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Mark Wieting

Thanks, Bruce, and I hope everyone has a good day.

As to the "old people" comment: It seems like when you are a kid, you tend to tell other kids that you are "almost 11" when you're 10 and a half, "almost 13" at 12, etc.  In middle age it goes the other way: "Just over 40" [43], "mid-50s" [at 57]. Now I'm kinda going back to the kid version: "almost 80." Can it be true we are almost 80, or are we still in our mid-70s? Your thoughts?

I hope this holiday season is "almost perfect" for everyone!

Linda Louise Crissey (Cotten)

Just for the record, I have definitely been "pushing 80" since this last summer's birthday.  Have to give it some thought if someone actually wants to know how old I am.  (Like the Alzheimer traveler on the Danube cruise this fall.  "Hello.  How old are you?")

Bruce F. Burianek

After I died in surgery in 2000 I started the count over.  I am only 24 now.

William Gibson Heller

Bruce, I recently saw the movie After Death.  It is about experiences people had during death and their return from.  Did you have such an experience?

Bruce F. Burianek

I was  out for a  day and only remember see a bunch of white lights.  I later learned I fought with two of the nurses trying to put the tube down my throat while on the way to  ICU. I spent another 3 months in the hospital

Don Comfort

Hey All You Old Folks...a belated Happy Thanksgiving to one and all.  Ours was very different as we were in Italy.  Thanksgiving in Rome was very special, but no old friends or family...just new friends.  We had a wonderful trip and now its preparation time for Christmas.

Mark...I think I remember some comedian doing your lines about aging, but no less funny.

Love to all,

Don and Patti

William Gibson Heller

Don did you get to Naples or Pompeii?  I'm planning out a trip with my brother, Tom, with those destinations in mind.  Tips appreciated if you did.

Don Comfort

Hi Bill...We absolutely loved Italy and barely scratched the surface.  Came close to Naples but it was not on the tour, but did go to Pompei.  It is an unbelievable MUST SEE! Plan on at least a half day there or more.  There is no shortage of wonders in Pompei.  We started in Venice, then Florence, Assisi, Pisa, Rome and lastly Pompei.  While in Rome we went to the Vatican, several basillicas, the Forum, and much more.  Aside from the awfully long plane ride, it was a fantastic trip, and the countryside is beautiful!  Tell me more about your plans.

Don

Mark Wieting

While thinking today about how the Chicago Tribune has gone downhill in recent years (probably ever since my dad retired from the Trib....), the main thing I noticed was that late news didn't make the morning paper. No story on the Blackhawks or the Bulls game last night, no anything that happened after, say, 9 pm. Often I skip stories in the Trib that I've already heard covered on the 10 o'clock news on TV.

It got me thinking about "back in the day" when the Trib actually covered high school sports beyond the state championship tournaments. Today there is a page that recounts pro and major college box scores or game stats, but it is a shadow of its former self. In the 60s, many high school basketball games' box scores were there, even, sometimes, the sophomore teams' games. The fact that the Glenbard East sophomore team beat the Maine West soph team was not a world beater, but it was nice to be seen and recorded. One of the things we used to say on the bench was that if you got into a game late, when it was essentially over because you were winning or losing by a big score, it was good to commit a foul because thereby you'd "made it into the box score." Your line might read 0-0-1, (zero points, zero rebounds, one foul) but your name was in the list of players. Small victories are still victories.

One more thought on the media: I tend to watch the ABC Evening News with Handsome David Muir. It amazes me that of the 23(?) minutes they have in the 30-minute program (the rest is commercials) they spend 3-4 minutes telling us what is on the program that night (at the beginning) and what's up next (prior to commercial breaks). And then there is the New York City focus--on a national news program they tell us about a crane that collapsed in Manhattan but no one was hurt. Plus what are essentially promos for upcoming ABC programs--stories about how the reporter went to wherever to compile a special program on this or that. I think it's the same for NBC and CBS. I don't know about Fox. PBS is an alternative but it's not usually on my radar.

Sorry this is so long, but your thoughts, people?

William Gibson Heller

My brother lives in Columbus IN which is a fair sized town.  The local paper publishes just 2 days a week and is otherwise an online experience.  Here in Marion it is a Tues-Sat paper, but all AP stories, except for limited sports reporting...largely area high school and local colleges.  No box scores however.  The obits are the life blood of the press, and, of course, the legal notices.  But in Indiana the law was  recently changed and soon no longer necessary to print legal notices, online is sufficient.  Death knell.

Don Comfort

Much to my schigrin (SP), we still read the Lombardian.  Any additional commentary necessary?

Paul Lewellyn Chouinard

Local newspapers all around the country are either having a hard time, or going out of business.  I get my news from watching TV.  It gets recorded on a video recorder, so I can watch it whenever I want, and get to skip over the ads

Mark: Great picture of the Dairy Queen and moon.

Paul Lewellyn Chouinard

I posted this on Facebook 6 days ago:

Growing up in Lombard, IL, of course I was familiar with Lilac Park. So when I was watching 60 Minutes with a segment on the fighting in Kherson, Ukraine, I was amazed to find that Kherson also has a Lilac Park!

"The new Ukrainian soldiers fought against Russians in Kherson's Lilac Park on March 1, 2022."

Bruce F. Burianek

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR  TO ALL

Bruce

Mark Wieting

Five of us (plus three spouses) attended the celebration of Phil Scaccia's life. We learned that he was a trickster and introduced several of his nieces to the wonders of a magic lamp that he controled from across the room. He was also a gourmet chef and helped his friends broaden their interests in food. Carol Phetzing Walksler, who walked to Lincoln school with Phil so regularly that people thought they were brother and sister, said that Phil's family was known for great cooking and she learned a lot from Phil's mother. We also learned Phil preferred blue-cheese-stuffed olives in his martinis.

The event was sad in some ways, but a wonderful way to remember Phil.

In the accompanying photo, it's (from left) Mary Lou Schmidt Brunner, Bill Brunner, Patti Comfort, Don Comfort, me, Carol, and Eilah Beckman Scaccia (who married Phil's older brother, the late Mike Scaccia).

Don Comfort

I was so thankful that Carolyn had Phil's celebration. It was very fitting.  It was good to see my other classmates in attendance as well.

Don Comfort

Mark Wieting

I thought it might be interesting for all of us to share our thoughts about our first jobs. Here's mine:

My first job was as a paper boy. I delivered the Chicago Daily News and Chicago’s American in the afternoons after school on my bike. My route was in my neighborhood and I can’t remember if it took a relatively long time or was a half-hour job. In going through my mother’s effects after her death, I discovered a small envelope, 2 inches by 4 inches. In her handwriting was “First paycheck,” with my name on it, misspelled as Weiting. From 1953--I was eight. It was for $1.53—half pay for the route I did with a mentor “on the truck,” and full pay for a couple of rounds by myself. I have that pay envelope in a small frame in my office. Before the era of papers in plastic bags, we were delivered a stack of Daily Newses and Americans, and we had to fold them inside themselves to get them to fly to the targets—front porches. If we missed a house on the route, or threw the paper where it couldn’t be found (it happens) we got a demerit and a “complaint.” I remember getting a complaint because I threw the paper at the porch but it went under the porch and the customer had a dog in the yard that scared me. Better to get a complaint that to get bitten.

Mark Wieting

One more thing that has nothing to do with the "first job" thing above.

I've found Billy Smith! I had a few hours last week when I was in the Loop. I went to McCormick and Schmick's restaurant, where I knew Bill was a regular. In fact, two of my old friends, both of whom lived at Marina City, were regulars at the bar--and had, in fact, been awarded brass plaques with their names on the bar. I asked if anyone there knew Bill and they found an old timer who has worked there for many years. She knew Bill very well and told me he'd had an accident and was now living at the Illinois Veterans Home in Chicago. She kindly dialed him up and  I plan to visit him next week.

Don Comfort

My first job was at Steinbach Shoe Store at 4 S. Park Ave, just south of St. Charles Rd. in 1962-1963.  Frank taught me how to fit shoes on all ages of customers, and even left me in charge of his store, when he had to leave on other business.  I felt rich making a little over $100.00 per week. It was a great experience, with a great deal of responsibility.

William Gibson Heller

Like Mark, my first job was being a paperboy.  I spent several years doing it.  I had a morning (Trib and Suntimes) route of about 30 customers.  Rode across the NW railroad tracks from Maple St. where I lived and delivered down the hill past Otto's tavern (to Mrs. Ferguson the French teacher), cut left at the Crescent Rd. corner triangle then up St. Charles Rd. with a couple forays off it to some street with a small market and over to the street Bolton and Phebus lived on.  Then tangled with traffic on Rt 53 back to the Crescent Rd. bridge to Glen Ellyn. Then up hill to the street where Dale Hahn and later Armin Menzel lived and home again. All for the magnificent sum of 1 cent per paper (better than Mark's afternoon rate), and 3 Cents on Sundays when I had a far larger route.  One of the joys of an early route was reading the sports news before delivering it.  My "clients" mostly had newspaper tubes or I placed it in mailboxes. As I recall, we got paid in cash at the Lombard News office in a little tan envelope.  Dave Kaplan, I believe, was the owner of the operation.  Later, after giving up biking the papers I worked Sat. eve and early Sunday putting those bundles together for the carriers and stuffing the Sunday supplements with Parade magazine and ads.  Big job at Christmas.  Always stopped in the bakery on the corner by the News Agency to get fresh sugar twist donuts to fuel the body for the work.   The work paid off as I got a $500 scholarship for college from the Chicago Newspaper Association (or something close to that).  I recall that Jim Bullard and Jim Pruchia also got scholarships that way.

James Alan Bullard

I had route 1 and got my papers at the news agency. The perk with that route was the restaurant at Main and St. Charles gave me a glass of milk and sweet roll every Saturday for getting the paper delivered early. I ended up delivering bundles to homes and stores until I went to college.  On Sundays we started at 2 AM and almost never went home Saturday night and one time I worked in the Tuxedo.  We would pick up the then girlfriends early Sunday and all meet for breakfast. It became a 7 day a week job delivering the afternoon bundles to the delivery guys homes and stores.  I think the pay was $1.25 an hour, big bucks!

Mark Wieting

I'm a little late in posting this; the mini-mini reunion happened on June 25. As you can see, the guys who like to refer to themselves as the Salmon Croquettes met again, this time in Hammond, Indiana. Kind of a midway point for the five guys. Tom Marquardt had the longest drive--across three states, from Madison, Wisconsin. Bud Melto came from Michigan, Bill Heller from the other side of Indiana. Don Comfort and I drove from, of course, Illinois. Amazingly, we all showed up about the same time--in the parking lot of a Portillo's. 
Please note: several lady classmates had been invited but all had other options--like not becoming a Croquette. 
Anyway, it was great to spend a couple of hours catching up. 
The IDs, if you can't make us out, are, from left to right: Wieting, Marquardt, Melto, Comfort, and Heller. 

Don Comfort

A great looking group of amigos!

Linda Louise Crissey (Cotten)

Salut les Croquettes!  Can't imagine a better parking lot to have chosen for the rendez-vous.  And am very impressed that a) you fellas are apparently in some kind of regular contact with each other and b) are willing and able to travel thousands of miles (if you add it all up) to get together for Italian beef and conversation.  Good on ya'!

William Gibson Heller

I just saw something on TV with people talking about what they kept in their school lockers.  Since I can barely remember my high school years ( though I was good about my paper route from earlier years) I can't add anything to the topic except having one.  And as I tended to goody two shoes behavior (except when on an island in the DuPage river) whatever I had I doubt it was anything scandalous.  Anyone have any true confession to share about their locker??  Or formative events in the vicinity of your locker?