Muhammad Ali

My father was born in 1913, the second son of Polish immigrant parents in the hardscrabble neighborhood of Bridgeport.  His father died before he was two, and that changed everything in his life.  His formal education stopped in the seventh grade, after which he was expected to contribute to the mortgage of the bungalow his mother his mother had purchased for the family on south Homan Avenue.  It was also the house I spent the first 28 years of my life in.

My father never served in WW II.  Instead, he left the assembly line at Ford on Torrance Avenue to become a Chicago fireman.  He ran into burning buildings from about 1943 until his retirement in 1978.  His one wartime-like experience, working during the April 1968 riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., he never talked about.

After retiring from the department, my father drove a delivery truck hauling chemicals to local plating businesses.  Backing into loading docks under the Lake Street ‘L’ tracks was something else he never talked about.  My father kept working until his body started breaking down.  That went on from the time he was 70 until his death 17 years later.

My father had his prejudices and it bothered anytime I dated someone who was Irish; the problem had something to do with his growing up in Richard J. Daley’s Bridgeport and being a member of Richard J. Daley’s fire department.  And he was not fond of Lithuanians for reasons that are a mystery to me.  When it came to blacks, he thought in bootstraps and leaving school in the seventh grade.

My father did not understand Muhammad Ali; I’m sure it would have been mutual had they known one another.  I would’ve liked to see the two of them at our kitchen table, arguing prejudice to prejudice.  Barring fisticuffs, that might have led to something of value.