Los Blackhawks

I’m more of a Our Lady of Czestochowa sort of guy while most of my Berwyn neighbors lean in the direction of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  No matter.  We get along OK, but it can be interesting.

Take the folks across the street.  Some Sundays in the summer, a neighbor comes out of his house dressed in cowboy gear and carrying a leather-tooled saddle worth a whole lot of money; I can only imagine where he’s going.  And our next door neighbors on occasion will throw backyard parties complete with mariachi band.  (To be fair, I probably generate a fair amount of comment, too, especially with the life-sized Uncle Sam flag holder I put out on the front porch each spring.)   But none of that explains the Blackhawks flag I saw flying down the street yesterday morning.  Sports in America really do have their own way of creating e pluribus unum.

I saw that up close at city hall three years ago in June; it was time for a new vehicle sticker.  The person in front of me in line and the clerk were speaking in Spanish.  Again, no matter.  I grew up in a household and a neighborhood where plenty of people spoke more than one language.  With my parents, it was Polish, but you could also hear Italian or Lithuanian without too much effort, and German, too, though that was a little scary for all us wannabe GIs.  .  Anyway, the person in front bought his sticker, and I stepped up.  The clerk looked at me and, without skipping a beat, asked, “How ‘bout those Hawks last night?”  Because the situation demanded it, I did my best casual fan imitation.