Columns

I’ve had an interesting past few weeks insofar as Roseland and Pullman are concerned. The Rev. Mark Krylowicz, pastor at St. Anthony’s, called to let me know that a celebration was taking place on the Sunday following Christmas. In my quest for information on all things Roseland, there was no way I would miss a function at St. Anthony’s. I arrived early on Dec. 27 for the 9:30 a.m. Mass and soon the parishioners started to stream in and take their places in the pews, but not before they were given a couple of gifts in celebration. Many of the …

Roseland and Valentine’s Day are quite the combination when it comes to a nostalgic memory-maker. I recently was stuck in slow-moving traffic due to a persistent downpour and heard the announcer on the radio mention sleet. I felt a twinge of nostalgia and soon recalled a homecoming date with one Cindy Smith. We had gone to the homecoming dinner dance at the Sabre Room on 95th Street in Hickory Hills, and then we decided to head to Whistler’s Woods. (Or was it the spookier Bachelor’s Grove?) I had just crossed 127th Street at Halsted Street when the right front tire …

The holidays in Roseland weren’t like the scenes pictured in the greeting cards. I don’t ever recall a Hallmark card depicting cars trying to make it up “the hill” at 115th and Michigan, for example. The holidays I remember were opportunities for my brother and me to go out and shovel snow. In those days, knocking on someone’s door and asking if you could shovel their snow was acceptable. We didn’t make very much, but it was a great learning experience in how to make money. My St. Anthony class of 1961 was the last graduating class in the “old” …

Steeped in tradition and rich in the masterful way that four generations have preserved, Lezza Spumoni & Desserts in Bellwood create confectionary wonders from recipes that originated in the small Neapolitan town of Nola, Italy. Salvatore Lezza held on firmly to those recipes when he set up shop in Chicago in 1905. He teamed up with his cousin and opened the Ferrara Lezza Co. in the Taylor Street neighborhood, creating confections, cakes, authentic cannoli and uniquely genuine spumoni that would become his legacy. Squeezed out of the city by the University of Illinois expansion, the company moved to Bellwood in …

As I write, it seems much too early to think about Christmas. Having just returned from Sinsinawa Mound in Wisconsin, founded by Father Samuel Mazzuchelli, OP, the colors of autumn surrounding the “home of the young eagle” combined with the anticipation of news from Rome about his Beatification are both breathtaking. I may have missed taking part in the Columbus Day Parade, but walking on the hallowed Mound grounds, holding Fr. Samuel’s penance chain in my unworthy hands, is a celebration of Italian heritage all by itself. Praying with the chain, I boldly asked for miracles for friends and relatives; …

Dominican University in River Forest has always blazed new trails in study abroad opportunities for its undergrad students as well as alumni. From London and Florence to China, El Salvador and Poland, Dominican has opened doors, and consequently, the minds and hearts of fortunate travelers, to innovate concepts and lasting experiences. Recent years have been no exception. Sociology and Criminology Department Chair Dr. Janice Monti has blazed yet another trail, albeit a dustier one, much closer to home: The Delta Blues Tour. The only northern school to offer this kind of civil rights and blues experiential learning activity, Monti has …

“Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.” — George Carlin, 1937-2008 If you think its butter but it’s not, it’s Chiffon. In that part of my brain that stockpiles all useless trivia, I still remember this commercial from the 1970s that featured Mother Nature getting fooled… and not liking it, so she angrily summoned up some lightning and thunder to make her point. I realize that Oscar Wilde was right on the money when he said, “Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” How true. But Wilde was spared …

As Big Box stores and restaurant chains lock their doors on a daily basis, it makes you wonder if they couldn’t learn something from people like Mickey and Ann Sangiacomo who, with a little money and a lot of hard work, put their hot dog stand in the Vienna Hall of Fame… and their children on the road to success. Mickey Sr. didn’t rely on overpaid real estate consultants to help him choose the location at 635 Mannheim Road in Bellwood in 1959. In fact, the parcel he envisioned as a used car lot was nothing more than a vacant …

Very few people even know it exists. A national museum of timeless and exceedingly valuable treasures sits relatively unviewed and unappreciated in suburban Chicago. Over 100 pieces of incomparably vibrant and colorful porcelain statuary, created by one of Italy’s and the world’s most renowned sculptors, are housed in suburban Northlake, thousands of miles from bustling Milan, where they were painstakingly created by the hands of Antonio Borsato. Located inside Casa San Carlo Retirement Community, 420 N. Wolf Road in Northlake, the National Borsato Museum is a familiar site for staff and the nearly 200 residents.  “We feel it is such …

You will find recurring themes in my columns: tradition, Dominican University, Italian Americans and unsung heroes. In this particular column, all of the above might apply. It had been too long since I had savored the early-morning calm at my alma mater Rosary College (now Dominican University) in River Forest. Waiting for Luisa Scala-Buehler to arrive, a veritable floodgate of undergraduate memories opened, as they usually do when I am at Dominican. I try to always take a moment to bask in the glow of epic experiences and magnanimous moments on that campus that would provide the moral compass for …