My dad was a Chicago police officer and worked as a Patrolman his entire career. He spent a lot of time walking a beat. At times he worked three jobs to make ends meet, but most of the time, he held two jobs that were very much alike; one with the City of Chicago Police and a second with the University of Chicago Police. He came from a tough neighborhood and was the oldest in a large Irish Catholic family. He was the boxing champion of his parish where Friday night fights were held in the school parking lot pitting the toughest kid from one parish against the toughest kid from another.
Early in his police career, he worked nights walking a beat on the South Side of Chicago. He was extremely honest and his refusal to back down when performing his duties occasionally got him into trouble. One of his duties was to make sure the bars closed down on time. If the bar, or “tavern” as he like to say, was open after hours, he would go inside and with his “billy club” he would pound on the bar and announce: “Attention, attention please. This bar must close, you must leave now.” On some occasions, a politician or a high-ranking Police Officer might be enjoying a bit of libation when my father made the announcement. Sometimes when a “big shot” was present, that luminary would try to impress his friends and order my father to leave the bar open. When this happened, my father would take his club and pound on the bar again and announce: “Attention, attention please. This bar must close and everyone must leave immediately.”
My mother had told us that this kind of attitude did not ingratiate my father with his superiors, which is one of the reasons why he was a patrol officer for over 30 years. Those who knew my father would also tell you that although he was stubborn and strong on principle, he was also very kind and warm. He was perhaps the prototypical broad-shouldered friendly Irish cop who made all kinds of friends on his beat. His closest friends called him “husk,” short for husky, because his shoulders were practically as broad as his 5’10” frame.
After a full shift on the Chicago Police Department, he would walk a beat for the University up and down the streets around the “midway,” the large boulevard that had become famous as the location for countless carnival attractions during the Columbian Exhibition of 1893. The neighborhood along this parkway could be dangerous during the fifties and sixties when my father worked for the University. Residents in the area who would take walks in the evening were often happy to see my dad and other police officers like him on the beat. My dad whose reading taste were limited almost entirely to the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Daily News, was good company for a few of the University Professors who would take a break from their mind-numbing research to get a little exercise.
The professors did not talk to my dad about the theoretical, but he was one of those people who was interested in anything that was going on in your life that you may want to discuss. He could put anyone at ease in seconds and you always felt like your conversations were somehow steered towards those things that mattered in life. He was not judgmental and saw the best in people. It was always comforting to talk to him and in his older days, several people started to call him “Father” John.
My mother was a perfect foil to my father. She was born in Scotland of Irish parents who had emigrated for work. Her mother died when she was born and her father, a Scottish soldier, died of TB when she was barely school age. After a short stay at a Catholic boarding school, she journeyed overseas to the United States with her two older sisters who wanted to settle around an older brother who had emigrated several years before. The sisters became terribly homesick shortly after they arrived and they left to go back to Scotland without her. Mother stayed to be raised by her older brother who had a deep affection for “wee Margaret.” Her brother had been educated in Scotland and was an engineer who was holding onto work during the depression when his little sister arrived. My mother grew up to be well read, and somewhat refined. She was a voracious reader and played tennis and bridge. While she may have listened to big band music outside her home as a teenager, her brother insisted on a diet of opera and the classical music at home. When she decided at 18 to marry a big hulking Irishman whom everyone called Husk, her brother was bitterly disappointed. Husk had no prospects for a professional career and my mother’s brother wanted more for her than the life or a cop’s wife.
My father’s mother was also upset when her plans to match my father with the daughter of her best friend, were crushed by my father who was smitten with the skinny kid from Clydebank, Scotland.
Love can be messy and messy it was for the Norris family. My father was outgoing with deep religious convictions. He was worldly, but pious. My mother was questioning and opinionated –even cynical at times. Raising a large family on a meager income took its toll on my mother. She became more and more introverted and when she reached 40 years-old or so, she found it next to impossible to sit in the crowded “baby boom” masses of 60’s and she had difficulty just leaving the house at times.
I remember attending mass with Dad when I was very young and hearing him whispering the Latin prayers. I would mumble sounds that I thought sounded liked the prayers: “sisasisasisasissisa.” When Mom attended, we would stand at the back as close to a door as possible. Only years later did we find out that there were names for some of the maladies that she suffered from. Today, at 87 years old, she still sits by the end of the pew in the back. However, she has been able to attend hundreds of crowded events as her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren make their way through life. She was also able to recover much of her outgoing ways as she grew older.
My father was always looking outward at the world around him. Rarely did he dwell on his own problems when he was outside our house. He taught us to say a Hail Mary when we heard an ambulance, when we passed the cemetery or when we heard of any suffering on the radio or TV. Although he rarely had “two nickels to rub together” himself, he was always giving a dollar here or dollar there to those who looked like, as he said, “they needed a good cup of coffee.”
Often my father had no car, but when he did own one, he was always looking for someone who needed a ride. If he saw a nun standing at a street corner, he would often pull over, show his police badge and ask her if she needed a ride somewhere. Often, I would start out riding shotgun on a short errand with my father and end up squeezed in the middle of the front seat between my dad and a good Sister on a journey that took us many miles out of our way. When he drove to work, he would often take others who were headed in the same direction. He was always picking someone up or dropping someone off.
My parents had little. For a large part of my mother’s married life, she had fewer possessions and clothes than the day she got married. Appliances might go broken for months and she often had shabby clothes. My mother was very patient with my father, but occasionally, his giving ways would upset her especially when she thought he was overdoing it at our expense. She was also patient when he would invite people whom most would have called misfits over to the house on a moment’s notice. My father kept in touch with some of his early friends from the old neighborhood who had never married and had no immediate family. My father would pull out a couple lawn chairs in the backyard, sit, and talk for hours to these lonely old friends.
There was much love between my parents, but they did fight and at times, frustration came out. We all remember the night my Mother said she was leaving and slammed the front door as my father stewed in a chair in our living room. After a few minutes, my father announced he was going out after my mother. The “Hail Mary’s” and tears flowed for a very tense 20 minutes as we sat and wondered whether we would ever see our mother again. Much to our relief, we heard some talking out in front and looked out to see my father and mother arm-in-arm sitting on the bottom stair in front of our house.
Their marriage was one that like many saw countless bills, endless worries, challenging illnesses—along with more mundane things like a constant parade of sticky floors from spilled Kool-Aid, worn-out furniture, leaky roofs, threadbare carpets and junky cars. Problems aplenty, my parents looked out for each other fiercely and loved each other completely. None would dare to criticize my father for fear of experiencing the wrath of my mother. None would criticize my mother in front of my father.
Love is messy. My parents had a scruffy rough and tumble kind of marriage perhaps like many had of what we now have come to call the “greatest generation.” No doubt like all of us, when they were very young they had their dreams and then lived a life that was very different from their early musings.
My Dad was practically tone deaf, but there was one old song that always seemed to stir him as it was performed by countless singers on TV. It is a very old song called Tea for Two that debuted in 1925 when he was just a pup and it was featured in No No Nannette the musical. The music was written by Vincent Youmans with lyrics by Irving Caesar. In the song, a couple dreams of having a place of their own, spending time together and raising a family. While life and love can be messy, this simple sentiment still resonates today.
Picture you upon my knee, just tea for two and two for tea,
Just me for you and you for me, alone!
Nobody near us, to see us or hear us,
No friends or relations on weekend vacations,
We won't have it known, dear, that we have a telephone, dear.
Day will break and you'll awake and start to bake
A sugar cake for me to take for all the boys to see.
We will raise a family, a boy for you, a girl for me,
Oh, can't you see how happy life would be?
Life seldom plays out like our dreams, but then it would not be life if it was so scripted. When my father was in his late sixties and sickly, he told me that his one regret was spending too much time worrying. He said, “if only I would have known I would have lived this long I would have worried less. “ One way or another my father prayed through life. He was fond of saying “God help us” with total humility and “keep the faith” with compassion. The night before my father died in his sleep, he called me on the phone. We had a wonderful conversation. He was feeling blessed that night and he shared the joy with me. He told me that he was so very thankful for having my mother as his wife and how blessed he was for it.
My mother has outlived my father by over a quarter of a century and she has proved repeatedly that people can get better with age. She has selflessly helped her children through numerous illnesses, pregnancies, divorces, deaths and all manner of smaller troubles and tragedies. She has always been there for us even as we grow old ourselves. Regardless of how messy things got with my parents, we were able to see one very special couple who heeded Saint Paul’s advice and “fought the good fight.”
Copyright 2009, Lawrence M. Norris
