Going back to the beginning...

1.

I don’t know if there was just one reason that made my parents want to move from the two-flat on Cortland Street. Thinking back, it was probably a combination of things. Cortland Street was in an active neighborhood with lots of kids and our “house,” as all kids called their buildings, was on a double lot on the corner where Cortland met Long Avenue - about 1900 north and 5400 west in Chicago, just inside the border of the Austin community of the city.

We moved there in the late summer of 1955 after a few years in the suburb of Elmhurst. Our family was actually returning to this part of the city. My parents started their marriage in a small apartment behind the restaurant/tavern/banquet hall that my grandparents ran just a couple miles north at Austin and Grand. They moved to Elmhurst before I was two and moved back before I was five. The property taxes were killing them and they simply couldn’t afford to stay in that cute little ranch home. No doubt my grandfather had a lot to do with finding the two-flat; it was near his own apartment building and with an extra flat to rent out for additional income, it was the answer to my parents’ financial straits. Still, I know my mother had loved that little house, her neighbors and living in the suburbs.

Maybe the white picket fence helped a bit. It was the only fence on the block and surrounded the Courtland property. During the early summer, blue irises grew along the walk up to the front door, which was painted a bright turquoise. Three white diamond shaped designs decorated the door, the top one with a glass insert which I could only look out of if I stood on the landing inside, next to the door of the first floor apartment. The brick of the building was dark brown and the very top, in the front, had a castle-like design that you didn’t really notice unless you were at least half a block away.

It was on the front walk, behind the fence, that I set up my first business endeavor: a petting zoo of stuffed animals in milk crates made to look like cages. I was perhaps six years old and collected anything in the house that vaguely resembled an animal, including my favorite stuffed monkey that my aunt and uncle had brought back from their honeymoon in Cuba.

“Mom, look, I made six cents!” I yelled as I ran up the stairs.

“Where did you get that?”

“From my zoo on the front walk. You have to pay a penny to see it.”

She looked out the window to see my handiwork. To her, collecting money for such a thing was pretty close to shaking down unsuspecting kids - not the best in neighborliness as far as she was concerned.

“Well, you can march right down the block and give everyone their money back. You don’t take money from people for something like that! What were you thinking??”

I would have willingly handed over every penny to her, and then some (if I had it) to avoid facing the six kids I had charged. The embarrassment of payback prevented me from ever setting up a KoolAid stand and, as anyone in my family will attest, I’m still pretty lousy at bargaining, haggling or any kind of retail. Still, I brought the pennies back, mumbling my reasons and quickly darting back down the street.