Читать книгу Chicago Stories - Growing Up In the Windy City - Thomas Walsh - Страница 3

Tim was born at St. Joseph Hospital just off north Lake Shore Drive on a cold, snowy winter day in 1950. He was the fourth and last child born to Irish immigrants. His parents had met at the Holiday Ballroom, a popular meeting place frequented by north side Irish. Their families had immigrated to America in the 1920’s and 1930’s. They came in stages. A few came and settled, finding jobs and apartments. Others joined them as money and job opportunities permitted. Both families found jobs connected in one way or another with the City and its patronage driven political system dominated by Irish Catholics.

There was nothing remarkable about Tim’s birth except his size. He was eleven pounds at birth. His head was unusually large with a broad high forehead, a trait that came from his father’s side of the family. Maybe the extra-large head provided room for the grey matter that gave him an exceptional gift for memory. Tim had a remarkable ability to recall the past in vivid detail. It gave him a powerful edge in an elementary and high school system that placed heavy reliance on rote memorization for learning.

Childhood memories of growing up in Chicago were a favorite topic in Tim’s mind when he had time to day dream and let his thoughts wander. There was never a pattern to his trips down memory lane. Some were triggered by sights, sounds or smells. Others were merely the product of serendipity. Either way, as Tim grew older he found comfort in the journeys back to the Chicago of his boyhood. When he found the luxury of time to open the door in his mind to revisit his childhood friends, schools, neighborhoods and experiences, he smiled and let himself drift back to a simpler place and time.