The Law Student

My dad was born on the southside of Chicago, right before the great depression. He was raised by, what I was taught was, the typical southside family: Irish in heritage, Catholic in religion and Democrat in politics. His family was the true definition of the working poor. Grandma toiled in the apartment raising her four children and Grandpa worked on the Northwestern railroad in maintenance. He was a union man. He was also a hulk of a man, who drank as much whiskey as he could get away with and still avoid the wrath of my Grandma.Growing up on the southside of Chicago meant you were a White Sox fan. Comiskey Park, as it was known before naming rights were traded like baseball cards, was just a trolley ride away. For a dollar, you could get a ticket to the game and a box of Cracker Jack's. My dad was a regular but he rarely, if ever, paid. He always found a way to sneak in with an unsuspecting family or out of the gaze of an occupied ticket-taker. In 1938, they moved to the northern suburbs of Chicago so the kids could have a suburban education away from the Big city. Grandpa bought a house for the family for $5000 and almost immediately sold it as he could not stand the weight of the crushing debt. They spent the rest of their years renting an apartment in a 4-story walk-up. It suited them just fine. When my dad graduated from high school, he went to Notre Dame and roomed with his best friend, Bill. He never finished college but Bill did. Bill became the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Later, he became a federal judge and finished his career as chief of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. Bill was the real deal. He used to tell me that my father would have been a remarkable lawyer. Yet, it was not to be. The regret my dad felt about not being more than he was, would never happen to me. No, sir. I was going to be that lawyer he never became.