A Wonderful Gift

This column was first published here on December 22, 2010.
Edited versions were subsequently published,with permission of the author,
in print and online editions of community newspapers across Chicago.

As promised last week, I have left the People’s Republic of Christmas and will offer a few observations about my Christmases.

Here are a few of my memories. I recall my mom taking me and my sisters to Talman Savings & Loan’s headquarters at 55th and Kedzie to visit Santa Claus and share our Christmas lists with him.

To an adult, the Talman building projected everything that Talman founder Ben F. Bohac wanted: strength, stability, modern efficiency.

To a child, Talman projected one thing: big.

So it was a little intimidating walking in there---from the parking lot at the south end of the building to the north end where Santa was enthroned was almost a full block. In a way, it was like the long walk to see the Wizard of Oz.

But in the end, the Talman staff were always very warm and friendly to the kids; and as I recall, they gave us treats and probably those little “junior saver” booklets that encouraged us to save our dimes.

And the Talman Santa and elves were doubtless every bit as good as their counterparts at Marshall Field’s.

My husband recalls his boyhood visits to Santa---sometimes at the Sears at 62nd and Western, sometimes at Ford City after the cool new shopping center opened in 1964.

Christmas, when I was growing up, came in two segments, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, both equally important. Christmas Eve was when my mother’s side of the family gathered at one of three homes; hers, or her older or younger brother’s. There was quite a crowd, My grandparents, my parents, the aunts and uncles and all the kids, 14 cousins. We were very quite close in age and vocal enough to make the noise in a stadium seem like a quiet murmur. The highlight of the evening was the sleigh bells ringing (my uncle always seemed to remember to bring bells every Christmas Eve) and then the deep “Ho! Ho! Ho!” The children would always return the greeting with unbridled excitement in their voices and bodies, “Santa!” The gifts would be given out, Santa’s voice booming above the noise created by so many. The ripping of paper and laughter of children and their parents rang out. After everyone received a gift, Santa would depart, warning the children to be good and that he would see them again next year. The children would still be excited, but the end of the evening would be coming soon because most of us headed out to Midnight Mass.

It isn’t the presents-I mean socks aren’t really that exciting-that has us continuing this tradition to this very day, except on the Saturday before Christmas Eve, but the gift of being together. The noise can still leave a ringing in your ears.

Those original children, my cousins, sisters and me, now have children who add to the celebration-and confusion.

Christmas Day usually dawned early. At least one of my sisters would rise early and wake the rest of us. I remember tiptoeing into the front room one year. The lights on the tree illuminated darkened living room. Daylight was a whisper away and I stared awestruck at all the presents under the tree. The parents would eventually get up, coffee would be made and the unwrapping frenzy began. Think “A Christmas Story” times six.

After the cleanup, along with the accompanying whining, everyone had to get dressed, the youngest with mom’s help. (I’m not sure how Mom found time to get dressed.) We were heading off to my dad’s side of the family, specifically to see my grandmother.

At one point my grandmother lived above her mom-and-pop store in Canaryville. It was the coolest place in the world to me because Gram had a candy counter that featured so many different types of penny candy. It was a child’s dream come true.

On Christmas evening we would eat and then, before dessert, the presents! No Santa, but we knew he was resting up in the North Pole after exhausting Christmas Eve. I remember thinking Grandma might have had a small place, but it had the promise of more treats downstairs!

Finally, after the adults got their fill of conversation, we would head home. Sometimes I dozed off, listening, their words not really registering, just a comforting hum in the background. Family, food and living the true meaning of Christmas. It’s a wonderful gift.

See you next week...

Joan Hadac is a Chicago news/feature reporter, editor and columnist.
Read her online at www.citymomchicago.blogspot.com

The People's Republic of Christmas

This column was first published here on December 15, 2010.
Edited versions were subsequently published,with permission of the author,
in print and online editions of community newspapers across Chicago.

I wanted to write a warm and fuzzy Christmas column this week, but I got side tracked.

Let me explain.

The other day I was picking up a prescription at a familiar pharmacy. (Remember when we called them drug stores?) I was in a Christmassy mood, so I took a detour to browse through the “seasonal” section. (Too bad that “Christmas” has become a dirty word to so many retailers.)

I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. More than anything, I was looking for a few touchstones from my youth to give me a smile and make me feel warm inside. (Watching my VHS copy of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” always does that to me.)

I was seeking comfort and the familiarity of an old-fashioned American Christmas, or at least the kind I recall from my youth.

Instead, I found myself in the People’s Republic of Christmas.

Just about every item I looked at, it seemed, had three words in common: Made in China.

Let me say at the outset that I have nothing against the Chinese people. In fact, I have a very dear niece who is ethnically Chinese. And Chicago is the great world-class city it is, in part thanks to the Chinese who live here.

But I do have a problem with (and I hope you do, too) the huge amount of goods that used to be made here that are no longer. That are now made in China and elsewhere. Hey, I’m glad they have jobs----but not if it means Americans lose ours.

Up and down the “seasonal” aisles I browsed. Trinkets made in China. Candy made in China. Wrigley’s chewing gum Christmas tin made in China. Charlie Brown and Snoopy figurines made in China. Even Mickey Mouse.

At this store, you couldn’t even cloak yourself in an American Christmas. The Santa suit in a bag? Made in---you guessed it.

Seems like everyone has bolted the USA. Pepperidge Farm now bakes some of its treats in Indonesia. (Remember their TV commercials in the 1970s in which they boasted about their American goodness, and the on-screen pitchman’s Yankee pronunciation---Pep-ridge Faahhm?)

Same with Royal Dansk cookies. Forget Denmark. Jakarta is where it’s at.

So I recoiled from Chinese Charlie Brown, the Mandarin Mickey Mouse, the Shanghai Snoopy---and I fled to the last bastion of Christmas, the Lord Jesus.

Too late, sad to say. Nativity-themed Christmas cards, trinkets, everything with Jesus, Mary and/or Joseph was made in China.

And given China’s ongoing persecution of Christians (most notably Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants---everything from everyday discrimination to imprisonment and torture), images of Jesus from the People’s Republic of China are a bitter irony.

My head started spinning, so I headed for the ladies room to compose myself. I washed my hands, threw a little water on my face and turned on the automatic dryer. A large label on the dryer said, “Made in China for the Dayton Electric Manufacturing Co., Niles, Illinois.”

That did it. I headed over to the “pain reliever” aisle to buy some aspirin. They’re not made in China. Yet.

Next week, a truly heart-warming Christmas column. I promise. Written in the USA...

Joan Hadac is a Chicago news/feature reporter, editor and columnist.

Read her online at www.citymomchicago.blogspot.com

Kids and F-Bombs

This column was first published here on December 8, 2010.

Edited versions were subsequently published,with permission of the author,

in print and online editions of community newspapers across Chicago.

It used to be a bar of soap was the enemy; not of the clean body, but of the dirty mouth.

In decades past, swear words were not acceptable adult language; and if a child should utter one of George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television," he or she would know that punishment would follow—if an adult, particularly a parent, overheard. A swat to the backside was easier to tolerate than the dreaded bar of soap. If you were lucky it was a mild bar of Ivory; if not, it could be Lava.

Somewhere along the line, maybe when parents decided to be “buddies” with their children, washing your child’s mouth out with soap was deemed cruel and unusual punishment

To be quite honest, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Is it cruel? I don’t know because I don’t know if it does physical harm to a child. That’s unacceptable

So it seems now that the fear of punishment for using dirty words is gone, so is the restraint from refraining to do, by children!

A friend of mine---a teacher---recently went back to teaching very young children after being out of the classroom for a number of years. She told me she was surprised to hear the filth coming out of the mouths of young children in 2010.

It reminded me of something that occurred about a decade ago at St. Joseph School in Summit, when my daughters were students there.

One day a five-year-old boy opened his mouth and dropped an F-bomb in the kindergarten; and that single act sent shock waves throughout the school. Within a day, everyone knew about it and was discussing it in hushed tones. Teachers and parents alike were discussing how to handle the situation and deal with the little boy with the dirty mouth.

The incident was even discussed by the School Board after the principal announced the incident in a solemn tone.

I thought then and I still think that it speaks well of the school that there was such shock over the incident. It sent a good signal that such behavior is not tolerated, that children are held to appropriately high standards.

But a decade later, would there still be shock? I don’t know.

And what do we make of all this? Are today’s foul-mouthed children a weather vane of our times, pointing in the direction of ever-declining moral standards?

Or as my husband asks, is it something else? Is it that “f**k” is the new “heck”?

That’s his simplified, Southwest Side version of an observation put forth by many sociolinguists and others in academia: that language is every bit as alive as the people who use it---and that as it evolves along with its users, the meaning and strength of words change.

As he points out, words considered relatively mild or even tame in 2010: heck, creep, dork, and so forth---were a century ago Grade A curse words confined to the locker room and never, ever uttered in polite society or mixed company.

So are today’s little F-bombardiers a sign of weakening morality or nothing more than the normal evolution of language? Perhaps both.

But I still think there’s something to be said for a bar of soap.

Agreed?

See you next week…

Joan Hadac is a Chicago news/feature reporter, editor and columnist.
Read her online at www.citymomchicago.blogspot.com

Grow Up, Get Over It

This column was first published here on December 1, 2010.
Edited versions were subsequently published,with permission of the author,

in print and online editions of community newspapers across Chicago.

As a generally conservative Democrat (we used to be called Reagan Democrats), I was never a fan of President Bill Clinton.

Among other things, I disliked his administration’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy regarding gays in the military.

But not for the reasons you’d think.

I thought DADT was a tepid, cringing, toe-in-the-swimming-pool approach to human rights---which in a way was worse than ignoring the issue altogether.

If I were President, my policy on gays in the military would be called Grow Up, Get Over It.

Before I go any further, let me say at this point that I have never served in the military, so I am lacking in a firsthand perspective; but I am a citizen and a taxpayer whose dollars help fund the military, so like everyone I am entitled to my say.

I also hasten to add that I fully understand that the reason I have the liberty to express my opinion freely is due in large part to the sacrifices made over generations, over centuries, by the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces---a few of whom are my relatives, neighbors and friends.

So I have great respect and admiration for those who serve, particularly on the front lines, eyeball to eyeball with our enemies.

But I have a difficult time mustering admiration for back-office brass who go out of their way to deny basic civil rights to Americans who are gay or lesbian.

Their vague assertions about how having gays in the military will allegedly weaken combat readiness, I find ridiculous.

And to those active-duty military who make those assertions, I say: gay people have served in the U.S. military, honorably and with valor, from Bunker Hill to Baghdad. The only difference is they were not allowed to openly acknowledge their sexual orientation, as their straight counterparts were.

I have always thought it ironic that so many members of the U.S. military---soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who pride themselves on being the roughest, toughest, most resilient and resourceful fighting force in the world---get all squeamish and weak in the knees over the simple notion that an openly gay man may be sleeping two bunks over. If it weren’t so pathetic, it would be comical---like the fabled elephant that panics at the sight of a mouse.

Curious, too, that those members of the military who insists that gays be kept out are men. I do not see our women in uniform leading the charge on this one. I’d like to think that shows we’re a little more mature, perhaps a little stronger than the “stronger sex”---but draw your own conclusions.

Other countries allow gay and lesbian citizens to serve openly in their militaries. Twenty-two of the 26 NATO military forces do. Israel, which undoubtedly has some of the toughest, smartest and best trained soldiers in the world, does too.

It should also be said that the “combat readiness” argument used to keep openly gay people out of the U.S. military is very similar to the argument used to fight President Truman’s executive order to integrate the Armed Forces. A white soldier who has to sleep in the same barracks as a "colored" soldier will be demoralized and be less able to fight for his country, the reasoning went.

Of course, history proved that wrong. We all bleed the same color.

This week there was a glimmer of hope in a new Pentagon study on ending the ban on openly gay members of the military. It asserts, “We are convinced that the U.S. military can adjust and accommodate this change just as it has others in history.”

Translation: we can grow up and get over it.

We live in a world where people are increasingly at liberty to acknowledge their sexual orientation. Today there are openly gay cops, firefighters, doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers, news reporters, elected officials, clergy, mechanics, professional athletes, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers---heck, probably even Indian chiefs.

And so what? As long as people of all orientations conduct themselves with dignity and class, OK by me.

And you too, I hope.

See you next week….

Joan Hadac is a Chicago news/feature reporter, editor and columnist.
Read her online at www.citymomchicago.blogspot.com