Time Travel

There I was, minding my own business at the breakfast table when all of a sudden the Tribune sports’ section sent me time traveling back to the fall of 1969.  This all because of a story on the best Chicago area prep-football traditions.

Let me tell you about St. Laurence High School, where only the lucky few got to drive their dinosaurs to school.  The good brothers in charge all shared the same mission of preparing us for possible military service in Vietnam, so that every class, whether math or history or religion, you didn’t know for sure if it was a teacher at the blackboard or a Marine drill instructor.  Who told you to open that window, son?  I didn’t.  Do you think you’re hot, son?  Do you want to feel heat, real heat….

St. Laurence was way better at discipline than football.  I got recruited once between periods; that taught me to cut back on the Sunday sweet rolls.  The Vikings tried very hard, but the Catholic League had no place for the meek of heart or pass rush.  These were less football games than events at the Colosseum, and the Vikings were just Christians in disguise.

Oh, but the Friday afternoon pep rallies in the school gym.  Everybody was pumped just to be out of class (see above).  The band played, the Christians bravely marched out to their seats at center court.  Some poor fool dressed up as a Viking complete with sword and horned helmet ran out to chase another fool dressed up as a rabbit, representing our archrivals, the Brother Rice Crusaders (Crusader Rabbit, get it?).  We were an all-boys’ school and would very much have liked to added cheerleaders to the festivities, but they were only there at game day from the Catholic girls’ school across the street from us.  I think, but I’m not sure, it was nearly fifty years ago and I was minding my own business eating Fiber One….