A month of love

Can we manage it: An entire month of showing love? Such a major challenge considering the times we live in. With bills to pay, family issues, friends on different pages, and now the depths of winter! But come on! None of those are real challenges when we’re talking about people from Roseland. “Why?” you might ask? Because we started out with love!

We can all remember getting some “home” love! That love would start with our parents or grandparents. Maybe we depended on a brother or sister for a good dose of love. And we could all rest assured that once we walked out the door, there was a lot more love going on.

Consider these scenarios!

It’s Sunday and your family is heading to church. You must go as a group, because St. Anthony’s had a “must attend” 9 a.m. children’s Mass. That was when the nuns, our Sisters of St. Joseph, took a head count and watched over the kids to show their love for God and his children by checking that the boys weren’t messing around and that the girls had their head coverings. The kids had their opportunity to show their love for God by putting their little envelopes into the donation basket as the ushers extended it from pew to pew.

In grade school at St. Anthony’s, we were once again given the opportunity to show our love at the May Crowning. This was the opportunity for the girls to show their love and honestly, just a little bit of envy. Being chosen to be the Queen of the Court and being in the Court were two of the biggest honors of the year for the eighth-grade girls.

When I wrote about the May Queen in a column several years ago, the responses I received showed nothing but love for our Mother Mary. It was easy to see that the St. Atnhony nuns showed nothing but love for our Blessed Mother through their devotion to the May Crowning. Being in the procession may have been forced on the boys, but the girls loved it. Memories of the event still resonate and are as full of wonder and love as when they took place.

Next on the calendar for Roseland kids were all the “pop-up” events that took place during the summer. “Pop-up” might be a currently trending phrase, but we rarely planned things far in advance and, therefore, we had “pop-up” events of our own. Those events included the many things we loved about summer.

Our days might have started out leisurely as the boys rode their bikes from one buddy’s house to the next as we gathered to play a version of the sport we all loved: baseball. If our bike ride took us past a school yard, there’s a good chance there was a fast-pitch rectangular painted on one of the walls. Bats, rubber balls and mitts would appear and game was on.

If you were lucky enough to live by the North or South Little League Field, you had a ready-made field and could expect anyone walking or riding by to join in the game. Uneven teams were to be avoided at all costs so older or younger, taller or shorter, Catholic or public school, none of it mattered if players were needed. Of course, it did matter if girls were involved! The only girl we allowed to play in our pick-up games at the South Little League Field was Kathy McKay. There was no messing around with Kathy as evidenced by the line drive she hit directly to my throat that took me down at third base.

Another adventurous part of life that we loved were those bike rides that took us to different city parks for their swimming pools. On the south end of Roseland was West Pullman Park with its indoor park and roll-up glass-and-metal doors. If it was raining outside, it made the time in the water all the more exciting. In Roseland was Palmer Park with the regular outside city pool with the challenging high dive that only the truly brave attempted. The one other park, next to Roseland in Rossmoor, was the “Pump,” which was what the city pumping station natatorium was called.

Roseland kids loved swimming so much that the pools would have to close down for an hour so the kids had time to eat lunch and end up with cramps. I don’t know if anyone ever had any friends that suffered from cramps, but that’s what the adults thought and they made the rules.

Now we come to the part about Roseland that young people loved the most: being a part of the Michigan Avenue scene! Whether it meant shopping or just walking down “The Ave,” it was a picture all Roseland’s youngsters wanted to be a part of as they grew into young adults. As I started to make money with my South End Reporter Newspaper route, I felt that I was at the point where I could head down The Ave on my own.

I remember going into Neisner’s Dime Store and buying my mother a nice boxed set of four hankies with flowers embroidered on them. (Is it any wonder that I was my mom’s favorite of the eight kids she had, other than being the baby?) That trip down The Ave was the time I took the accompanying photo in Gately’s photo booth. While on that first solo trip to Gately’s, I made it a point to head down the center aisle stairs to the basement area. The first things I saw was the grocery store on the right — not exciting. On the right was the Green River hot dog stand — still not exciting or enticing.

However, directly in front of me was something I totally loved: the donut train. Talk about exciting and enticing! The scene itself put Dunkin’ and Stan’s to shame. The baking train with two donuts per grate would ride its oval track along the oily path of the baking process in the glass covered baking stand. I don’t recall the price of a dozen donuts, but I made my order the same as I did every time I shopped with my mother. “One bag of donut pieces, please.”

The kindly, white-uniformed, older woman behind the counter gave me a sad look and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any right now.” My face must have fallen into a sad grimace, because the woman took a second look and said, “Wait a minute, let me check in the back.” She wasn’t aware at the time, but I could see her breaking some donuts. She came out to the counter and told me she had found a bag of broken donuts in the back. She took the 15 cents that I handed her and, thanks to her Gately’s kindness, I was one happy young boy.

As we Roseland kids got older, we learned to love The Ave even more when clothes and dressing cool became part of our lifestyle. Things got serious as we strolled The Ave now looking for love!

Cruising The Ave became the thing to do whether we traveled by car or on foot, up and down the street. We were all on a mission to find our first love. Some it succeeded in finding our first and forever love. I know more than a few couples who are still together after meeting while cruising The Ave or attending a Mendel or Willy’s dance.

I could go on and on about “LOVE” and our Roseland connections, but I think I’ve shared enough to get your own memories going during this month of love.

“Petals from Roseland: Fond Memories of Chicago’s Roseland, Pullman and Kensington Neighborhoods” is available from me for anyone interested in sharing or revisiting their life in Roseland at $20 + $5 s&h. Contact me at petalsfromroseland@gmail.com or 11403 S. St. Lawrence Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60628; 773-710-3559. My book is also available at D & D Foods, 1023 S. Halsted, Chicago Heights, at Bookie’s New and Used Books, 10324 S. Western Ave, Chicago and at Miles Books,2819 Jewett Ave., Highland, Indiana.