The Apartment
Back Home Again ( Part 14)
Back Home Again ( Part 14)
I recorded my story on
tape September 18th 1997
5929 Merrimac
I lived here from 1961
to 1963
My age was 15 to 17
Well, we’re
on our way to our new apartment and it’s east of here. If you get on Canfield
road and then get on the Kennedy expressway and head east. We’re going to get
off at Nagel and we’ll see how long it takes to get there..... Here’s Nagel
coming up. Here we go, getting off at Nagel ave. Now we’re going to take a left
on Nagel. I don’t know what to expect from this apartment because Mom hadn’t
let us see the apartment until the day we moved in. It’s an old apartment built
back in 1921. So it had old fixtures and everything else. My grandparents and
my uncle being in the building business, had it modernized inside with new
kitchen cabinets and carpeting and repainted it and everything. So it’s
supposed to look nice. So we’ll see. My grandparents and my uncle are the ones
that made the decision for my Mom to buy this apartment building. I don’t think
my Mom had too much to say about it. The apartment is close to my grandparents
and the real estate office. The apartment also pays for...if you live in it; it
pays for itself because you’re collecting rent. So that’s one of the reasons
they chose an apartment building. We’re coming up pretty soon here. Take a
right on Peterson ave. We’re on a side street now in the neighborhood. That’s
the park over there. There’s the grocery store, a little tiny Ma and Pa grocery
store. Here’s Merrimac. Take a right and here’s 5929 Merrimac. That’s where we
live.
The Apartment. We lived on the first floor
It’s a two
story apartment building with a garden apartment. So there’s three apartments
here. It looks old. So we go inside and Mom shows us around and she says, “You
really don’t like it do you?” And we said, “Yeah Ma, we like it. It’s nice.”
She says, “No you don’t, I can tell.” and she starts to cry. And of course I
don’t like it. I hate it with a passion. Because I was living in all those nice
houses my grandparents were building, you know, brand new houses and going from
that to an old apartment building. Man, my Dad’s gone, my neighborhood is gone,
my nice house is gone, all my friends are gone. So I’m really depressed at this
point. It’s got kind of a big living room and then you walk down the hall and
on the left hand side is a small dining room and the bedrooms are on the right
hand side, the master bedroom were my Mom is. Further down the hall is the bath
on the left hand side and then Jeanne’s room. And then you walk into the
kitchen towards the back and my bedroom, it’s the smallest of all the bedrooms.
And it’s a real tiny bedroom. It doesn’t even have a closet. So my grandparents
and my Mom have to go to Polk Brothers to buy one of those closets made out of
metal, you know and they stuck it in the corner. I had a double bed in the room
and that took up the whole bedroom, there was no place to walk around, geez. My
windows looked out into the back yard if you could call it that, take about
three steps and you’re across the yard. That’s how small it is. And you’re
looking at an old wooden garage back there. It’s a two car garage, a big
garage. One side is for the people upstairs and then we have the other side of
the garage. I really, really, really hate this house. Even today looking at it,
I hate it with a passion.
Well, it took us ten minutes to get here if
you’re in a car going down the expressway from my old house.
Mom’s sober
but you can tell she’s depressed, no kidding. You know with her getting
divorced and moving into this apartment, she didn’t like it any better than
anybody else did. I sure know how she feels. I didn’t at the time but I sure do
now.
This is a Polish neighborhood around here
which doesn’t bother me in the least, it’s just that’s what it is, that’s all.
We used to have these Elm trees that lined the street. All through the
neighborhood they had Elm trees. In the summer time it was like driving through
a tunnel any street you go down because these huge Elm trees on either side
would overlap each other. That was cool I have to say that. That was pretty.
Then came along the Dutch Elm disease and they cut every tree down. All of them
and everybody had Elm trees. Now they
grew other trees. Today the trees are big but you don’t get that tunnel effect
like you use to back then.
Well, I left all my friends at the other
neighborhood, so I don’t know what to do. I saw that there was a park on the
next block as we were pulling in. So I decided to go over there to see if I
could meet anybody. I remember I went over there in the evening one night. I’m
age 15 now and I’m a punk. I’ve got the hair hanging down over my forehead, you
know the pompadour now and the hair swept back and I’m smoking and I think I’m
really cool. I already flunked out of Notre Dame. I think I’m really cool. So I
go over to the other neighborhood and act like I’m tuff to see if I can find
anybody else over there that hangs around the park over there that night.
Nobody showed up. Boy, did I ever feel lonely. I remember sitting there that
night all by myself. God was that ever depressing. Eventually I went back to
the park a couple of more times and I met one guy who knew all the other guys
and eventually I met all the other guys in the neighborhood. I really don’t
remember their names to this day. I mean we had fun, I had fun with the guys
but I can’t remember their names. I guess my best friends were left back at the
old neighborhood.
Well somehow they get me enrolled in Taft
high school and that’s a public school. It’s not too far from here. I have to
walk to school. It takes me maybe 20 minutes to get there maybe 15 minutes. But
I really don’t care about school at all. They got me in there but I still don’t
care about school. I could care less if I ever went back. The only thing that
got me excited as far as school work goes....I always wanted to be a heart
specialist. I said that in my paper from when I graduated from eight grade and
at this point, I don’t think I’m smart enough because I already flunked out of
Notre Dame and I really think I’m dumb. Oh, we had a science class at Taft and
you had to come up with a project for a Science class. So I made a diagram of
the heart. I had a row of buttons on the....I had a heart on a board. I drew a
heart. Then I put a series of buttons on the bottom and when you press that
button, it would say like Aorta and you press that button and then it would
light up on the heart were the Aorta was. Like I’d pressed the button for the
left Ventricle and the left Ventricle would light up to show you were it was. I
got an A+ on that one. I really got excited about that. That was fun. I drew
the picture and came up with the idea but I didn’t know how to do the wiring
for the buttons. My uncle Andrew Gallager helped me with the work on it. He
built the buttons and everything. So, anyway that was neat. I liked that. But
otherwise school was really terrible and I would cut school all the time. I
would hang out at a restaurant on the corner of Nagel and Northwest Highway.
The restaurant is still there. I used to sit there while everybody was in
school. I just didn’t care.
My Mom really tried here, she really did. She
worked at my grandparents Real Estate office even though she really hated it.
She worked over there in the office. She didn’t get paid very much but they
were taking care of her. My grandparents had Tilly, she was a colored woman
that’s been in the family for years. She cleaned the Moreland’s house and
cleans the office. So my grandparents had her come over here to help Mom to do
the ironing and cleaning the house. My Mom was really trying. But it was
just...she was getting depressed. She never dated. She dated one time and we
had to talk her into that one. Then my grandparents I guess got her to go to a
hypnotherapist, I guess that’s what they call them, they would hypnotize her.
And Mom would come back from the hypnotist and we’d ask her all about it. “Mom,
did you get hypnotized? What did you do? And she would tell us. She even had an
album of that that this doctor put out on relaxation. I still have the album at
home. I saved it after all these years. But in the end the hypnotist just
didn’t work and she was getting more depressed.
Oh, I remember one time she heard this record
and it was called, “Don’t You Know” by Della Reese. I remember she liked this
record. We had this record player, this stereo. So Mom goes to Polk Brothers
right next door to the Real Estate office and she wants to go and see if she
can get the record. She hears the record on the radio. So she goes over to Polk
Brothers to see if they have the record. And she says to the salesman, “I want
a record, Don’t You Know.” And the salesman says, “I know I don’t know, what
record do you want? And my Mom says, “Don’t You Know.” It was like a comedy
routine. That was funny. She came back and told us like that and we were
laughing like crazy, Ohhh that was funny. That was one of the good ones. I like
memories like that, when Mom used to laugh. If you haven’t guessed it, I love
my Mom with an absolute passion. And that’s why I get so upset when she drinks
because it’s like two different people. I mean when she’s sober, she so alive
and vibrant and happy. Just like an angel. And then when she drinks and she’s
on these pills, she turns into a total different person. So depressed and
despondent and that’s what really, really gets me.
Oh, this is good. Now a cop lives across the
street. She just got in her car. I hope she doesn’t stop me..... There, she went
by. Boy, I just can’t get away from those cops, geez.
Well, since
my real good friends are back at my old neighborhood, I get on a bus here on
Nagel. I take it back to my old neighborhood. It drops me off just
about....pretty close to John’s house. So I go there all the time. I hop on the
bus. I wish I had a car but I’m still only fifteen so I got to take a bus. So I
go over there and we’re still working on the “50" Ford coupe, you know,
putting in the engine and everything. So that’s what I do most of the time. I
hang around with John. I go over there and get away from this neighborhood.
That’s where I spend most of my days. I don’t see too much of the other guys
because I have no way of getting there and I’d have to walk too far to get to
their house. So I just stayed at John’s and if the other guys happened to stop
by John’s garage, then we get together and we talk and goof around and stuff.
Otherwise I just see John a lot.
I don’t get to see my Dad very often. He
doesn’t call very often. Every once in a while. I remember one time he stopped
by in front of the apartment here. My Mom told him that she called the cops on
him. She really didn’t, not yet anyway. He was half bombed and causing trouble
I guess. But he got in the car before she really called the cops. But my Dad
does buy me my first car.
My dad at work selling Fords in 1960
He works at
Norwood Ford now as a salesman. And he buys me this “49" Chevrolet 4 door.
It was a dark green and I buy it for $25. That was a good deal because I only
had it two days. I turned around and sold it for $50 bucks. My Dad said, “Hey
Bill, You want to sell it, I got a customer.” So I said, “Sure.” I mean for
fifty bucks in two days, that’s pretty good. Then I’m thinking to myself, maybe
I ought to make a living at this, buy and sell cars. Make money off this. This
is a good deal. I had to wait for a while and then he came up with another car.
He found a 1950 Ford convertible. That was cool. That was one of my favorite
cars and I buy it for $25. I just saw one recently restored in the Volo auto
museum. They wanted $27,000 for it, Wow. Anyway, so that’s what I work on. Even
though I’m not sixteen yet, I’m still fifteen. I put the car in our side of the
garage and I work on that. It had a white primer on it and a black top. I said
to my Dad....I talked to him about getting it painted. It had a little dent on
it on the right hand side door and I wanted to get it painted so I ask my Dad,
“So go to Earl Shives, $29.95, get your car painted.” That was the advertisement.
So that’s what I did for $29.95. I had it painted. Since it was already white
premiered, I had it painted white with a black top. The thing is when they went
to paint my car, I thought they were going to fix my dent in the side of my
door but they didn’t. They just painted right over the dent. Ohhh god, Well
what do you expect I guess for $29.95. And even the paint along in the front of
the hood there by the window that took a couple of months to dry. It was still
tacky. I can’t believe it.
I thought I would go around to the back were
the garage is. Oh, you know this is just like going back in time. This
neighborhood doesn’t change. See what my garage looks like, I wonder.... they
repainted it. It’s not gray anymore. It looks a little better. Boy, the yard’s
just so small. There’s my room back there.
Well, I just stopped by the park here. It’s
called Rosedale Park. And I can see where I sat that first time in the park.
Right on the side of the building there were there’s a walkway. Partly down the
walkway, there’s a ledge and that’s where I sat that night, I remember.
The park hasn’t changed one bit.........Damn!
L to
R, Bill Moreland, Marie Pisors, Izora Moreland, James Moreland and Eleanor Kaufman
at a party held at the Howard Johnson’s restaurant and Motor Lodge
Well my grandparents stopped building houses
and they built a Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge and restaurant on the corner of
Cumberland and Higgins. That was quite a project. It’s still sitting there
today. We don’t own it anymore though (Since I did this tape back in 1997, the
Motor Lodge was gutted and is now called Chicago O'Hare Garden Hotel. Since
then, it got so bad that they tore it down. I took this photo on Dec 2, 2012).
Anyway at the time, the restaurant opened up
first and I’m living on Merrimac. So I get my real first job as a busboy at
Howard Johnson’s restaurant. I think I was getting a dollar and quarter and
hour. It wasn’t much but the neat thing about it was I could have a pick of
anything on the menu I wanted for lunch except the steak and I liked that. For
desert, I always use to get the strawberry shortcake all the time
One of my jobs at the restaurant was to
clean the washrooms. And one day I was cleaning the woman’s washroom. I had
never been in a woman’s washroom before. So I’m washing down the stales like
they told me too and there’s this box on the wall that I’m not familiar with.
And I’m washing around the box and accidentally as I’m going up with my hand, I
lifted the lid open and my hand goes down inside this box. It happened so quick
and it ended up being a used Kotex dispenser. That’s where you put your used
Kotex. Oh, that was terrible. So when I get back to the park, I was telling the
guys about what happed at work. How my hand accidentally fell into the used
Kotex box when I was washing down the walls and all the guys just laughed their
heads off. So they came down with a name for me, a nickname. And they called me
“Rags” and that was my nickname. Oh, I hated that but that’s what everybody
called me from then on, they called me Rags.
One time I was introduced to one of my
friend’s parents. I forgot the guy’s name. And he introduces me to his Mom, “Hi
Mom, this is Rags.” I said, “Hi” and his Mom said, “Rags? Your friend dresses
real well, why do you call him Rags.” He says, “It’s a long story Mom, I’ll
tell you later.” He kind of laughed it off. That was a terrible name, geez.
Now that we
own the Howard Johnson Motor and restaurant over there, one of the things
they…one Christmas…or the last Christmas they had given all the kids shares of
the Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge. All the kids like myself, and my sister and
Jimmy and Bobby and Tommy Pisors and Joyce Pisors all get shares in the Howard
Johnson’s Motor Lodge and restaurant. Plus my Mom my aunt and my uncle Bill,
they got real large shares of course. So anyway, that was one of the Christmas
presents. I didn’t think of it much then but of course later on it made a big
difference.
I never
had a girl friend at this house for the two years that I lived there. But I did
go to the dance, at the sock hops over at the church on Saturdays. This one
Saturday, this one sock hop dance that I went to, it was the last dance and
there was this really sharp looking girl there. Everybody wanted to dance with
her and I swore that I was going to be the one to dance the last dance with
her. So I went over and I asked her. And we’re dancing the last dance and all
of sudden this guy wants to cut in on the last dance. No way! I said, “Get out
of here.” All of a sudden he gets really mad and he challenges me to a fight
outside. The last thing I want to do is fight. I just want to dance with this
girl. But I can’t back down because all the guys are around me. If the guys
weren’t around, I would have backed down. But I couldn’t, I had to stand my
ground. After the dance...I didn’t let the guy cut in either. So after the
dance, I meet him outside. Man, I just don’t want to fight but I have no
choice. So we start swinging and blowing and I’m trying to hit him on the back
of the neck with my fists. And I got about maybe about three or four good shots
on the back of his neck. I’m trying to pretend like a karate guy, you know? And
knock him out real quick. That’s what I thought was going to happen. But it
didn’t work like that. In the meantime while I’m reaching around way in the
back not protecting my face, he gets a good shot right in my nose. My nose
starts bleeding and the blood starts really coming out. All of a sudden I can’t
breathe because there’s so much blood coming out. So I just say, “Stop, that’s
it. I can’t breathe. There’s too much blood.” So he agrees to quit too. I’m not
hurt bad, it’s just that the blood is coming out to much. So I get the blood to
stop. My shirts torn so me and the guys are off to the.....They said, “Come on
Bill, we’ll go and get a pizza. So I started walking towards the pizza place
and I’m bloody and my shirt is torn and I said, “I can’t do this. I have to go
home and change.” So I went home and changed and then I decided to say the heck
with it and stay home. I found out later the other guy that I hit on the back
of the neck....I shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know how bad he was but a
couple of weeks later, the guys told me that he had been home in bed for a
week. Because I hit him on the back of the neck and I guess I hit some.... I
guess you could kill a guy like that. And I said, “Is he really hurt bad?”
Maybe I should go over there.” And the guy said, “No” So I never went over
there but I guess I really hurt the guy.
I had been
working on my “50" Ford convertible and now that it’s painted white, I
decided to paint some scallops on the car. Scallops are.... on my car they’re
great big strips. They can be any size but I had great big stripes on my car on
the hood and on the side. It makes it look real customized. One time I took it
to....I don’t have my license or plates for this car yet. This one guy, his Dad
was changing his license plates and his old license plates were still good for
a couple of weeks. So I took his old plates and stuck them on. I had driven it
around Taft high school during the daytime with the phony plates on. I never
got caught though, thank goodness.
One Saturday at the dance, I took my
“50" Ford convertible to the dance. Just to show off, you know? Oh, it was
in winter and it was so cold, that car was so cold, geez. And I drove it over
there that was fun.
Now that John is... my friend, John Bleasing,
You know after we had put that Chrysler engine in his “50" Ford coupe, I
decided to do the same thing with my “50" Ford convertible. So John and I
go over to the junkyard and I buy a 1956 Chrysler Hemi engine for thirty bucks
and bring it over to my garage. I’m going to stick the Chrysler engine in
the...so I take out.... I have to get rid of my flat head engine that’s in the
car and the transmission because I’m going to be using a different transmission
so one of the guys in my neighborhood wants to buy my flathead for his car. So
he comes over with a bunch of guys and he gives me the thirty bucks. But I tell
him you have to take the engine out. So they take the engine out. They left me
the transmission. They just wanted the engine. So they take it out. So now I
got a car with no engine in it. So I was really down. I shouldn’t have done
that at all. So as time goes by, I can see I’m never going to get this Chrysler
engine in my “50" Ford because I don’t have the tools to put it in and the
tools to overhaul the engine. I end up selling it to Chip Johnson that lives on
Summerdale. My other friend and he brings it over to his house. I sold it to
him for Fifty bucks. Of course he’s not doing anything with it either. He just
has it in his driveway for a while and his parents are yelling at him to get
rid of it. One day we went over there and his driveway sits well below where
his porch where you come out the side entrance. You come out the side entrance
of his house and there’s a porch and then the driveway is way down and that’s
where the car is. So Chip Johnson I told you he was a little crazy. He says,
“I’m going to jump right on the roof of that car.” Even though it wasn’t my car
anymore, I said, “Don’t, you’ll ruin the top.” He just goes crazy and he gets
on the railing and he just jumps right on top of the convertible roof. Of
course everything just collapses. He acted like he didn’t get hurt but I know
that fall really hurt. So that was the end of the “50" Ford convertible.
He didn’t know what to do with it. So he thought of this farmer that lives on
Cumberland and he had to pay the farmer to bring the car over there to store it
in back of his barn. That’s the last time I saw the “50' Ford convertible.
Later on in my years, I went back there to see if the car was still there. Of
course the farmhouse and everything else was gone because they were starting to
build stuff. Somebody must have picked it up. Maybe it’s the one I saw at the
Volo auto museum. Maybe it’s the same car. That would be fun but anyway, it’s
gone for good
Well, it’s 1961 and I’m 16 years old and I
want my driver’s license. So I study. I don’t know whose car I took. Somebody
went with me. And I take the driver test and I flunk it. Evidently, I had my
arm out the window while I was driving. That’s why I failed, ohh boy. I had to
wait a while. I guess you have to wait a while before you can take the test
again. I took it again and I failed it a second time. Oh, was I ever mad. I
couldn’t believe I failed it again. So I talked with my Dad, I said, “Dad, I
don’t know what to do. I’m allowed to take it one more time and if you don’t
pass it the third time you have got to wait,” I don’t know how long it was. You
have to wait a real long time before you can take your license again, your test
again. So he knew this attorney downtown. He was a cooked attorney and my Dad
takes me down to the driver’s license place on Elston ave. The attorney had
this all fixed with the driver’s license people. Those driver license people
were always....If you slipped them some money they’d pass you no matter what
you did. So we had it all fixed up and my Dad says, “This guy has been paid
Fifty bucks. All you got to do is get in the car drive around the course and
he’ll pass you.” And I get in the car and he says, “Haven’t you been here
before?” And I said, “Yes” He said, “You should have told me, I would have
passed you before.” Evidently he just wanted the money before that’s all. So on
the third time I passed, he passed me but it was all rigged. Yea, now I’ve got
my license. Now I can drive.
