my dad died today - Democratic Underground

datasuspect

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Wed Jun-03-09 02:17 PM
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my dad died today

Edited on Wed Jun-03-09 02:17 PM by datasuspect

he had undetected colon cancer that had spread through his body.

he was always a tough sumbitch and he fought for about a week in the hospice.

he grew up in south texas, the son of migrant workers, they followed the crops.

it was a different time then. he'd get in trouble for speaking spanish in school, they had to eat outside the back door of restaurants, and they all worked hard.

his father, my grandfather, enlisted in the Marine Corps and fought in the pacific theater, and after the war, they all migrated to chicago. my grandfather became a butcher, my father, in his youth, became a hoodlum.

he got his start around the age of 13 running errands for jewish mobsters in what they used to call "jew town" (maxwell street) and worked at the cut rate.

that's when he met a half hillbilly, half jewish kid and they became friends for life. my mom and dad met when they were thirteen years old and they lived throughout the near south and southwest sides (18th street, bridgeport, brighton park) and they were inseparable.

in the early 60s, my dad was friends with guys from taylor street and they raised general hell: baseball bat fights in the parks, fistfights; no one used guns against each other then.

my dad and his millieu were all members of various "social clubs" (like how old man daley got his start) with clubs like the taylor street jousters, the morgan deuces, ashland vikings, villa lobos, etc. etc. they even had club sweaters with their various logos.

he graduated from that to association with the political machine and ward politics--getting out the vote; dragging the winos from madison street and getting them to vote, often more than once, whatever it took to keep the democratic machine in power.

there were tales of "collection" duties, stuff that fell off trains, general neighborhood shit in the late 60s.

i have a picture of him from 1968 as a young man in a gray sharkskin suit with a black banlon shirt and wearing wrap around shades leaning against his new pontiac tempest.

my dad, my mom, his best friend and his fiance all got married together at city hall in 1966 and had their reception at chuckie schwartzes bar on i think 18th place and carpenter. i have those pictures.

by the time i was born, after all the service he gave to the democratic machine, he was rewarded with a spot in the department of tony (streets and san) as a garbage truck driver.

that was on paper.

their headquarters was the incinerator near 80 something and vincennes. they drank, played cards, and the old porter grilled steaks for them.

we lived in one of the oldest neighborhoods of chicago. during the day all the cars would leave and the women would push the children around in strollers.

so i had all these "uncles" like petey cheese feet, fat rick, chorizo, champ, jimmy beef sandwich and shit like that.

back then there were bars on every corner inside the neighborhood blocks. some of my fondest memories were going to bars with my dad when i was a boy and all the paisans, compas, and goombatz would give me change to play the pinball machine. it's when i tasted beer for the first time, the common statment was "it'll put hair on your chest, kid." it was the first time i tasted pickled eggs and pickled hot dogs, and pickled pigs feet.

after the first gunfire started erupting in around 1978 or so, we moved from the neighborhood to bolingbrook (a new suburb at the time).

this was supposed to calm him down, more responsibility would make him less crazy. until he was involved in a lengthy police chase with chicago police, cook county, will county, bolingbrook, and state troopers chasing him after he hit about three cars.

he made it into the driveway though.

he went to court and was acquitted. he indebted himself majorly in a non-financial way to the people who owned that judge.

he settled down more and more, and was a truck driver since he was 16 years old.

he was a distant man with many demons, and i never felt like i could reach him, but he was my dad.

to remember him as the strong, tough motherfucker who took no shit that he was to the invalid that he became was more than i could handle.

he fought for this last week, he fought hard. but he wasn't there.

it really hurts me because my mother, sister, and nephews are really sad. he was good to my sister's kids and they really love him. i hate to see people cry. because i absolutely cannot stand to cry myself.

that was part of my upbringing: "what are you crying for? what, are you a fucking sissy?" that was his training. that and to never snitch, and never carry a debt on the street, and to protect my mom and sister, and if someone was picking on someone who was weaker, intervene. and the most important lesson: don't ever take shit from anyone.

we bailed from the suburbs and moved to cicero in 1980. this was when it was all white. the american socialist white people's party (or whatever they called it--i hate illinois nazis) used to drive around town with loudspeakers announcing the most virulent racist shit. they put up posters and stickers, things that said "Nigger Beware" adorned with swastikas. this terrified me then. i was maybe ten.

i used to get my ass kicked almost everyday cutting through parkholme and they'd pin me against a wall, spit on me, called me a spic, beaner, brazier, wetback--told me to go back where i came from.

i came home crying one day about it and my dad yanked me by the arm and told me to show him where they were at. i did. and he picked out the biggest one and made me fight him.

eventually i became friends with some of these kids and went on with life.

anyway, enough stroll down memory lane. he's gone now. i'm gonna hang onto his wallet for him (it has all his CDLs going back to the 80s).

RIP dad.