Martial Arts at St. Joseph's

Well, after talking about doing this for months, Junior's little brother and I went over to St. Joe's to check out the martial arts class offered there by the U.N.I.O.N. Impact Center. Junior's bro was among the oldest in the class, and he's about nine years old. There were some teeny-weenies there, maybe three or four year olds. They had a hard time sitting still for meditation.

JB (I'm going to call him that from now on--I've had trouble coming up with a psuedonym for him, so that will do) paid attention, sat still during opening prayer and meditation, and tried hard to keep up with the roundhouse kicks, jabs and crosses. He even struggled his way through a set of pushups. JB is a little on the heavy side and I don't think he gets too much opportunity for exercise, but you could see he really wants to do this.

We showed up in the middle of a six-week cycle, so he was at a disadvantage trying to learn everything at once. Next week the instructor says they will practice striking into pads (so far they're just throwing into imaginary targets).

I used to study karate, so watching the class got me fired up to practice a little with JB between classes. He's going to need to do it more than once a week to get anywhere. I just made a resolve to fight the battle of the bulge this winter, mostly through my downtown yuppie gym where I can swim, but maybe a little with JB, too. We'll see where this goes.

A Safe Halloween for Back of the Yards

These are some photos from St. Joseph's Halloween event, co-sponsored by the church youth group and U.N.I.O.N. Impact Center. I'm happy to report that Halloween in the neighborhood this year was a safe and fun experience for the kids of Marshfield Avenue and beyond. We didn't make headlines this year. There were lots of police out. People still trick-or-treated.

Here on Marshfield, I rode my bike past Chavez Elementary as school was being dismissed, just in time to see hundreds of little kids (up to 4th grade) coming out in all their costumes. About an hour later, I came out of my house with my candy to find about ten neighbor kids waiting outside my front gate. After they got treats from me they went up to 47th Street, where the businesses were giving out candy and other treats. The famous one is the peanuts from El Guero supermarket.

Around 4:30, Junior and his brother and Picasso came by. They helped me unpack my fog machine and went to figure out how it worked. Picasso's mom was going to Cicero to spend time with her grandkids, and Picasso didn't want to go. I promised her he could stay with me and we would go over to St. Joe's and then back to my house for pizza.

The boys and I were hanging around when some of the girls from down the block came out in a big gaggle. They were going to the movie at Holy Cross. We agreed we would all go over together and stop in at St. Joe's on the way to see how the haunted house was coming along. (I had some candy to donate, too.) We ate pizza in the Holy Cross basement. Only two of us watched the movie--the rest of us were just talking and making jokes.

Afterwards we went back to St. Joe's since the haunted house was now running. Picasso told me his mom had called him to say she was home and he wanted to go home. I smelled a rat but didn't want to say so. "OK," I said. "I'll walk you home." I figured I could trust Junior and his little brother to stay put with the girls at the party.

So Picasso and I walked back together, and he told me he had forgotten to take his essay draft to school on Friday. "When we get back for the party, give it to me and I'll type it up and email it to your teacher," I said. He agreed. I was hoping this would keep him in the house for a few more minutes anyway. He does seem to want to improve his grade in English.

We got to his house and the lights were out. "Are you sure your mom is home?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said.

"OK...Well, I'll call you later when we order the pizza."

I watched him go in the house, saw some lights turn on upstairs, then called Junior's mom (they live in the same building) and told her that Picasso was home and I was going back to church to get Junior and his brother.

Turns out I was right about the rat. When we were walking back, Junior told me, "Don't trick [tell on me for saying this] but Picasso left early because he wanted to throw eggs. I was going to go too, but then I couldn't find him."

"That's because I walked him home," I said. "He said he was going to come to the party." I took out my phone. "I'll call him now and tell him we're coming. Let's see if he answers."

Junior's little brother disagreed. "No, don't do that! Then he has time to come home before we get there. You won't catch him that way."

I explained that I didn't really care about "catching him," I just wanted him to be safe and that if he had gone out and this would convince him to come back, that was fine with me. Picasso did answer the phone right away and seemed fine with the news we were on our way back.

When we arrived, I sent Junior and his brother home for a few minutes so I could straighten up. The girls from down the block were coming, too. Before I went in the house, I saw Joey and his dad talking next door. His dad was dressed up to go out: black cowboy hat, black cowboy suit, boots. He was going to Cicero for a party and was trying to persuade his son to join him. Joey wanted to go out with another boy on the block here. I don't know that kid as well but I hear he's trouble. It looked like Joey's dad was going to weasel out with some "be careful, son" comment but not do anything to prevent him taking off.

So I stuck my nosy neighbor nose smack in the middle of their chat. I took Dad aside and said, "Look, Halloween is a very dangerous night. Kids think they're going to out to throw eggs and they get shot by gangbangers. When I was teaching I had a student land in the hospital on Halloween with a gunshot wound. I'm going to have a party right here at the house. Tell Joey he has go with you or stay here with me. He's not listening to his mother but he still has some respect for you."

"There are a lot of police out," he said uncertainly. I didn't say what I was thinking--that makes it all the more likely your son will get picked up off the street and you'll be spending the night getting him out of jail.

Eventually Dad got the point and was a little more insistent with Joey. "You don't want to end up like your brother," I could hear him say in Spanish. Fortunately, I had the five plywood boards down in the basement, ready for tagging. That got Joey's attention. He and I went down to the basement and put two of them in the back yard, one for him and one for Picasso. We called Picasso and told him to come over with his spray cans. I ordered pizza. The rest of the kids showed up.

The girls ate pizza and chatted. We talked about how great it would have been if Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had run as president and vice-president. (A couple of the girls were really into that idea.) Junior and his brother tried to work the used laptop their dad just got from somebody. Alas, they didn't succeed. The laptop was password protected and somehow they didn't get the right username and password written down. Joey and Picasso sprayed away on the boards out back. Some of the little kids who came with their big sisters went out to watch. When the pizza came, everyone ate. Then the older kids squished themselves together on my couch to watch YouTube videos while the younger kids drew pictures and played with my yoga ball.

At one point, Joey's dad called my cell phone to check on him. Yay!

Near the end of the night, some of the tweens wanted to figure out how the fog machine worked. Earlier Junior and Picasso briefly got it close, but they put in too much water. This time I was paying very close attention and put in the water myself, and the fog started coming out. It looked great, especially with the lights off. We called everybody down to see it. Then it was time to call it a night, about 11 p.m.

The best part was seeing Picasso and Joey go home afterwards. No eggs on the street. Nobody in jail. At least for one night. It's especially good when that one night is Halloween.

Easter Vigil

My dearest friends
Standing with me in this holy light
Join me in asking God for mercy...

I stood next to Joey, then Angel, then their mom in a pew tonight while Fr. Ed sang those words in St. Joe's, by candlelight, for Easter Vigil.

If you're a liturgical junkie like me, Easter Vigil is the coolest Mass of the year. First, you get to stand outside and light a fire. Then you get to see the priest light a five-foot tall candle from the fire, then everybody else passes that light from the big Paschal candle to each person's little candle, from one to another until everyone has a light. Then you all walk into the pitch-black church and sing, "Christ our Light" a few times. Then you hold the candles and let them flicker while Fr. Ed sings the Exsultet in his fine tenor. Then everyone in the pews blows their little candles out, leaving only the big Paschal candle up front.

"Now we're going to sit in the dark and hear stories," I whispered to Joey.

"Oh, cool," he whispered back. (Note to self--let's take a trip to the Dunes this summer and stay late enough to build a fire and tell ghost stories. He'd love that.)

Tonight we had Creation. Exodus. More. Beats me what happened after Exodus.

The full Easter Vigil has seven readings, often cut down to three or four, especially when there are people to be baptized, confirmed or given first Communion, as we had tonight. I know we cut back, and some were only read in Polish. Plus, I was babysitting Angelito so his mom could pray in peace for a few minutes. God knows she could use that.

Dawn put in an appearance about halfway through, but just to get keys so she could change clothes and go out to a party. At the time I thought she was changing clothes to come back to church. Silly me. Joey bailed out somewhere along the way, too.

I had Angel more or less up until the point when we sang "Alleluia" and all the lights come on at once. It's gorgeous. St. Joe's does it better than any place I've been since college. I know Joey was there for that part. His mom took Angel back after that and went back to the baptismal font with him, so she was in good position to watch the baptism and get soggy herself. Angel likes the font; he kept wanting to stick his hand in there, so we did that a few times while I was keeping him out of his mother's hair.

Ed does baptisms brilliantly. This was his last Easter Vigil at St. Joe's. We will miss him sorely here in the neighborhood, and I will miss his liturgies, his voice and his homilies.

Tonight he preached very simply on the resurrection. The resurrection is one of the hardest things to preach about, I think. The way he put it tonight was through a variation on Humpty Dumpty--let me see if I get it right:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
Only God had the ?????
To put Humpty Dumpty together again

Well, you get the point. Ed was very clear that as Christians, we believe Humpty will get put together again. Some days I can hang on to that idea, but tonight in that beautiful church with Julian in prison, Dawn just there to pick up keys, and Joey almost not coming and then bailing, I have to say I do wonder how even God could put that family back together. But hey, their mom made it to church and even got five minutes to pray on her own. I'd be the last one to knock that.