OPINION|
It was a cold winter day and I was 11 or 12 years old. I lived in Melrose Park, Illinois, which was an Italian, Roman Catholic neighborhood where men played bocce ball in the gravel alleys of white stones.
I was neither Italian nor Roman Catholic.
Most of my friends went to nearby Our Lady of Mt. Carmel school, but I walked six blocks to the public school, which was more racially mixed with Hispanic and Black kids.
I’m thinking it was a Sunday, in the late-afternoon dark of winter. It was time to head home for dinner.
I was with Mike, a childhood friend who lived a few houses up the street on the other side of the alley.
I’m guessing I was the one who suggested we switch winter coats, ski masks and gloves and return to each other’s homes to see if we could fool our parents. It sounds like something I’d do.
Mike was a year younger than me. But I was small for my age. On the basketball court, the kids called me “Little Big Steve.”
My parents never talked to me like that
I walked down the alley wearing Mike’s coat, gloves and ski mask. The white stones held a lingering light.
I went through the back yard gate to the back door of his house. I don’t believe in all the years I knew Mike I ever went to the front door.
I was nervous. Just maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
I got to the door and I was about to knock, but realized I shouldn’t. Mike would not have knocked to enter his own home.
The room was dark, except for the glow of a small television. I remember the smell of dinner cooking. Someone was reclined on a chair or sofa.
I walked in. A stern male adult voice said: “Where the hell you been? Get your ass in here.”
My parents never talked to me like that.
It was a revelation that Mike’s parents did. It had never occurred to me that what I experienced at home could be different from what other kids experienced at home.
I did not speak. It seemed that revealing who I was would have made this worse.
Clearly, the ruse of fooling our parents was not a good idea. I left.
The odd thing about this memory is that I don’t know what happened when Mike went to my house. I don’t know if my parents immediately knew he was an impostor.
If I were writing fiction I’d tell you what happened when Mike went to my house, something that would surprise you, something that would make this a far better story. But I’m not writing fiction.
It’s a cruelty of sins of commission and omission
After 50-some years as a reporter I’ve covered trials and read probable cause statements that detail the unconscionable harm parents can inflict on their children. It’s a cruelty of sins of commission and omission.
At night when I drive by homes with the lights on, I imagine homes like the one I grew up in. We were far from wealthy. One summer when I was home from college, I glimpsed at my father’s paycheck and realized I was making more than him.
Yet, how was it that I lacked for nothing?
It was a home where I never doubted that I was loved and wanted.
But I’ve learned over my life that’s my personal bias; it’s my default view of growing up. But it’s not true for everyone.
I realize there are far worse things than the words — “Where the hell you been? Get your ass in here.”
I have no reason to believe Mike had a terrible childhood. I have not seen him in some 60 years. In writing this I went online and used a database to discover that a man with the same name, 71 years old — one year younger than I — lives at the very same address in Melrose Park.
On Google Street View, there’s a banner on that house with a Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Shrine on it.
Through Google Street View, I traced my childhood walk to Melrose Park Elementary School. A newer, bigger version of the school stands.
But only a few Italian businesses remain; the rest are Hispanic. The messages on the school’s exterior sign are in Spanish.
Melrose Park is just outside Chicago, where I was born. On a clear day, from Melrose Park you can see the skyscrapers of the city.
I lived in Melrose Park ages 3 through 13. The house we rented was knocked down and replaced by an apartment building decades ago.
I thank God for the priceless gift of loving parents, who are long gone. It does me good to tell them I love them even though they don’t hear me.
And I pray for the wisdom to understand lives unlike my own — one where you don’t grow up in the nourishing light of parental love.
This is Pokin Around column No. 294.
link