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I've always been a city girl.
From the day I was born on Chicago's South Side, at St. Bernard Hospital at the very start of Labor Day Weekend, 19....
OK, let's skip the year, shall we?
A city girl on the day I came home to settle in with my mother, father and Irish-twin sister (she is only about 50 weeks older than I) in a second-floor apartment near 55th and Laflin, right above my maternal grandparents.
...on the day I was baptized at St. Basil Church at 55th and Wood ("on the Boulevard," as we used to say).
...through the years I grew up in a bungalow in the Gage Park neighborhood and attended St. Clare of Montefalco School and Lourdes High School.
...through the times as a Girl Scout at Camp Juniper Knoll in the Wisconsin woods, when all I wanted to do was escape from the biting gnats, crawling bugs, slithering snakes and get back to my bed in my room in my house in my city.
Yep, I'm a city girl.
I remember the tiny little grocery stores that used to dot city blocks. I remember when bowling alleys, movie theaters and taverns were everywhere. I know what it is to hear adults say, "Go play in the alley," and I know what a just-emptied 55-gallon drum sounds like when a Streets and San worker drops it on the pavement and rolls it back into place by the back gate.
I know what a Chicago precinct captain looks and sounds like. Our door was visited regularly by a precinct worker from the 14th Ward Regular Democratic Organization. That always gave my sisters and me a chuckle because this guy, who would talk to my mother as if they were old pals from the first grade, repeatedly addressed her as Mary.
Trouble is, everyone else on the planet called her Eileen.
OK, let's fast forward a bit.
I became a city mom in 1990, when I carried when my first child through nine months and two weeks of pregnancy, culminating in about 14 hours of labor and delivery in May of 1991.
(And to those several men over the years who have tried to correct me by pointing out that I didn't become a mom until my daughter was born, I say: if you think pregnancy doesn't count, YOU carry a baby for nine months and then we'll talk...)
Like many thousands of city moms and dads, my husband and I carefully considered public schools but wound up sending our two daughters to Catholic grade schools and high schools. And I'll address that in the months to come.
Yep, I'm a city mom. And very Chicago. An Irish girl who married a 
Bohemian. Who loves a cup of tea with warm soda bread and butter---but also deep dish pizza, a sweet strawberry kolacky or paczki, a good steak taco, chicken chop suey and some sweet potato pie. Just not all at once.
Who every now and then enjoys a tumbler of Bailey's, a sip of Guinness, and even on rare occasion "a wee bit of the creature," as Father Fitzgibbon said to Father O'Malley in "Going My Way."
Very Chicago. Like most Chicagoans, I have relatives and friends who are cops, firefighters, paramedics, and other city workers. Also nurses, teachers, lawyers, a judge, engineers, and much more. My dad was an assistant Cook County state's attorney, over four decades ago, when the mayor's middle initial was J.
And me? Well, in addition to being a city mom, I am a longtime journalist. A newspaper reporter and editor for nearly 25 years, in both city and suburbs. Covered everything from racial conflict to the local angles of the terrorist attacks of September 11, to the sweetest and most light-hearted features that would make the hardest heart soften and reaffirm faith in humanity.
So why the long hello?
Three reasons.
First, to introduce myself as we get to know each other in 2010, 2011 and beyond.
Second, to let you know that while I describe myself first as a city mom (because I am truly a city girl and because, as all good parents know, our lives are defined in great measure by our children), this is definitely not a "mom" column in the stereotypical sense. That is to say, I can and definitely will talk about everything---from the lighter side of parenting to political and social issues affecting all of us in the city we call home.
That's the "city" part of this City Mom column.
Third, to get all the potential "conflict of interest" stuff out of the way. We journalists have a way of fretting ourselves into knots over that issue. And that's nonsense. Really, as long as you play it straight and fair with people, you're going to be OK, no matter what your husband, sister, brother or uncle does for a living.
See you soon...
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