NCO to Officer

My oldest is now in college and she has two medium term goals, to get her degree and to graduate as a United States Marine Corps Officer.

This prompted me to tell her how Papa became a US Army Officer.  This is definitely a story that may need additional support from others for authenticity.

After Papa was in the USMC and married for a while, they determined that the two do not mix (at least for Papa and Boushette).  Papa got out of the Marines and joined the Marine Corps Reserve.

A few years and three sons later Papa was an E7 (Gunnery Sergeant) and competed for NCO of the Year.  He won in fact and was awarded NCO of the Year for the entire USMC Reserve.  At about the same time he was applying to attend OCS (Officer Candidate School) with the Marines.

This is where the story gets fuzzy for me.  Either they forwarded the wrong paperwork and some numbskull who was also named William La Fleur was rejected (I can't believe any William La Fleur would be anything less than stellar, but that's just me) and/or his paperwork was delayed because it was the same paperwork that got forwarded for the NCO of the Year Award.

Either way, in the end he was 34 years old before the package went to the board.  At that time (I don't know about now) the USMC had a cutoff of 33 to attend OCS.  He was too old.

He was already a Sergeant in the Chicago Police Department and some of his friends there suggested that he try the Illinois Army National Guard because the Army cutoff age was 35.

He transferred to the Army and ultimately retired as a BG (Brigadier General).  The moral of the story is, keep your goal in sight and keep your legs pumping, never give up there is always a way.

Gap Tooth

I'm not sure what made me think of this today, but here is a quick story.

Dad had always had a gap between his front teeth.  I know we don't remember him that way because he got it fixed so long ago.

When he joined the USMC he had to get a physical and a dental checkup.  The Marine dentist took a look at his mouth and asked him, "You want that gap?"

Dad said that he could do without it.  The dentist reached behind himself and grabbed a pliers.  He stuck them in Dad's mouth, grabbed one of the back teeth and yanked it out.

In a few days Dad's teeth slowly moved and closed the gap.  That back tooth was just one too many teeth and it was crowding the rest until there was just no more room and the front slide sideways just to fit in.

F - A - T-square

Dad didn't do well in school, from second grade through high school he only did well in one class, Drafting. 

Dad told me that he loved that class and was sure he was going to get an A finally after so many years of disappointments and summer school.  He was down to his last project and he was doing it perfectly.  While he was at the drafting table in school working diligently another boy, who never much liked Dad walked by.  Dad's nemesis took this opportunity to jostle his arm.  It was a stupid, yet simple thing to do.

It was Dad's right arm and at the jostling his hand holding the writing instrument drove across the page, marking it indelibly.  I don't know if it was a pencil or a pen but I got the impression that the swath it made across the page would not have been erasable regardless of the instrument.

Dad flew into a rage and with the T-square already in hand he beat the boy with it.  It not only assured him of a failing grade in the class, but I believe a suspension.

It's hard to believe with all the scholastic accolades he earned in the Military and the Police, and how everyone remembers Dad as a great teacher; that he ever had such a hard time in school.  Maybe it was because he had such a hard time that he knew how to help others learn.

Happy Father's Day Dad

1966, First Christmas and first Christmas as a Dad

Happy Father's Day Dad.  I know this story is about me, but in a way it's also a story about you.

When I was still an infant Mom took me to the neighborhood grocery store.  It was on the corner of Kostner and Montrose.

Some woman stopped my Mom while she was walking around with me asleep in the cart .

"Well, I can only assume that you are Mrs. La Fleur, because I've never met you, but that baby sure is Bill La Fleur's.  There is no doubt about that."

Pope's Visit

I just got back from a trip to Boston.  While there I spotted a plaque that said the first mass ever celebrated by a Pope in the New World was on 1 Oct 79 when Pope John Paul II visited.  That reminded me of the La Fleur family's involvement with that trip.

The Holy Father arrived at O'Hare on Thursday night and drove from there downtown to Cardinal Cody's residence.  My grade school band had a space along Milwaukee Avenue.  One of the music teachers owned a store there and staked out the space for us.  When the Pope sped by in his limo we played "Sto Lat."

That reminds me of a joke.  The Pope was riding along in his limo and at one stop he approached the driver.

"It's been years since I've been allowed to drive, but in my youth I used to be quite a good driver.  Would you mind if I drove for a while?"

Of course the diver agreed and he slid into the back while His Eminence got behind the wheel and adjusted the mirrors.

A few miles down the road a police officer stopped the vehicle for speeding.  When he pulled them over and got the driver's identification he was so astonished that he went back to his patrol car and radioed back to headquarters, "You will never guess who I just pulled over driving this limo!"

"Who, is it somebody important, somebody famous, a rock star, movie star, the President?"

"Well, I don't know how is in the back but he must be REALLY important; the Pope is his driver."

Back to Dad's story.

The next morning, 5 October 1979, Dad had been activated by the National Guard for the Papal Mass at Grant Park.  He was in a hospital unit and they wanted them on site to provide medical support if needed.

Dad and some other Guardsmen who were also police officers were sitting around in their tent on Sunday morning discussing what it would have been like for the police if Jesus Christ came back today and gave the Sermon on the Mount.

At some point someone said that the mass was supposed to have started and they wondered if it was running late.  They had had the flaps of the tent down and hadn't seen or heard anyone.

They opened the flaps of the tent and found more than 200,000 people had filed into the park as if it were a church.  They hadn't heard a pin drop.  It was the largest mass ever held in Chicago and the only Papal Mass and Dad was there.

Swimming for Lane

My mom had a box of stuff she found in the house and she had us go through it on Easter. I found a few things that sparked ideas about stories.

I'm going to start with the swim card I found. It reminds me of when Dad was on the swim team in High School.

Dad attended Lane Technical High School and at the time it was an all-boy school. Because the school was all boy the swim team did not have suits, they swam in the nude. I guess the idea was that they would be faster.

One time they were at an away meet and the Lane swim team was gathered in their locker room (clearly not the dressing room) and got a rousing pep talk from the coaches. The captains got them further fired and led them to the locker room door full of, well let's just say pep.

They all lined up; cheering and chanting they made ready to burst into the pool room. The captains opened the door and ran out, followed by everyone else.

The trouble was that this school they were swimming against was large and rich enough to have bleachers looking on the pool. The bleachers were full of parents and siblings, some of them even sisters, and maybe a few grandmothers to boot.

The captains stopped dead in their tracks and tried to back pedal. The rest of the team pressed forward, unaware of the problem, but ready to beat the world.

The result was a dogpile of naked teen boys just inside the locker room door.

They had to quickly find suits or they would forfeit the meet. They did, but the suits were from a grade school or something because they were all too small. They did win the meet I think because they wanted to get out of those small suits as soon as possible.

A Second Aniversary

I hesitate to say "Happy" Aniversary, but I do wish it to all of you reading.

We had a Papa dinner tonight.  I suggested everyone put sugar on their pizza, but we settled for roast beef pizza instead.  We had Pepsi (I couldn't find any RC or moon pies) and after we went on a DQ run.  I had a Heath Blizzard.

Tomorrow for breakfast we are going to dip graham crackers buttered with bacon into our coffee.  Then we'll put corn into our omletes.

I wish I had a cigar.