Puppy love, which can lead to a dog’s life, struck me in my early 20s when I became enchanted by a midwestern woman with whom I had much in common: we both thought she was great (but I suspect she loved herself more — than I loved her.)
Though the courtship ended, on mutual terms, with no yelping or growling, spending time with a big-city girl was educational, and it created a host of experiences which I likely would never have pursued on my own.
It was in 1962, when a weekly paycheck of $90 was enough to raise a family. Credit cards were unheard of, except for specific department stores such as Sears and Wards.
The thing that was expensive, even when you factor in 45 years of inflation, was food. And Carol liked to eat, not at White Castle in Chicago but at fancy restaurants in the Loop, where it cost a day’s pay to wine and dine.
On a trip to the Windy City, Christmas Eve, Carol suggested eating at the Carousel, a revolving restaurant atop the 44-story Morrison Hotel in downtown Chicago. I’d only heard of the prices: two dollars to get in and very little on the menu for less than 10 bucks.
As we entered the building, I tried to tone down her expensive tastes by saying I wasn’t really that hungry. “Oh, no problem,” she said, “by the time we walk to the top, you’ll be plenty hungry.”
And I was. Carol, extremely fit from skiing and playing tennis, got to the top w-a-y before I did. I vaguely remember her coming back down to rescue me. Even at a relatively light weight, I was in no mood to scale 44 floors, especially since the stairwell was next to some high-speed elevators which the Good Lord had provided for people like me.
The meal practically required a second mortgage. Next on the agenda was Midnight Mass at a huge cathedral downtown. Three things impressed me about the experience: Except for what was spoken or sung in Latin, every word was in Polish. Carol, of Polish and Bohemian extraction, understood enough of her grandparents’ language to tell me later that the sermon, among other things, had delved into the need to give more generously to the church.
The second impressive thing was the number of armed policemen walking alongside the ushers as they passed around the dozens of baskets. Carol said the year before someone in the congregation had tried to wrestle a coin basket away from an unsuspecting usher, and therefore, for services that attracted thousands, security was necessary.
The third thing that (unfavorably) impressed me was a confrontation taking place between two ladies of the evening who were quarreling and preparing for fisticuffs over location, which was everything. In a language all of us understood, one hooker told the other, “I was here first; go get your own —-ing corner.”
I must’ve been naive. Somehow I never imagined people would ply their trade in front of a church — on Christmas Eve.
During the remaining months I lived in the Chicago area, I was able to reach a less expensive agreement with Carol. We managed to attend Mass where it was celebrated in Italian, and another time, it was a mix between English and Castilian Spanish.
Because I had heard that there were areas in big cities in which one can walk for blocks and hear only German, for example, I naturally became curious. At the time, there were more people of German descent living in Chicago than in Frankfort, Germany.
On weekends when we had time, we searched out ethnic neighborhoods and were able to visit among Italians, Norwegians, Greeks, Chinese, Czechs, Puerto Ricans and Cubans, and possibly several more linguistic groups, but we didn’t always know what language was being spoken.
One visit was to a surprisingly small Lithuanian district, and for a moment, we imagined having lived in the stockyard section of Chicago, described by Upton Sinclair in his novel, “The Jungle.”
The trips were like walks through New York’s Spanish Harlem, or San Francisco’s Chinatown. Until then, we had never really spent time in a place where we heard not a single word of English. And yet, by their gestures, or by their carefully pointing, somehow they managed to communicate with us.
We learned that what Americans call pizza doesn’t taste the same in Italian Village, nor does the fare in Little Mejico remind us of what we order at La Kocina de Raphael in Las Vegas.
All of this linguistic, culinary and religious discourse is presented as a preliminary to a couple of columns I intend to write regarding 1) the resolution by the Senate declaring English the national language; 2) The new Spanish language national anthem; 3) President Bush’s plan to populate the U.S. border states with National Guardsmen and 4) my own feeling on how immigrants’ mastery of the English language is a plus but is not necessarily the only way to succeed.
Bush said our National Anthem should be sung in English. Similarly, in his address to the nation recently, he indicated that those who come across the border will need to learn English. We assume Bush himself plans to take some refresher courses.
Stay tuned.
I can’t wait to read what you have to say about English only and the anthem. I loved your last line on refresher courses.