The last faerie

 The last in a long line of faerie blocks,
20 in total, Is done!

Wheee!               Awwe!

Wee, because I love these fairies

 I grew up with a whole set of little flower farie books illustrated, beautifully, by Cicely Mary Barker

Abc faeries, summer faeries, tree faeries etc. 10 little books in all all lovingly kept a little dinged on the corners or lovingly rubbed but mostly still pristine.

Then I gave them to my children

and most of them went missing

Many of my, lovingly kept, childhood friends met their demise in this manner *sigh*

I had a whole collection of Asterix and Obilex and Tintin Illustrated novels ( don't you dare call them comix!) that died a horrible death at the loving hands of my children when the glue that kept them together gave way. my son still has them or whats left of them in a box to keep the pages from flying away and dispersing further.


As a former Librarian this both horrifies and warms the heart.

Thank goodness I saved my first edition set of OZ and Bookhouse books safe.

Though my "Friend Flika" got passed around every friend they ever had, until it was so bent, dogeared and missing pages you couldn't read it anymore.

You see they loved them enough to share them and that is friendship

wrigley field 100 year anniversary

I lived here!

I grew up living 3 apartments down from wrigley in the 70's-80's.
back when it was little house in the barrio and we were practically the only Caucasians for miles who were crazy enough to live there.
that "c" shaped building with the arrow is where i grew up in a 3rd floor balcony apartment.

the apartment with the check mark is the one we young neighborhood punks used to climb up, to watch games from the roof. we had a perfect view over the left field bleachers.

the old manual score board

I once got knocked off my bike by a pop fly over the left field wall by Bobby Bonilla (I don't actually know for sure but it was a good enough story to get an autograph!)

that was back in the day, when the score board was still run by dan,dan the number man who changed all the scores by hand, on big wood boards. he'd let a few of us punks up to help him the day before  or the day after to make sure everything was organized for the next game.

he paid $2 + a coke and a hotdog and if you showed him your report card with good grades, he'd let you stay and watch the game from the board!






and being punk kids we would park cars in the unaffiliated lots at the end of the block before the "Official" parkers got there to and charged $5 to park 'em. we'd get 4-5 cars before we got run off the lot by the older kids.

that would give us enough readys to run to Yum-Yum Doughnuts (X marks that spot) and get a burger and fries, for each of us and $ left over to get candy later.

we'd go "car surfing" to get there so if any of you all parked behind wrigly on clark between wellington the Yum-yum ( because boy did they pack 'em in!) and came back to dents and scratches on your car, sorry ;) !
 oh! and if you were ever in the hood at night to see the bleachers lit you would know them as the ICAGO UBS cause no one ever fixed those lights in the 70's!

heritage CQ - an explanation - sort of

A good friend suggested I put together a post explaining my Heritage CQ.
I think shes right I've got some 'splaining to do!
Not just for you all either.....
I have spent much of my life without much in the way of family history.
mom was a single mother raising little old me, in the middle of the wilds of Wrigleyville in Chicago. Dad had gone back to Lacrosse WI. where he had family and mom wasn't into looking back.

There are family stories here and there but history, there's not much.
I am a mix of Bohemian, Austro-Hungarian, French, German, Scots-Irish, Norwegian and Blackfoot Indian. So, in short, I'm a mutt. I give my kids a generation or two to bring the rest of the world into the mix!

Going through and researching each of the countries, my parents brought into me, was interesting and insightful.

Not so much because it told me anything about myself I didn't already know, but it gave me a base to understand where all these ancestors came from and gave me a new appreciation of how this, could only happen in America or more specifically in Chicago.

I started with the countries and cultures I knew the most about, Blackfoot, French, German, Norwegian and Scots-Irish I split into two, so there would be an even  number of blocks.

 I love the history of Chicago, it's messy and loud and doesn't try to take itself too seriously. where as New York was where everyone landed, Chicago was the terminus, for those going into the west and so everyone eventually came here, in order to go somewhere else.

There are still neighborhoods, where you don't have to speak any English, to get along. There are enclaves of Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, German, Polish, Russian, Jewish, you name it, theres a neighborhood for that. If you were brought up on Foster and Kedzie you are probably Korean. If you were brought up on the west side of Naragansett, you are probably Italian as the east side is Irish. Belmont-Craigan neighborhood was Polish and Hermosa is Puerto Rican.
Growing up there was wonderfully diverse, full of good food, interesting music shops, and people to watch.

The upper left-hand corner is Blackfoot Indian and holding up the other corner is Germany.
My grandmother's father was Indian, her mother was from Germany. we don't know much here, I think it was too painful for grammy to talk about them.
They died when she was 6 or 7 and she and her older brother and sister wer sent to live with her mother's sister.  She had almost no education and ran away to Chicago in 1927(?) where she met Grandfather.
He came to America in 1906 when he was 14, with two, of his brothers, Otto and Adolph(he changed it to Arthur in 1939) . They were born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, their father was a Bohemian farmer and their mother was French.
Don't know much of grandfathers family either.

Dad on the other hand, has LOTS of family, all gathered in LaCrosse Wisconsin. "Gods Country" always said in a sonorous voice.There my Norwegian grandfather fell for my Scots- Irish /German grandmother and had lots of babies, who had lots of babies and they had lots of babies.
Honestly if you want to know where over population is coming from the LaCrosse side of the family would be a good start!
Here things get, well strange, for me at least. This is the side of the family who are so entrenched in themselves, that they had a history of themselves, made into a book.
You would think I would have read this, being a history buff and wanting to know about my family history but no. I have not. You're right, I should but I just can't bring myself to do it.
This is the side of the family that has shunned my mother and I for so long, I feel the need to respond in kind.

The last time I saw any of them was at my fathers funeral 13 years ago.  It was strange being surrounded by people who knew exactly who I was, who all looked like me,  who are complete strangers to me.
I am not this petty, normally and this attitude towards that side of the family, bothers me a little, not enough to do much about it but there it is, a flaw in my character.


I used to be envious of those who had such strong family identities or identified with a place until I realized how unique I was. In that crowd of people who's families were only this or that, it seamed to be their only identity.
Whilst I knew who I was, they only seemed to know where they came from and were still searching.

This CQ was more to define that which I didn't understand of my heritage, more than to understand my family. I have made for myself a loving family of my own with it's own quirks and oddities, not dependent on or restrained by the past.

the muppet show

I love the muppet show!

I know I should be showing you all what I've been up to for the last month and I will , I will get to this eventually I have BIG news and fun stuff to show off and I have been procrastinating doing it.I've been a little busy with family stuff and life in general. I'll get there just bear with me-get it! BEAR?

I love every thing about it from it's hackneyed, second hand jokes, to the over the top zany goofiness of it.
I love every ragged cliched corner
from fozzie bears awful jokes to dr. bunson honeydews failed experiments
sweetness is my favorite monster
and one of my favorite bits was gonzo's "mouse-i-phone" even though Monty Python did it first with the mouse organ dr teeth, animal, alice and floyed were the best band and boregard-the-janItor cleaned up the mess, of which there were many.
go to netflix or your local best buy and watch it again this is good old-fashioned funny stuff, treat yourself to the giggles.

g'Ma's hankies

I finished my mothers birthday present, a pillow made from my grandmothers hankies.
all 3 of them, though the lions share were g'ma Lorie's , hence the big yellow "L"














I sent it off to Chicago and she loves it!

so it's now safe to show everyone.

Unfortunately, in my infinite wisdom, (NOT!) didn't take a picture of the whole thing done and ready to go.
that's what I get for leaving things to the last minute!

had a hard time coming up with things to fill this out, these hankies were my gran's but the present was for my Mom, who's images do I do?
I decided that G'Ma's hankies were enough of a reminder so I used mom's favorite things to cover the corners that were left, some of those hankies were busy!












there are reminders of pets past, we had 42 bunnies at one time in a 3rd floor Chicago apartment! I bought a little bunny, then I bought another bunnie, don't one and one make two??


I had to put MR.Chuckles on there, he was Mom's horse back when Chicago had stables on clark and fullerton he is also a reminder of the Chicago Armoury Polo Club, mom was a groom and trainer and I was a gole tender and hot walker

When she was younger she used to race bikes on short track and I remember waiting for the herd to fly by so I could run to the center and watch her from the grassy spot in the middle.
when I was really little I rode in the bike seat on the back and we would do errands and such,
later we would ride on the lakefront

She gets to travel now, with her husband. they have been all over the place Europe, Malaysia, China Russia, India and so on. Her favorite place is Pariss though, she has photo albums full of odd little corners of Paris. someday I think she wants to retire there if she can convince poppabear to go!
Then I would have an excuse to go to Paris, explore and fill my own photo album!

I grew up on the north side of Chicago under the bleachers of Wrigley field (down the block actually it just sounds more poetic! )

one block north on grace was an old convent-I don't remember which one-who's bells would toll the hours & had special bells for noon & Monday evening, Saturday & Sunday mass.
all the other churches in the neighborhood would do the same so when the hour came you would hear all the bells go almost at once.
my favorite were the Christmas bells 8:00 in the morning they would peel the descending bells for 10 minutes to celebrate the coming of Christmas morning. i so miss that sound.

behind the high stone walls of the convent used to be an orphanage. which turned into a school for disturbed children. one of the students set the bell tower on fire one night & it fell to the ground with a final muffled bong.

I didn't realize how much I missed the comforting sound of church bells, until we moved into our house & I discovered that st.Ferdinand's church still has bells that toll the hour & have "specials" for noon & high holidays.
the bell towers in Chicago, for the most part are all automated & recorded., or have their bells muted if they have bells in them at all.
yet another part of childhood gone the way of the wrecking ball. sigh

I just received this picture of my mother, taken at the old town art fair in the 1970's.

My god! how young she looks! I wonder if she knows she is beautiful?

this is the way I remember her most, from my childhood. big floppy hat & her big floppy purse, beads, fringe & sandals. holding her pinkie or her belt loop, to cross streets, to get there. We would go to the various art fairs, in & around Chicago In the summertime, we'd look & dance, eat art fair food, & gab with friends. My favorite was always the Lincoln street art fair, they would close off Lincoln ave. between Beldon & Webster & throw the party of the year! there were buskers (people playing music behind their hats), wonderful art, face painting, water balloon fights in OZ park, & a band at either end of the street . We the children were allowed to run amok & the theater company would hold short attention span theater for the littles.

This is my mom today, still a free spirit!

Growing up on the north side of Chicago

Pat Winter's Gatherings blog, http://gatherings100.blogspot.com/

has inspired me to write a little about my childhood.

Now, I grew up on the north side of Chicago, I've lived here all my life & frankly can't imagine what I'd do anywhere else! I love this city. I've also lived on , the south side & now the west side ( I've moved around allot)

I grew up in an apartment, off the bleachers of Wrigley field in the 70's, when that part of Chicago had a horrible Gang problem.

The apartment building next door was a boarding house,that was constantly going up in flames, (so we got to know the local Firemen very well!)& We had prostitution going on 2 blocks to the north. While not the most idyllic of settings, it was lots of fun to run around the neighborhood.

We had trees to & garage roofs to climb on, not to mention the occasional roof to see a game. We had a lot next door to our first apartment in the neighborhood, to play baseball & basketball in it was covered in grey rocks so there was no sliding into first, let me tell you!

we had cars to park in the lot,during games but you had to get there before the real car parks would come in or you would only get a 1$ per car while they got 5$.

There was the ma& pa across the street to go to with our dimes & nickels, for penny candy, & snickers bars( still think there smaller than they were when i was a kid!) & the Yum,Yum doughnuts when we were flush with cash after parking cars.

Though I must say as much of a tomboy as I was, I still loved a good twirly dress & my saddle shoes. they were hand-me-downs from some cousin or another, I was so upset when I grew out of them.

I begged my mother for more, & she flatly refused. I remember her saying how much she hated hers & couldn't for the life of her understand, how anyone could like them, let alone want more!

I learned later of course that we couldn't have afforded new shoes even if she had the inclination to buy them for me.

I was, what was later to be known as, a Latch-Key -Kid. I let myself out of the house to go to school & let myself back in after school & got all my homework done & the non-cooking part of dinner ready for when my mom got home at 7pm.

She worked for an Art studio downtown doing something called

" Key line, Paste-up " It's when you take all the finished components of a magazine page, like the pictures, the descriptions & the letters or numbers, & arraigned them, according to the artists layup, so they make sense.

I loved to go with her on days she either, couldn't find or couldn't afford, a baby-sitter. We'd take the Howard"A" EL train to the Belmont stop & run over the bridge to the other side of the track, to catch the Loop's'B train, to the Chicago ave. stop & walk to her office building.

It was a big blocky building, nestled between the on & off ramps to the Kennedy expressway.

You could watch the cars wiz past the on & off the ramps & depending on the time of year, watch them slide back down! on the way home we might stop at the daemon dogs under the Fullerton "EL" stop for dinner & the Public library for a new book, as a treat.

Later We discovered that the Chicago Armory Held Polo matches in their indoor arena in the winters starting in October, going through April. Was I in heaven !

I was 7 & mom got a job as a groom right away because she knew some of the people, from her days working in Chicago stables in her child & young adulthood.

I got to be one of her Hot Walkers. ( OH, Raptures of JOY!)

That means I got to walk the horses around the Armory's basement after they get off the polo field, so their insides & tendons don't seize up on them. It's very bad for a horse to be put away hot & sweaty!

Later I learned how to be a groom & had my own string to look after!

I suppose a few child labour laws were broken, but I dare you to get between a 7 year old girl & a horse!

My mother raised me all by herself, & while I don't necessarily agree with all her decisions, I think she did a pretty good job under, not the best of, conditions.

My dad & she divorced when I was 2 & he took off. I saw him every 2 weeks. for our week end until I was about 7 or 8, when he told me, He couldn't come to visit me anymore. I did learn later he sued for custody & lost all his rights to see me. Again I can't agree with all the decisions, but I guess came out OK in the end.

I'm felling a bit Narcissistic so,I think that's about all I can write about myself for one day!