Ten Years From Today.

Ten-year-old twin boys on their tenth birthday;

“Father, tell us again the story of how we were named.”

Cubs-fan Dad:

“Well sure, sons. Nine months before your birthday, the Cubs won the World Series. And like many people, your mother and I were so happy, we celebrated because we love the Cubs and we love each other. 

"So, nine months later, many babies were also born on or around your birthday, like your friends Wrigley, Addison, Maddon, Hayward, Bryant and Rizzo.

"Why do ask, Old Style and Mets Suck?” 


****

In the Chicago Cubs’ 7-2 win over crosstown rivals, White Sox, Javier Baez struck out five times swinging. Optimistic Cubs fans applauded Baez’s noble attempts to combat global warming. 

Four strikeouts is called a golden sombrero. Five strikeouts? That's called a Phillies hat. 

****
It is the one-year anniversary of Starbucks allowing their baristas to wear fedoras. So now they have a job title and a hat they cannot spell. 

****
There is a baby boom in Chicago because the Cubs won the World Series nine months ago. Ironically this is normally the time of year when Cubs fans are screwed.

****
This week, President Trump spoke to the Boy Scout Jamboree. As a result, all 40,000 Boy Scouts got their Covfefe merit badges.

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Rumor is Justin Bieber canceled his remaining 14 tour dates to rededicate his life to Jesus Christ. “Yeah, that’s it, Jesus Christ,” said Satan laughing with delight. 


Since you asked:

Almost forgot how much I hate listening to Hawk Harrelson who announced the Sox-Cubs game yesterday. He is the anti-Harry Carey: A grumpy old cornball. No lie, I can feel my blood pressure spike every time a Cub strikes out and he spews "He gone."

But what makes enduring Harrelson's hackneyed pontificating egomania bearable is the badly hidden rage he feels when the Cubs beat the misspelled Sox. It almost makes listening to the cranky coot worthwhile.  

Almost.

Got a big ol' fern plant in my office and my comedy writing is taking a hit. Everything starts with;

"Something told me that dame was trouble the second she came into my office. Her legs went from here to there and back again, see?" 



Have told the story about how we knew our house in Winnetka was inhabited by nee Roy Fitzgerald, Rock Hudson and his mother, nee Katherine Wood, also renamed Fitzgerald for her second husband. By all accounts, two nicer people than Rock and his mom, Katherine, never existed. 

One day my parents were home watching a documentary on Rock Hudson and he came back to Winnetka to reminisce and walked up to our house and rang the doorbell to get a tour. Sadly, nobody was home.

So I just heard a story that took place about two blocks south of the “Home Alone” house in my beloved Winnetka on Lincoln Street. Home of my good friends, Jeff Lipe, Charles Packer and others. 

On Facebook, a former resident of the house closest to the “business district” on Lincoln said the house was unusual as it had many small hotel-like rooms upstairs and a huge living room downstairs. In the backyard,  they were constantly digging up old buried booze bottles. 

Turns out the house was the go-to brothel for the soldiers serving at nearby-North Great Lakes Naval Station and Fort Sheridan. It was close to the train station and soldiers and sailors were seen visiting for an hour or two and then taking the train back North. 


The brothel was demolished in the early sixties and turned into a one-story medical building where my orthodontist, Dr. Bill Ford, resided. 

When Winnetka people, like my parents, were done paying for their brat’s braces, more people got screwed on that spot by Ford than when it was a whore house.

Winnetka could qualify was one of the snootiest towns in history. The famous song, "Big Noise From Winnetka," was about a difficult socialite mom who hired the band. The town has been dry since prohibition. In Winnetka, if you slice your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches diagonally you're considered "fancy."

Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I am fascinated by the fact that my beloved hometown, this idyllic and image obsessed Chicago suburb Winnetka, in the late Fifties, had a brothel on one side of town, and on the lake, an ex-resort turned mental hospital that rivaled anything in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.” 

And that hospital probably had an escaped patient that slaughtered a senator’s daughter, Valerie Percy, in a Manson-like fashion in 1966. (Never ruled out it was an escaped patient from the just up-the-beach hospital. The step-mother described being passed in the hall by a man in a checkered shirt, easily mistaken in the dark pre-dawn for the striped shirts to identify violent patients at the hospital)

This tragedy was nobody's fault but the uncaught murderer. But it seemed so much worse being committed on such a seemingly perfect family in such a seemingly perfect community. 

Proving once again, there is no more costly error than putting on airs. 

Renamed North Shore Hospital