The Brown and White and the South Side of Chicago

Patrolman John Norris

Jim "Skinny" Sheehan and Mike "Houli" Houlihan are the kind of guys I grew up with on the South Side of Chicago. In fact, I knew Jim's family and his mom taught me at Saint Cajetan's Grammar School.  I also attended Mount Carmel High School where Houli had gone a few years before me. I did not have the pleasure of going to school with any of the Houlihans, but maybe that's best.  I was on the famous Skinny and Houli Show a few months ago talking about my book, The Brown and White. 

The South Side experiences were so affixed to my soul that I had carried around a manuscript on my high school days with me for the better part of 40 years and worked on it periodically. I went to Benedictine College in Kansas and after graduation I started a publishing career. Time passed, decades went by, and finally, I  published The Brown and White. 

We all had some tough times during the late 1960s when The Brown and White takes place.  I was born in 1953 and many of us who were raised in Chicago during those years of the 50s, 60s and 70s, recall memories of a world that could be a little stingy, overcrowded with fellow Baby Boomers, and Catholic. Those who look back at the time with joy, and there are many who do, get past the worts in their own lives and see a genuine and funny  time, not necessarily one they would sign up for again.

As you get older, you realize that certain events can knock you off the rails. Living in those days, if you were "chubby," you were probably called "fat." If you were bad at your schoolwork, you were probably thought of us "dumb." And if you weren't very good at sports, some people would have said you "stunk." If you looked around your classroom and figured out that although you might fit into one of those categories, about 90% of your classmates did as well. If you realize that, you might have been able to laugh it off. And that's a great secret in life. Most of us are not supermen or superwomen especially in high school. And in part, that's what The Brown and White is all about. It's a time of insecurity and laughs, a book to which many people can relate and have a good laugh and maybe a good cry. [It's $12.50]

On the other hand, there are some people who cannot relate to it at all.  I have to wonder if it is because there lives were so different or because they look at their lives through rose-colored glasses.

My Dad was an Irish Catholic Chicago cop.  My parents rolled out a plan to have a bunch of kids like their parents and never seemed to worry about the problem with finances--until it was too late. That was not uncommon and I'd have to say that in most ways we did not suffer, although at times, life could be embarrassing. I remember my dad working 2 and 3 jobs.  We started jobs early ourselves:  Lawns and show shoveling at age 12, restaurant work at age 14, and retail at 16.

We had a neighbor who was a lieutenant on the police department and I had cut his lawn for a few years. He and his wife came to the restaurant where I worked.  He told me one night that my dad (a patrolman) could never do anything for me, but if I needed help, come and see him.  In an awkward way, he was trying to give me the message that he had clout--I could see him if I decided the police force was in my future. I mentioned the conversation to my mother, and she grew very angry.  It was a very frustrating petty time in many ways. Sometimes you felt like you were in a caste system in Chicago--no escape.

I was off the rails on the job issue for a while, but in other ways I was especially loved by  my parents.  And I think much more love than the lieutenant showed his kids. My dad almost died when I was in high school, but the Good Lord took pity on us. But we had tragedies as well. And our faith was important and a beacon although at times things got a little foggy. But that was part of it, too. Our faith was there and strong at times, but sometimes we nearly fell off the rails and life was not neat and tidy--it was messy. And again, that's the theme of The Brown and White.

My high school years were tough in Chicago.  Race riots, insecurity everywhere, and war protests. But we clung to our neighborhood, friends, family and faith--and we rode it out the best way we could. It was messy and imperfect.  It's in The Brown and White.