June 1989
After graduation, my summer continued the same, happy, carefree trajectory. I remember going with my good buddy Tim Hernandez and his family to the Holiday Inn for the weekend of June 18th. Tim turned fourteen that weekend. I can pinpoint the exact date because we watched a boxing match between Tony Lopez and Tyrone Jackson. The fight was televised on NBC the Saturday afternoon we were there. I was already a big boxing fan, so these details stay hard wired in my head. Tim and I had a blast playing the video game Contra, making prank calls, and hanging out by the pool. Randomly calling hotel rooms claiming to be the ultimate party animal Spuds McKenzie was the gloriously goofy epitome of fourteen-year-old foolishness. It was great fun.
After we came back from that weekend, I would not see Tim until June 1993. That was it. I cannot remember why or the particulars. It just happened that way. He was not like my best friend Ranjit Rodericks. Ranjit and I hung out playing basketball and talked on the phone almost daily discussing the world of sport. Tim was not like my good friend Danny Nunez, where there were deep roots related to the years at Gospel Outreach. It was just a natural parting of the ways. Tim finished eighth grade at Gospel Outreach in 1989-1990 and eventually attended Sullivan High School where he played football and wrestled.
That summer, I spent time with my other grade school pals: John and Jonathan David. The curiously named brothers of Indian ethnicity had been my friends since sixth grade. They were also crazy about basketball. Their father, James David recognized my potential as a basketball player. James was an intelligent and articulate man who was keen on sport. He took us to a city park for a pickup game on a crowded court. I remember moving easily and fluid, feeling so good physically. At this point I was jumping up off of one foot and comfortably grabbing a 10-foot rim. I had reached the point where my coordination and strength were beginning to catch up with my six-foot frame. The weather was warm and we played for hours. It was competitive, yet carefree pickup basketball. The way I played reflected where I was at in my life: Happy, no pressures, doing what I enjoyed and was meant to do.
John, who graduated eighth grade with me, would continue to attend Gospel Outreach for high school. His younger brother by a year, Jonathan, would graduate from eighth grade at GO in 1990 and attended the now defunct Lutheran North High School on the north side of the city where he played football.
I would have spent some time over summer with my friend Reggie. Reggie was the architect of some of the wildest, silliest moments of junior high. Next to the garage behind my house, we raced the length of the alley. Reggie was fast and he was quick. The only advantage I had was my height and stride length. The race was a dead heat, and we were content to leave it at that. We didn’t race again. Strangely, that’s the only memory I have of when we hung out that summer. Reggie would finish eighth grade with Tim and Jonathan at Gospel Outreach.
One of my more vivid memories post-graduation was the morning of June 13th. I had spent the night at my sister, Mary Louise’s house in Edison Park. I woke up and made sure that I had 35 cents to go pick up a copy of the Chicago Sun Times. I raced over to pick up the paper over at the newsstand located on the corner of Northwest Highway and Oliphant Avenue I was eager and apprehensive to find out the result of the fight between Thomas Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard. I was a big fan of Hearns, and this was a rematch of their classic confrontation in 1981. I had the sinking feeling that Leonard had gotten the better of him for a second time. Charged with adrenaline, I arrived at the newspaper stand. I picked up the paper and on the back page there was a full-page photo of the fighters exchanging punches. The fight had been a draw. Most ringside observers had felt that Hearns had won. I was relieved and happy that “The Hitman” had gained a measure of revenge by knocking Leonard down twice in the fight. That is my first clear memory post eighth grade graduation
Looking back, it is a little puzzling how I gravitated to the sport of boxing. No one in my family was a big boxing fan. Every weekend there would be televised boxing matches on the major networks. On CBS, it would be Tim Ryan and veteran boxing trainer Gil Clancy calling the fights. On NBC, it was Marv Albert and “The Fight Doctor” Ferdie Pacheco. ABC had Dan Dierdorf, the former NFL lineman and Alex Wallau. Dierdorf and Wallau were my personal favorites. There was something I found very dramatic and pulsating when watching a fight. The two combatants in the ring were putting it all on the line. The two participants were competing in a violent sport that required fitness, courage, skill, and mental fortitude. For most fights, I would be emotionally invested and literally on the edge of my seat or standing up. I had enormous respect for prizefighters that bordered on reverence.
In 1989, I regularly went to my sister Theresa’s house in Evanston to watch the big boxing matches televised on HBO. HBO was a premium cable channel, and she was the only one in my family who paid for the subscription. In February of 1989, I had stayed over at her place to watch Mike Tyson stop Frank Bruno in five rounds. Then again in March, for the middleweight world title fight between Michael Nunn and Sumbu Kalambay. HBO had epic, gladiatorial intro music that heightened the sense of anticipation.
My love of boxing has also provided a way for me to keep track of timelines. I have a maniacally comprehensive memory of the fights and can easily look up the dates. On May 21st, I vividly recall watching Nigel Benn against Michael Watson on NBC. The fight took place under a circus tent outside London. The atmosphere was loud and feral, with ring entrances unlike anything you would see in the US.
On June 24th, I watched what was arguably the fight of the year on ABC. Jeff Harding and Dennis Andries hammered away at each other for 12 rounds. I was disappointed that Andries had lost, but Harding’s resilience was something out of a Rocky movie. Harding is still one of the toughest, fittest fighters I’ve ever seen compete.
Mike Tyson further cemented his status as the biggest star in boxing when he knocked out Carl “The Truth” Williams in 90 seconds on HBO on July 21st. The YouTube link opens with the majestic call to arms musical intro along with Jim Lampley’s trademark voice.
Finally, on July 30th I watched Julian Jackson fight “Terrible” Terry Norris for the 154lb world title on ABC. Norris would go on to become a big name in the sport during the 1990’s. But this was still the 1980’s and Jackson was one of the hardest punchers to ever lace up a pair of gloves.
July 1989
July 1989 rolled around. Most summers, Danny Nunez and I would attend Lake Geneva Bible Camp in Wisconsin. It is about a ninety-minute drive north from Chicago and I remember each summer riding with the Nunez family in their Dodge Caravan. We would have a blast at this camp. One week of relentless outdoor activity. We would swim and play basketball, floor hockey, and tetherball.
You may be forgiven if you are not familiar with tetherball. It was a game where a leather ball, shaped like a volleyball but heavier, was attached to a rope that was in turn connected to a tall pole rooted in the ground. The game consisted of two players and would begin when one player would serve the ball as hard as they could to send the ball and the rope around the metal pole. The player on the other side would attempt to smash the ball back with an open palm or a fist to prevent the ball and rope from wrapping around. Each time the ball that was attached to the rope would wrap around the pole. The winner was determined when the ball had gone around so many times that the rope would be completely wrapped around the pole. It was an aggressive game, and we would pound the bejesus out of that ball.
This was a Christian Bible camp and that element featured heavily along with the physical activities. We would sing songs and memorize passages from the Bible to earn camp patches. One song in particular has stayed imprinted in my memory. The song would start slow and then the rhythm and pace would go faster and faster after each refrain:
“I am a C”
“I am a C-H”
“I am a C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N, I-A-N!”
“If you have C-H-R-I-S-T in your H-E-A-R-T, then you will L-I-V-E E-T-E-R-N-A-L-L-Y!!”
The song would repeat, over and over. Faster and faster until we were racing through it in a frenzied fashion.
I regarded much of my Gospel Outreach experience with skepticism and to some degree contempt as a teenager. However, I must say that the people who ran Lake Geneva Bible Camp seemed to get it right. There was a positive and inclusive atmosphere at the camp. I never sensed the same kind of repressive, judgmental, fire and brimstone attitude so pervasive at Tom Peterson’s Gospel Outreach. The camp counselors at Lake Geneva came across as decent men who shared an enthusiasm for being an active Christian interested in guiding young men. None of this was done in a heavy- handed manner. They got the balance right.
My hair was cut was into a high-top fade in 1989. This had been inspired by the desire to mimic my favorite athletes. Most of my sports heroes were African Americans. July 1989 was the height of my badass flattop days. The sides and back of my head were shaved tight with two horizonal lines shaved in on both sides. It was a severe, edgier look and I loved it. At camp, I met a couple of black kids from Oak Park: Terrence and Derrick. I played a hell of a lot of basketball with those guys that week. Derrick was ok as a player, but Terence was very good. I loved matching up with these guys and I remember the confidence it gave me competing against them. Since I had been in such a bubble at Gospel Outreach, I felt nervous and uncertain venturing out into a setting with lots of kids. Competing on even terms and in most cases getting the better of these guys boosted my self-confidence as a player.
We had to complete various activities to earn badges. One of those activities was swimming back and forth between two piers at the lake. Michael Phelps I was not. I was never much of a swimmer, but I managed to thrash my way through the water to complete the requirement. I also remember stepping up to enter a distance run for a team competition we were having. It was probably close to a two-mile race. I was fast, but I had no competitive distance running experience. I charged out running at close to top speed. Oh my God, was that a mistake. It was hot and once I had run probably three quarters of a mile the pace caught up to me and my legs became lead. I managed to finish fourth, but I was trashed. I remember the kid who won the race casually talking about how he was part of a running club. A running club? The concept of a club for athletic activity was so foreign to me. Losing this race was also a wake-up call that I was not this all-conquering athlete who could do anything he wanted whenever he wanted. I had areas that definitely needed to be developed, like endurance and pure fitness.
But overall, Lake Geneva Bible Camp was fantastic. The days would start at 7:00 am and it was constant activity until around 9:00 at night. One evening, we were watching a film in the main hall. I was so worn out by the day’s events that I leaned forward in my chair, closed my eyes, and fell asleep. As I feel asleep, I pitched forward, and my body fell into an involuntary summersault. I landed on my head and my momentum sent me into a position where I rolled over, ending up flat on my back splayed out on the floor. Thank God I have a hard, Irish head. The camp councilors allowed me to retire early that night.
The week came to an end and we were packing up our stuff. I made sure to get Terence’s contact info. We had become friends as the week had worn on and I wanted to stay in touch.
We both loved basketball and rap music. He was an even tempered, laid back kid and he was in some way a kind of gateway for me into the bigger world. He was going to Oak Park River Forest High School and he had every intention of playing high school basketball. Myself on the other hand, I had no idea yet where I was going to high school. I had taken the entrance exam for Notre Dame High School in Chicago, but nothing had been decided. It was now the middle of July and my future was still up in the air. Looking back, it’s shocking that I was not aware of what the plan was for high school. Part of it was probably due to a subconscious fear of moving onto the next level. Therefore, I did not waste energy thinking about it.
After camp, one of the last memories of July 1989 was riding along with my brother-in-law Greg while he was working. Greg repaired the interior upholstery of cars. Leather, vinyl, and cloth restoration was his trade. Greg was a craftsman and very good at his job. His typical clientele were car dealerships. I was given the task of scrapping out damaged spots on the car seats caused by cigarette burns. While tending a used car, I noticed a cassette on the floor beneath the front seat. It was “Straight Outta Compton”, by NWA. Score!! I refrained from playing the new acquisition to my musical collection on the car ride home with Greg. I’m not sure he would have appreciated tunes like, “Fuck Tha Police”;)
Pittsburgh?!
Sometime after camp and before July 30th, my mom made a huge decision: She and I would move to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The decision was taken suddenly and without any discussion. However, my mom had significant connections to The Steel City. When she had emigrated to the United States from Ireland, Pittsburgh was where she arrived. She had been sponsored by her Uncle Coleman who had initially moved to the United States in the 1930’s. She lived in Pittsburgh for 10 years as a young woman where she established relationships with friends that would last a lifetime. My connections with the town were far more tenuous. Let’s flash back to the year prior: 1988.
I had visited Pittsburgh in the summer of 1988 for 10 days and spent time with my 3rd cousins at a vacation house in a countryside resort named Seven Springs. I distinctly remember not having much in common with Johnny, my elder 3rd cousin by four years. He was very social and physically active, but we simply did not connect. The two of us came from very different places culturally and geographically. This became evident as we spent more time around each other. We talked about music and I was excited to talk about what I liked. I mentioned Terence Trent D’Arby and The System, a group that had recently released the song, “Don’t Disturb This Groove”. My annoyance and distrust were exacerbated when he came to the conclusion that I liked “Black Music”. There was something about his labeling that felt narrow and rubbed me the wrong way. I liked all kinds of music and I did not care for being labeled in that way.
Johnny’s musical tastes were more straightforward as I recall his affinity for Van Halen and Genesis. We played basketball and I asked him about the high school team at Central Catholic. I queried about my chances of making the team. I learned that Johnny had previously tried out for the team and failed to make the cut. He quickly dismissed my chances. Looking back, his comments were probably borne out of the feeling that if he could not make the team, then how would his little cousin from Chicago? Internally, I dismissed his assessment. “Screw this guy.” I thought to myself. Johnny, to his credit, made the wrestling team and he was very fit as a seventeen-year-old. He was the sort who made the most out of what he had. I was not the biggest fan of Johnny. He was a social butterfly who knew how to lay it on thick with adults. A glad-handing, back-slapping kiss ass, he knew how to work a room. I was not that type. He was in less delicate terms what I would call a real bullshitter. My mom laughed and laughed when I told her of my conclusions as she shared those same sentiments.
Getting back to the move in August of 1989, I remember having mixed feelings. I would be leaving behind my family and friends. My family dynamics are complicated. I will try to explain them in a concise manner. My mom was born in 1930 in Ireland and moved to the United States in 1949. She married a man from County Kerry in Ireland named Sylvester Donaghue in 1950. They had six children between 1950 and 1961. “Sylv” as he was known, was a drinker and a violent man. It was an abusive relationship and they divorced around 1966 or 1967. My mother then met my father in the early 1970’s. He was from Connemara. The same part of rugged, rural County Galway as my mother. I was born in December of 1974. My father was also a violent man when he drank. The relationship was volatile. My mother, on more than one occasion, left the country and took me to Ireland for long stretches of time. We stayed in Ireland for half of 1979. Their marriage would end in 1980 and I would not see my father for the rest of my childhood.
My mother and I lived in Ireland from 1980 until she moved back to Chicago in January 1983 for work. However, I stayed with family friends, the Cooney’s in Galway until the summer. My sisters were in shock when my mother arrived in Chicago without me. They need not have worried. The Cooney’s were a wonderful family and my seven-month stay with them is a time I look back on fondly. On July 9th, 1983, I boarded a plane by myself as an eight-year-old and flew from Shannon Airport in Ireland to Boston. I was then guided to my connecting flight to Chicago where I was reunited with my mother along with my adult siblings. The time from 1983-1989 was spent in Chicago and represented the most stable period in my life. Okay, back to my mom’s decision to move to Pittsburgh in the summer of 1989.
I was indifferent to Pittsburgh, but I was happy to be finally living with my mother. We had not lived together for almost seven years as she had been employed as a live-in housekeeper for wealthy families on the North Shore of Chicago. From 1983-1989, I would only see her on the weekends. I lived with my half-sister Ann and her husband Greg during my grade school years in Chicago. During my time with Ann and Greg, I grew to having very mixed feelings about the arrangement. My sister Ann was a forceful personality while Greg was easier going and passive. Ann could be happy, enthusiastic and great company at times. But her moods could swing suddenly, and she would become impatient and edgy. These moments sometimes resulted in her making snappy, short, confrontational comments. In these moments, she would make me very uneasy and uncertain.
Greg was a patient and meticulous man. Unfortunately, we did not have many shared interests and over time I got the sense that Greg was not particularly enthused by my presence. It was not that way initially, but over time that indifference would at times manifest itself in irritation that became more and more apparent. We were never close.
Ann and Greg were also Born again, Evangelical Christians and they enrolled me at Gospel Outreach Christian School. They also began taking me to the church services. This was a source of tension between them and my mom, who remained a staunch Catholic.
By May 1989, life was changing for Ann and Greg as they adopted a baby boy, who they named Geoffrey. My departure in some ways was appropriate as they were forming their own family unit.
When my mom and I were saying our goodbyes to Ann and Greg in August 1989, Ann was overcome with emotion and tears were flowing. She hugged me and cried. Ann had stepped up and taken on the responsibility of in effect raising me from age eight until age fourteen. It was a big commitment, and I always had the sense that she believed in me. Greg appeared relatively unmoved and seemingly apathetic. He added an awkward smile as Ann cried. As for myself, I did not give away any emotion. In fact, I almost mirrored Greg. He gave us a ride downtown where my mother and I took an Amtrak train to Pittsburgh. I was not aware of it at the time, but a significant chapter in my life was ending.
August 1989
We arrived in Pittsburgh and it was hot and humid. Chicago has pretty humid summers, but Pittsburgh was even steamier. We initially stayed with my mother’s Aunt Bridget in Oakland, a section of the city not far from the University of Pittsburgh. Do not let that fool you though, we were not staying in affluent settings. My Aunt Bridget lived on Lawn Street near one of the three rivers that go through Pittsburgh. That sounds rather scenic, right? Houses sitting along a river in a bucolic setting. It was anything but picturesque. Pittsburgh had been in a steady decline for 30 years. This particular section of Oakland perfectly encapsulated that decline. The row of houses on the block were old and shabby looking. There was a dilapidated corner store at the end of the street. The river was a dank brown color reflective of the pollution that had been poured into it from the heavy industry that had sustained the city for decades. There was nothing bucolic or picturesque about the setting along the river. It was stupefyingly depressing and lifeless.
My Aunt Bridget had lived in the area since the 1930’s and was approximately 82 or 83 years old. She was a kind-hearted, generous, and thoroughly decent woman. She regularly welcomed the out-of-town relatives to her home with open arms. She was also a rough around the edges, Irish-born woman from Connemara with horn rimmed glasses and a set of white whiskers on her. She would sprinkle you with spittle when she spoke and was starting to lose some of her faculties. She was some character.
Her home looked as if it had not been updated since 1944. That is not an exaggeration in the slightest. There was no air conditioning and no modern amenities. We initially stayed in the upstairs bedroom and I can remember how oppressively hot and stuffy that room was. My mom bought a fan to try and provide some relief, but my God it was stifling and energy sapping.
I walked around the area and found a basketball court where I played with a few black guys from the neighborhood. The courts did not seem to have any consistent groups of kids who would play. Most of the time the courts were empty.
I remember walking to a music store in Oakland and buying a bunch of rap cassettes. By the summer of 1989, rap music was huge, and I had become an avid fan of the genre. In Chicago, I had listened to 107.5 WGCI’s “Rapdown” on Saturday nights hosted by Frankie J and Ramonski Love.
Among my purchases at the music shop included LL Cool J, Slick Rick, Kool Moe Dee, Kwame and Special Ed. LL and Slick Rick were by far the best of the bunch. In fact, I would rank ‘The Great Adventures of Slick Rick” at the top of the list of any rap album I have listened to. The funniest, filthiest lyrics balanced with his unique accent and cadence. The lyrics were at times so raunchy they would make your eyes widen with shock at first listen. I played those cassettes a hell of a lot. If I liked a track, I would play it relentlessly. I am still the same way today.
I had actually lived in Pittsburgh for a brief six-month period in the first part of 1980 before moving to Ireland in June of that year. My mom and dad had bought a home in Monroeville. Monroeville was suburban and pleasant. That six-month period ended in violent chaos in early June 1980. My father came home drunk and went off the rails, beating my mother in front of me.
When I say beating, we are talking physically throwing her around, slapping her, and threatening her with far worse. My father was a roofer who worked with his hands all day. He was only maybe 5’11 and 170 pounds, but he was lean and mean. He was physically teak tough. The scene reached a terrorizing crescendo when he took out a gun and put it to her head. My mom was on her knees in the living room begging for her life. He decided not to pull the trigger.
A few days later, after my father had left the house for work, my mom hurriedly gathered up some essential belongings. I remember pleading with my mom to let me take my toy Godzilla that was over a foot tall. No time to take Godzilla. We took a plane to Chicago and shortly thereafter flew to Ireland where we lived for the next three years. My initial Pittsburgh experience had been a traumatizing disaster.
There was nothing violently traumatizing about our current circumstances. This was a more subtle kind of trauma. The oppressive heat combined with the lifelessness of the area had the effect of sucking all the energy out of me. I had nothing to do. If I compared this neighborhood in Pittsburgh with a person it would be someone who had given up on life, sitting in a slouched position watching the world drift by as daytime tv played in the background. Maybe with a bunch of empty cans of Iron City laying around as well. After less than a week, I was already sliding into an abyss of boredom and mental weariness.
The old saying goes that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. That was so true in my case with Pittsburgh.
A Tale of Two Cities
Pittsburgh and Chicago were very, very different cities. Chicago was much larger and more diverse. To give you a clear idea, in 1990, Chicago had a population of 2.76 million whereas Pittsburgh had a population of 369,000. The metro area of Chicago was 8.2 million while Pittsburgh was 2.3 million.
The architecture in the two cities was distinctly different. In Chicago, most of the homes were made of brick in the style of classic Chicago two or three flats, bungalows, and ranches.
While in Pittsburgh, the homes were older and seemed to rise straight up from the ground. Row houses were everywhere.
Aesthetically speaking, I thought at the time that Chicago blew away Pittsburgh. Well, it does not take much to overshadow the sad looking homes off Lawn street.
Western Pennsylvania is beautiful. The hills and foliage are easy on the eyes. The problem was that I was sitting in the butthole of Oakland. Based on my initial surroundings, Pittsburgh was never going to measure up to Chicago in my fourteen-year-old mind.
It was not just the architecture that I did not like about Pittsburgh. I was an avid newspaper reader. I picked up the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and read an article by Ron Cook; I was not drawn in. Bernie Lincicome, he was not. Part of that is probably because I did not have much of an investment in the Pittsburgh sports scene. The Pirates had been awful for a decade and had the ugliest uniforms in baseball. The Steelers had been ordinary during the 1980’s as well. I do clearly remember when they made it to the AFC Championship game in 1984, where they lost to Dan Marino and the Dolphins 45-28. Their taciturn coach, Chuck Noll had the charisma of a wooden plank. I did not care about hockey. The Penguins were irrelevant to me, even if they had Mario Lemieux. The University of Pittsburgh had produced some good basketball teams. I remember in the late 1980’s the teams with Charles Smith and Jerome Lane. For the most part, the 1980’s were a barren period for Pittsburgh’s professional sports franchises.
In Chicago, we had the Bears who had won the Superbowl after the 1985 season and were still a very good team. Even if the Bears would underachieve by not winning another Superbowl, it was always an entertaining soap opera with Mike Ditka at the helm. I mean, he did an entire 10-minute interview drunk back in 1988!
The Bulls were on the way up and we had Michael Jeffrey Jordan. Jordan was simply the most talented and dominant athlete of my generation. He was as close to sporting and athletic perfection in a team sport that I have ever seen. I cannot add much more that has not already been said on the subject. I count myself very fortunate to have watched him regularly from 1986 to 1989. To quote the Tina Turner song, he was, “Simply the Best”.
Chicago had two baseball teams, the Cubs and the White Sox. Even if I was indifferent towards hockey, I was aware the Blackhawks with Denis Savard had been a consistently good team during the 1980’s. At the college level, DePaul basketball had been a prominent presence in the 1980’s, producing NBA players like Mark Aguirre, Terry Cummings, and Rod Strickland. The University of Illinois had just produced one of the most exciting teams of the modern era with the “Flying Illini”. The Illini played basketball the way I loved it. They were athletic and dynamic, tough defensively and dead game. Nick Anderson, Ken Battle, Kendall Gill, Steve Bardo and Lowell Hamilton rounded out the starting rotation. What was so cool is that they were all from Illinois. There was no one from out of state on the team. It is a shame they didn’t win the national championship. They lost by two points in the Final Four to Michigan; a team they had smashed up twice during the regular season. It was their only loss of the season when the entire starting lineup was healthy. Overall, it was good to be a Chicago sports fan in the late 1980’s.
Coming back to the city demographics, Pittsburgh was literally black and white. There was not much in between. The white population leaned heavily toward people with Italian and Central/Eastern European heritage. There was also an Irish community of which my mother was connected. But good grief Italians were everywhere! Madonna!! At Central Catholic it seemed like half the school was of Italian descent. Folino, Pistella, Aquafondata, DeSalvo, and Gigliotti, the names easily rush back to memory.
In Chicago, where I lived and had gone to school there was a huge Latino influence. Chicago is home to the third largest Mexican community in the United States. You read that correctly. In the metro area, there are over 900,000 people who claim full or partial Mexican descent. We also have a significant Puerto Rican population as well. The two groups are very different and that is what made Chicago so interesting. Puerto Ricans and Mexicans are polar opposites in many respects. The cuisine and music are also distinct from each other. Puerto Ricans had a reputation being loud, flashy, and in your face. Mexicans on the other hand had a reputation for being more modest and less ostentatious. Please be aware that I am painting with a broad brush, but that was the general perception.
Chicago also had large South Asian (Indian and Pakistani), Korean, Filipino, Polish as well as Central and South American communities. It was a city of astonishing diversity.
Both cities are extremely provincial. Even as the third-largest city in the United States, I would not regard Chicago as a cosmopolitan metropolis. One can certainly find culture and refinement if sought after, but it’s not obvious at first glance. Most of Chicago is large and brusque, with a vision that does not go far beyond the city limits. Chicago is a huge magnet for college graduates from Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri. It is a national and international economic powerhouse in the Midwest. Native Chicagoans tend to grow up and stay in Chicago. The rest of Illinois is largely irrelevant. My wife moved to Chicago from Detroit and it took COVID to motivate her to explore the state.
Pittsburgh is a bit of a puzzle in that it is not Midwest or East Coast. Geographically it sits between these regions, but the town is unequivocally its own unique place.
Pittsburgh and Chicago are both blue-collar cities. The traits that they value are hard work, toughness, and a no-nonsense attitude. As for the weather, Pittsburgh is probably hotter and stickier in the summer. Chicago is colder and harsher in the winter.
The food is similar. Chicago likes to beat its chest about pizza, but I would take Pittsburgh pizza any day over our deep dish or thin crust tavern style offerings prevalent in the Windy City. Look, Pittsburgh is almost half Italian, the pizza has to be good! They make a better crust and I never had a bad slice in the Steel City. Chicago loves Italian beef sandwiches while in Pittsburgh they eat Hoagies. While a Hoagie sounds like something that comes out of your nose when you are heavily congested, it is actually a loaded submarine sandwich. Both cities love high calorie, stick to your rib’s cuisine.
One significant difference in cuisine between the two cities is the availability of great Mexican and Latin American offerings. The international food selection in Chicago is rich and vast. You can walk into supermarkets that cater completely to specific ethnic clientele. I have always loved wandering around these types of stores. You temporarily enter into another world and I find it fascinating. I can visit India, Colombia, Poland, Vietnam, or Mexico on any given day. Now that we have covered some of the geographical and cultural comparisons, let’s get back to my exciting last month of summer vacation in my newfound surroundings.
Getting Fat and Lazy
We had now been in Pittsburgh approximately a week and my mom had the amazingly awful idea of buying a home in the area. I told her in no uncertain terms that buying a home in Aunt Bridget’s suffocatingly lifeless neighborhood would be a monumental mistake. My mom laughed when I told her my feelings and it rang true with her. She acknowledged the surroundings, but on the flip side she would have been able to afford a home in the area. Thank God she did not pull the trigger on buying property in that part of Oakland. After one week in that place, I was already sinking into a malaise that I would never truly break out of during my time in Pittsburgh.
To my mom’s credit, she recognized that I needed a change of scenery and made arrangements for me to stay with her cousin Nancy and her husband Paul. Nancy was Aunt Bridget’s daughter. I knew them fairly well and they had always been very kind to us. Paul had been the getaway driver when my mom and I fled Monroeville back in 1980. Paul was a HUGE man who at this point in his life pretty much spent all day in his recliner watching movies. He was a jovial character and had a massive video collection. He had even developed an intricate numbering system to track his hundreds of films.
I was excited to watch so many movies that I had never seen. In Chicago, because of the conservative Born again Christian culture of Gospel Outreach, there were a ton of flicks that I had missed out on. Now it was time to play catch-up. Big time. I watched Ridley Scott’s masterpiece “Alien”, followed by James Cameron’s follow-up, “Aliens”. Then I watched “Repo Man” and “Chucky”. It was great! Then it all kind of blends together……I spent an entire week on the couch at Paul’s house in Monroeville watching movies. I sank into the sofa and barely moved. There was no physical activity. None. Paul also loved to eat well while he watched TV. This seemed like a great idea to me! I ate like a king while reclined on a couch for the better part of 6 days. Towards the end of my sedentary week of Film 101 while feeding my face, his daughter Michelle showed up with her boyfriend Danny Vecchio. An Italian guy, what a surprise!
Michelle and Danny were approximately 8-9 years older than me. Danny had recently graduated from college and Michelle was attending nursing school. The two of them were super nice and Danny had an engaging personality. I roused myself from the couch and suggested that we go to the court to play basketball. We walked over to the court that was close by. After playing for around 5 minutes, I was absolutely exhausted! Who knew that being a couch potato, stuffing my face with junk food might not be the best preparation for athletic endeavors? I remember being a little in shock by how out of shape and shitty I felt.
They took me out for pizza and I immediately connected with Danny through humor. I love to laugh. We laughed hard sharing our stories about big Paul, his collection of movies, and his amazing eating habits. Danny loved sports as well and we quickly established the beginning of a genuine friendship. I had no idea at the time, but Danny would become my best and really only friend for the duration of my time in Pittsburgh. After my ultra-productive week at Paul’s, my mother shipped me off to stay a week with John and Eileen Mularkey. Once again, I was fortunate to be greeted by incredibly nice and welcoming people. John and Eileen were pushing 60 years of age like my mom. They had known her since her arrival in Pittsburgh back in 1949. My mom had always been very good about maintaining friendships through the years by writing letters and timely phone calls. John and Eileen were good friends with whom she had stayed in contact for almost 40 years. They had a nice home in the neighborhood of Wilkinsburg. John loved his sports and was easy to get along with. We watched Michael Nunn defend his world middleweight title with a majority decision over Iran Barkley. That was August 14th of 1989.
If you could not tell already, I could be lazy if left to my own devices and that trend continued at John and Eileen’s. I did hit the basketball courts a few times and began to recover some of my fitness. I remember playing this genial, tall black kid who was not particularly quick or dynamic physically, but he had a huge wingspan. We played one on one, and I managed to beat him 10-9. I was not in great shape, but I was somewhat reassured by the result.
The rest of my time at John and Eileen’s was spent loafing around and falling into a negative pattern where I was expecting to be looked after. Eileen would bring me sandwiches while I was lazing about on the couch. Jesus, I invested in a lot of couch time during the month of August! I began to wear out my welcome. One day Eileen made me a sandwich and I casually told her that I was not that hungry. This triggered a sharp reaction from Eileen. I do not recall her exact words but suffice to say she was not impressed by my lazy, entitled attitude. I quickly realized that I had been a complete ingrate and jumped up off the couch and apologized. I washed up the dishes and tried to make myself a little bit useful. I was deeply mortified and embarrassed by my own behavior.
The rest of my stay at John and Eileen’s I tried to contribute and not be a totally shiftless lump. My summer reading was “The Hobbit” by JRR Tolkien. After an academic light eighth grade, “The Hobbit” was not a straightforward read. I enjoyed the book, but the language was challenging, and it took genuine application to get through certain passages. I had to write a report on the book as well; my first official high school assignment.
A memory that is quite clear was towards the end of my stay with John and Eileen. I decided to write a letter to Terrence, the kid I had met at Lake Geneva Bible Camp. I normally did not write letters, but I was determined to try and maintain some kind of communication. I sat down in the evening to write and after finishing a paragraph my eyes welled up and the tears began to drop. What started out as a few tears falling onto the page quickly descended into deep, heaving sobs. Weeping would probably be the most accurate description I can come up with.
It did not make sense to me. I barely knew Terrence. I can only recall coming close to crying that hard on two occasions. The first was in 1983 after coming back to Chicago and coming to the realization that my mom had a job where I would only see her on the weekends. The other time was 1985, in Ireland, towards the end of a summer holiday. It had been the first time I had seen my old school friends from my days living there and the thought of leaving them again hit me hard. Looking back at that deeply sad moment in Pittsburgh, I suddenly had to acknowledge that I was alone in Pittsburgh with no friends my age. It was also the delayed effect of leaving everything behind in Chicago that I was attached to. I cannot recall if I ever mailed that letter.
Gospel Outreach School and High School Memories 1988-1992 