.
Lived in an apartment on the south side til `72, when he bought a house for his family. A total “moving on up” moment. His words.
Went to Vietnam in `74. Moved to San Diego afterward. Two divorces later, he moved back to Chicago. All learned from one conversation.
He’s smoking a cigarette, on a break. Oh, brother.…
“My BROTHERS!”
“Hey, man.”
“Loving this sunshine!”
“Oh, yeah” Andy says.
“I’d hate to be them people in Arizona! It’s all dry. And hot. Please, get me out of there!”
“Yeah! Haha!” we say at the same time.
Andy and I are bros, but not these bros….
We’re falling into a rhythm. Oh no! Laundry is not on the itinerary now, so I promise him that I’ll see him later with “TONS OF LAUNDRY.”
Nice. I go into the dry cleaner, and Andy goes into the Dollar Tree.
Oh, man. I wish I could be at the Dollar Tree right now!
Focus!
I’m in the place. I’m where I need to be. The person working the counter is not where they need to be. Which is in front of me. Greeting me. Seconds feel like aeons. A lady shows up from the back, I say:
“Good Morning! How are you?”
“Good, good. You got clothes?”
“Yep, a few here for ya.”
She takes the bag of clothes from me and begins sorting them.
“That sun is incredible”
“What?”
“The sun, it’s incredible-“
To help speed things along
“… There’s seven shirts and three pants”
“How you pay?”
“Umm… credit.”
Sidenote: Growing up, I helped run my family’s restaurant in Michigan. It seated thirty. A real comfy seafood market slash restaurant. I remember how when we first checked the place out one day after Church, and how my Dad said: “This is gonna be cool”
As we peered into the dusty windows.
My family ran a restaurant, but not this restaurant….
While working there, I learned everything a kid could about a restaurant. Seating people, taking orders, running the registers, winking at all the bluehairs.
And every now and then, I find my restaurant experience significantly helping me in day to day obstacles.
So she takes my card.
My card sucks.
“This won’t swipe.”
It has a huge scratch along the top of it.
“Can you try one more time, it sometimes… works”
She does, and it doesn’t.
“Ummm… well.”
“You can’t PAY?”
Instant panic.
“Well, there’s a thing I can do. You just type the numbers into the machine.”
Instant relief.
“No. I don’t understand that.”
She’s getting wary. What happens next was unheard of before January 7th, 2012.
I took off my sunglasses. Tucked the scarf into the cardigan, as if I was prepping to feed an Alligator.
I assured her with the best Gaston voice I could muster: “I’m familiar with this machine.”
I began doing what I can confidently say I am best at.
I typed it in as she watches on. This may have been the most impressive thing she’s ever seen. Suddenly, she looks behind me. At what? What’s her deal?
Oh yeah, I’m leaning my entire torso over the counter, typing into the store’s credit card machine. That’s not normal.
No, that’s GLORIOUS.
It comes to where you enter the price, and I let her take over. She types in 15 dollars.
15! Can you believe it? 7 shirts, 3 pants?! That’s great!
The transaction’s approved, but she mistyped the total. It was 15.60 so I actually saved 60 cents.
I promised her:“You know what? I’ll bring that 60 cents in when I pick it up. When will that be?”
She said: “Monday? Tuesday?”
“Monday.”
“PM.”
“That’ll be fine. Thank you.”
“Thank you, have nice weekend”
Walking out of there, with the beach ahead of me, plus a surprise water bottle that Andy bought for me. Thoughtful.
We are strictly bros.
I can’t help but feel that perfect feeling. To think, without my fish-mongering experience, I would be a completely different person, with completely different capabilities. I should remember that, cuz if I forget it, even for a second. Life can be too much.
What’s too much for me right now is how they can’t get my clothes done before Monday. Would it kill them to be open on Sunday? Isn’t that PRIME DRY CLEANING time!?
Well, I guess I’ll just wear my crap clothes on Monday.
Editor’s Note: This is Lorenzo‘s first post for The Third City.
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Rolando: A Conversation with Princess Isis
I was sitting at my desk at work last Friday bored out of my mind with nothing to do.
Now I should say that there was in fact something to do –like, my job — but I didn’t feel like doing any work. So I had to try and find ways to keep myself occupied.
I looked up at the clock. It was 11 a.m. Shit, six more hours.
I checked my Gmail — again.
No new messages.
I visited a couple of websites to pass the time. I looked back up at the clock.
It was 11:05. Shit!
I went back to my Gmail, and decided to gchat with one of my friends, who, for the purposes of this post, wants to be called Princess Isis.
The exchange went like this….
Just another day at the office….
Me: I am mind-numbingly bored. It’s a real problem.
Princess Isis: Just leave. Would anyone notice? Say it’s a special report.
Me: Well, I sit directly in front of my editor in the bull pen. He might. What the hell am I going to do for the next six hours?
Princess Isis: Write a book. Or read textsfrombennet.com. Or go tostumbleupon. No! Sporcle.
Me: What’s sporcle?
Princess Isis: It’s a trivia website kinda. You pick categories and they time you.
Me: I hate it. Worst idea ever
Princess Isis: Then write a book. Or research conspiracy theories.
Me: Is that what you do when you’re bored?
Princess Isis: Sometimes.
Help, killer dolphin!
Me: Which ones?
Princess Isis: Oh, man, there’s all kinds. Some obvious ones like aliens. Other more intense like how Hitler died.
Me: Or is there such a thing as killer dolphins?
Princess Isis: Still undetermined. Can I use un there?
Me: Princess Isis, the prefix un is not appropriate with every word — like unword, unappropriate, unthe.
Princess Isis: But what about undetermined? I think it goes.
Me: Holy shit! There’s a midget in a suit in my office. Oh, man.
Princess Isis: Run away.
Me: That shit just freaked me out.
Princess Isis: Seriously, that can’t be any good
Me: Man, that’s crazy. Dude just came out of our conference room and walked right by me.
Princess Isis: Don’t make eye contact. And the word’s little people.
Me: I prefer midget — has more pop
Princess Isis: They actually prefer troll
Me: Gnome?
And on and on we went, back and forth, until our conversation tapered off and I returned to being bored.
But as Princess Isis would say, at least I was “unbored” for a half an hour.
Editor’s Note: Rolando‘s last post for The Third City was I Finally Get My Nod.
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Guest Blogger:
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Candyman. Written by Benny Jay. Read by Joel Reitsma, Lorenzo Toia, Ray Jay 3000, Andy Orscheln and No Blaise. Produced by Jus Buckingham of King Conundrum Productions.
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