What Happened to the Streetlight

My Dad used to tell this story.  I don't know how true it is, but it doesn't really sound like Dad.

The story is that Dad and Mom were swimming in the back yard and Dad wanted to skinny dip, but Mom was too bashful with the street light bright over head.  With the light on, everyone on the highway (the Kennedy Expressway) could see them.

Dad went to the deck, took his service revolver and shot the streetlight.  By the time he had put the pistol back and turned back to Mom, she had run back into the house.

That light was out for what I remember to be several years in my dim, early youth.  I vaguely remember that after I heard that story I told people that I had always wondered why that light never worked.

True or not, it's a good story.

Papa in the Airlock

Not Papa in the airlock, 

but darn cute none the less.  

Papa and Teeny

I hurt my back the other day and I'm suffering through it.  It's just a muscle pain, nothing to do with my spine, but it reminds me of a story about Dad when he was a cop.

Somehow Dad had gotten into one of those apartment building airlocks with a bad guy.  You know the places, where there is one outside door and another door a few feet away.  The outside-outside door doesn't get locked, but the inside-outside door is the one that has to be buzzed open from someone in an apartment.

I guess this bad guy was REALLY big and bad.  Dad figured he had to hit him fast and hard.  His only chance to get him was to hit first as hard as he possibly could.  So he did.  Dad hit him and he backed up against the door.

He growled and lunged forward, bent over like he was going to tackle Dad so Dad hit him in the side of the face.

He shook it off, raised his hands with a growl and charged.  He was still bent over so Dad hit him again, as hard as he possibly could.

He shook it off with another growl, raised his hands and went after Dad again, still bent over.  Amazed that he hadn't knocked the guy out, and afraid that if he let him stand up straight he would pound Dad into a pulp; Dad hit him again as hard as he could.

Finally the guy managed to talk.  Dad found out that they bad guy had been shot previously and the bullet had lodged near his spine.  When Dad backed him against the door he had pressed his back against the door knob and the bullet had been pushed so that it was pinching his spine.  He couldn't straighten up or raise his hands above his chest because of it.

All those times he shook off the hit was a growl, what he was trying to say was, "Please stop, I give up," and raise his hands in surrender.

Papa and the Train

This morning I was stopped by a train and it got me to thinking about Dad's train story. I got about half of it typed out on my phone before the train went by, but my phone played dumb and lost it, so now I'm walking home from one of the girls' friend's houses and I'm going to try again.


When Dad was about 12 some of his friends like to hop the freight train, hobo-style, and ride it to Gateway theater. The theater was at Jefferson Park, off Milwaukee Avenue, about two miles away from the house on Kostner.

The boys goaded Dad until he came with them one day. They jumped in an open box car, but by the time it got up to the theater it was going about 60mph. It wasn't a local like they were used to, but an express going to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The train didn't slow down the whole time and by the time the boys could jump off they were out of the state and good and scared. Dad was the only one brave enough to call his parents. In about an hour and a half they were picked up by his dad.

They all piled in the car and one by one my Papa dropped the boys off. He didn' say a word to my Dad the whole way. The fear built up in Dad until he could barely stand the wait for his punishment which was sure to come.

Finally they pulled up in front of the house and my grandfather said, "That was a damn stupid thing to do."

So fear was his punishment, and he got home safe and sound. I too have just gotten home so here ends the story.

One Year Gone

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Papa's final adventure.  We spent the previous day at Boushette's house.  We had no ceremonies, and didn't really do anything special except my brother's and I smoked Backwoods Smokes (I still have one left for you Mike).

Ironically we had spaghetti for dinner.  I allowd myself ice cream even though I'm on a diet.

One story did come up, The Music Class story (really two stories).

Dad was, well, he couldn't sing.  When the nun came in the classroom to teach music she had a pitchpipe and she would go to each row and play a note.  I can still see Dad pretending to be the nun with the pitchpipe when he told this story.  He would hold his hand up to his mouth and say, "tweet."

Dad always sat in the sixth row, sixth seat.  When she got to his row she would stop.  "Is Bill La Fleur in this row?"

"Here sister."

"You don't sing."

Tweeeet.  "Very good."

He played in band once, only because everyone had to.  He played triangle.  Actually, he didn't play triangle.  They made him stand there and pretend to strike the triangle with the tiny little stick.

I have no snappy ending for this post so I will just say bye for now, keep a song in your heart.

2 for Second

Here are two stories from Dad's 2nd grade year.
2nd Grade Downfall

When Dad was in 2nd grade he moved into the house on Kostner and started school at Saint Edward's. Until that point he had been a model student loved by teachers and peers alike.

At St. Ed's Dad was seated in the sixth row in the sixth desk. When it was time to take their first spelling test the boy in the fifth row, sixth desk told Dad to pull out his spelling book.

"Lay it on the floor here between us, open to the chapter test. That way we can both look at it during the test. That's the way we do it here."

Dad complied and sure enough, when the test began the nun found the book almost immediately. Without asking the boys, she turned to the front of the book where Dad had dutifully written his name.

She moved him to a desk that she placed just outside the door of the classroom in the hall. He spent the rest of the year there, and in fact spent the rest grade school there. He also spent every summer in summer school. His grade school career had been ruined, and he would not recover until he joined the military.

From the Church on Kostner Avenue to the Church on Kostner Avenue

That same year, Dad joined Cub Scouts at St. Ed's, on Kostner and Sunnyside. I think it was Pack 3904 back then. It certainly was when we went to St. Ed's.

One night very early in the year Dad got kicked out of the meeting for being too loud. His Mother, Nani told him that it was okay and they would just go two blocks south to the Baptist Church on Irving Park and Kostner.

At that time the Irving Park Baptist Church had chartered Pack 3881 and Troop 881. The pack welcomed him and a grand tradition was born.

My Daddy Was a Pistol and I’m a Son of a Gun

Dad used to say that there was a ghost in the house.  As prime evidence he would always tell this story.

I think this happened either when I was very small and before my brother Shawn was born or right after, because it was a time when my maternal grandmother, Boushia, was at the house a lot helping my mother.

My Dad arrived at work and realized that he did not have his weapon with him.  I don’t know if his holster was empty or if he didn’t have the whole holster, but he didn’t have it.

He retraced his steps, driving all the way home in exactly the same route that he had taken to get to the police station.  He did not find it.  He asked Boushia and my Mom to help him look for it and they tore the house apart.

Now remember that this was when I was either too young to walk or had just started walking.  I would have been far too young to have reached it wherever it had been, so I was in the clear.

They didn’t find it.  I assume my Dad either got another one issued or bought another one.

Six months later he went into the closet in the bedroom I was in and there, at eye level, sat the pistol he had lost.

My Dad said that this proved there was a friendly ghost in the house that had hidden his gun to make him much more careful about it, what with two small sons in the house.

Camp Shelby, MS

I got this great story from Mike McCormick last week. It isn't the type of story I had thought about when I was thinking of stories for this blog. I don't mean it doesn't fit; it certainly does and is a terrific story. What I mean is it isn't a story that came to mind for me when I was trying to think of stories. This story is more about Papa than a story he would have told, although he had plenty of stories from this trip. The other thing is that this trip had so many stories that are mine that I often forget that there were Papa stories from that time.

Mike asked me to add some details and dates as appropriate. I'll add what I can at the end. Before we start though, the name of the training site is Camp Shelby (famous from the Neil Simon play / Mathew Brodrick film Biloxi Blues). I'm going to have to do some more research on the dates, but I'm pretty sure it was 1991.

"The year of our NG summer camp in Mississippi, Papa was the CO of the signal battalion which was participating in a large Army radio network training operation that stretched from our site in Mississippi all the way over to Florida. My team of about 5 enlisted rank soldiers and myself (NCO) were actually on the remote site which was the very western end of the entire radio network. We had been camped back out in the woods on our own for a week or so while each separate element of the radio net worked to get their equipment up and running so they could each plug in the network and achieve the mission. Our stuff was working fine so after setting up our 75’ antenna, camouflaging the tents and trucks, and tuning in the radios, all we mostly just had to make sure the generators had fuel and nobody got bitten by any snakes.

Since we were in such a remote location, there was little chance of any brass showing up, we had a fair amount of unsupervised freedom, which myself and the guys in my team really enjoyed. Naps were plentiful, shorts and gym shoes in lieu of full uniforms, card games, and touch football ruled the day. A couple of times a day chow was brought out to us, and the fuel truck would make a delivery every few days. Bill, you remember you stopped by a few times, I think mostly just to get a break from the stress of the main company encampment.

We were fortunate to have assigned to us a pickup truck, which we used to take turns running down to the barracks for showers or to head into the nearby town for supplies. We had set up a Coleman gas camping stove and had a small refrigerator running off of the electricity from the generators. So we were turning down our noses at the “food” brought cold and soggy to us from the mess tent and mostly eating cereal and sandwiches and cooking on the stove. We also laid in a nice supply of cold pop, mostly RC which as you know was Papas favorite at the time.

Late one night near the end of the camp, Papa and his driver come down to our site from the road. As this was a unexpected visit from the Colonel, the guys with me panicked a bit. They only knew him as the hard charging boss of the battalion, and were worried that we were in some kind of trouble as we were not really following strict Army regulations and it was a very rare occurrence for the top man to show up unannounced. However, I took one look at him and could see that he was pretty much bushed out, as it had been a long and hard camp, and he had been pushing hard to get the battalion up to speed and complete the mission. This coupled with the late night, the excessive Mississippi heat and humidity, along with a butt load of mud (more on that later) and he was worn out.

I’ll never forget the big smile he cracked when I offered him an ice cold RC and then made up a thick salami sandwich on fresh French bread for him. He stayed with us for few hours, telling Army and Police stories and marveling that we had it so good on our little remote site way back in the woods. He had stopped by because he had wanted to talk over the radio net from our site at one far end all the way to the other end in Florida. I can’t recall if that happened that night, but I do know for sure that but after he took his leave of us, the guys in my team couldn’t stop talking for the rest of the camp about what a great guy he was and how much they enjoyed having that personal time with him.

I still marvel at the way he had turned their anxious concern for the reason for his visit and their trepidation of dealing face-to-face with the Colonel into such a positive and well meaning encounter for them. His innate leadership and natural ability to relate fairly and evenly to one and all, and his ability to inspire and provide confidence to them, caused all of them to regard him highly and to have complete loyalty and faith in his command for the rest of their time in the battalion. And all of this when he was completely worn out and tired, but never out of patience.

-Mike

p.s. This was the summer camp with the unbelievable mud, when trucks and jeeps were getting stuck all the time. The wrecker never got a break pulling them free from the muck. One day in the Charlie Company area Papa and his driver were in his SUV sitting on top of a large hill (really a small cliff) that dominated the site. He instructed his driver to head down to the lower main area of the company site and instead of backing around and coming down the gravel road she just plunged the SUV over the edge of the hill (cliff) and they bounced and banged all the way down. He was terrified that the SUV was going to roll over and they’d be crushed or at least busted up and trapped. They made it ok, those old Army SUV’s were pretty tough. The guys standing at the bottom of the hill that he wanted to speak with couldn’t imagine what was so important that the Colonel would drop in on them like that."

I have more stories, the Blue Mud, the Ride Home from Shelby with the Most Expensive Driver in the Army, My Bordello Office, and the Battalion Formation God Canceled. I will share those another time.

What I can add to Mike's story is that I was at the main site and my job, as a brand new Second Lieutenant, was to supervise the engineering of the signal "shots." Our equipment was Korean War vintage and the signal they used was very narrow so that the antennas had to be pointed directly at each other to get the signal. All the signals shooting from and to our company were coordinated by my office. By office I mean the big aluminum box on the back of a 2.5 ton truck.

The time of the story I got on my radio and called Mike's site to see how things were going and much to my surprise, the Old Man (in more ways than one) was on the horn! He said he was going to sit there all night until the shot got in to Florida. That was just about the time I was supposed to hand over the controls to my NCO so I could get some sleep, but I suppose you can guess that I didn't. The shot never did get in, but there was a certain amount of extra emphasis that night.

Not to nit pick, but Papa was a Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) at the time, not yet a full Colonel (COL).

BTW, the SUVs referenced were Chevy Blazers stripped of any comforts, given diesel engines and painted matte green. There is a little more to that cliff story that I will tell in a future post, but I will end this post with one more detail: I was the guy at the bottom end of that hill.