Vienna Againa

Scraping ice off the windshield of my rental car, driving in torrential rains, cold, snow flurries all in less than 24 hours. Ah, Chicago weather! Drove out to Lake County to see Oakner and few old friends from St. George days. Oakner was there and Head, and Steve.  Now we're pasty old men, but from age 14 to 16 we ran around Chicago's Roger's Park engaging in various fun projects. Head could imitate his father's gruff Hungarian accent and was able to order booze from the liquor store at will. The delivery man was in on the score, and accepted very large tips for keeping teenagers awash in quart bottles of Old Style and half-pints. (As a freshman, Head told me about the set-up. I didn't believe him. It seemed too impossibly good. But sometimes there is a Santa Claus. In fact, on Thursdays, Head would roam the halls of St. George taking drink orders for the weekend.)

Head reminded me of the time Oakner and I arrived at his house to find bullet holes in the front porch. The police had been there and shot Head's dog after she'd gotten out of the yard and snarled at a passing woman. (These particular Chicago cops were neither subtle nor especially keen marksmen.) Head was broken up. Oakner and I were too, since he couldn't go drinking.

Our late friend Rocco was mentioned often. Rocco's basement was the first we ever saw with surround-sound stereo speakers, rigged up from scratch. (Rocco went on to work as an electrician.) Rocco had a facility for improvisational mayhem and probably would've excelled as a political dirty trickster or internet hacker. One dawn after we had spent the night washing down Dexedrine with Bud tall boys, we were walking along Clark Street when Rocco opened the base of a stop light, hit something inside and left the light stuck on red. I didn't even know you could open stop lights.

We did many dumb, violent, laughable things together. And it doesn't seem that long ago, yet it was. Two generations. In 1969, St. George closed at the end of our sophomore year. We were no longer classmates, scattering to different high schools. I lived in suburban Skokie and ended up at Notre Dame in Niles, even further away from Roger's Park. Into the service and back to town, then out to California; there would always be time to hook up again. Luckily, Oakner realized years were zipping past faster than telephone poles seen from a speeding car. Thanks to the web, we're back in touch, Facebook classmates with no more tests or curfews. We can stay out as late as we want . . . we just don't anymore. 1969: Rocco in the chair. Oakner in center frame and myself to the right.
2009: Head, Steve, Oakner and myself.
(Photos: Oakner)