Newsgroups: bit.listserv.history
Date:         Mon, 6 Apr 1992 00:42:24 CST
From:         Lynn Nelson <LHNELSON@UKANVM.BITNET>
Subject:      Opening Day reminds me

OF JUDY THORKELSON'S SHINING HOUR

Due to some peculiarity of settlement during the period from 1900
to 1920, Swedish immigrants in Chicago formed two widely-
separated communities. One center was on the South side,
gradually drifting from 55th and Stony Island in the 1920's to
79th and Stony by the 1930's, to 95th and Loomis in the 1940's,
and finally dissipating during the upheavals of the 1960's. The
other community was located on the North side, and, although its
population tended to move north and west from the area, its
cultural center remained fixed at the Viking Temple until that
institution finally closed its doors in 1986.

In the 1930's, this demographic bifurcation meant that many South
side children of Scandinavian descent labored under the burden of
having relations who required that they make periodic visits to
the North side. I imagine that many would question the use of the
word "burden," but so it was regarded by those who were affected
by this peculiar situation. None of them relished their stays on
the North side, partly because, as they explained to each other,
"it smells funny up there." This was quite true inasmuch as the
North side of Chicago lacked the atmospheric enrichment that the
Union Stock Yards supplied the South.

A half-century ago, the animosity between the North and South
sides of the city was quite real and reflected in many ways:  the
Cardinals and the Bears, the University of Chicago and
Northwestern University, Strippers and exotic dancers, Brookfield
Zoo and Lincoln Park Zoo, _The Chicago Defender_ and _Germania_,
junk shops and antique stores, the White Sox and the Cubs, Blatz
and Pabst, the CIO and the AF of L, the _Chicago Times_ and the
_Chicago Tribune_, workers and wealth, Calumet City and Winnetka,
kielbassa and frankfurters, steel mills and light manufacturing,
and so on.

The story of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, when Mr.
Capone's men entered a garage on North Clark Street and
eliminated most of Buggsy Moran's organization, has been told and
retold a hundred times in print and film, and every time
incorrectly. For most of the tellers, it was a simple competition
between mobsters; for some perceptive interpreters, it was a
struggle between the old Irish immigrant element and the recent
Italian arrivals; and for a few on the lunatic fringe, it was
another episode in the long struggle between Roman and Celt. For
many of those living at the time, it had been a war between the
North and South sides, and most residents of the South side felt
quite satisfied that it had been resolved in favor of a man who
rarely found any reason to travel north of Twelfth Street.

One needs to understand this in order to grasp the significance
of what may have been the high point of Judy Thorkelson's life. I
have no idea what great things she may have gone on to, or how
grand a person she may have become; I have neither seen her nor
heard of her since that summer of 1939, but I find it hard to
believe that she could ever have surpassed that one gesture so
long ago.

Judy's father was Lars Thorkelson, whose godfather had been Gaius
Carlsson, brother of Justus Carlsson, my own father's godfather.
Gaius had also been the father of Anders Carlson, who lived on
the North side and had lost an "s" from his family name as had so
many others of his generation. This capitulation to Anglo-
American orthography gave rise in the Swedish community to a
popular pun about what happens to a good Swede in the big city
that is obvious and needs no repeating since both I and my father
before me have found it tasteless and not at all funny.

Anders was about forty and singularly ill-favored, so Uncle
Justus said, by having one blue and one brown eye. He was greatly
enamored of Judy Thorkelson's eighteen-year old sister, Astrid,
and entertained hopes of gaining favor with the Thorkelson family
generally, and Astrid particularly, by having nine-year old Judy
visit him, providing her with lavish treats, and making off-hand
comments as to what a fine woman Astrid had become and how
unfortunate it was that she was on the verge of turning into an
old maid. This may appear to have been a strange way of going
about things, but Anders was what the grown-ups called "careful"
with his money. The more Anders had thought about how expensive
it would be to go to 63rd street and court Astrid directly, the
more certain he had become that he could best impress Astrid by
buying Judy an ice cream cone and taking her to watch the
pinochle games at the Viking Temple. As Uncle Justus observed,
some people insist on trying to saw logs with a soup ladle and
there was no sense in either of us letting half a coffee-cake go
to waste.

After over a year, nothing had come of Anders Carlson's somewhat
indirect courtship, and he was about to give up the matter when
he learned from Lars Thorkelson that Judy loved baseball.
Although he was a great fan of the game himself, it never
occurred to him that anything greater than tender passions could
stir the female heart. He finally decided that Judy must be
pretending, as children sometimes do, but he was more than ready
to make use of what he regarded as a mere juvenile idiocyncracy.
It was sometime in June that Anders called Lars and invited him
to send Judy up for Sunday, saying that he had a surprise for her
that he knew she would like.

Judy loved surprises. A couple of weeks before school had let out
for the summer, Mory Salzman had caught a garter snake and had
managed to get it into Judy's lunch bag without her seeing. Those
who knew about it watched Judy closely as she put her hand into
her sack. Her eyes widened slightly and then she grinned
fleetingly, and got up with her bag in hand and went to Mrs.
Munson's desk. After a brief whispered conference, Judy returned
to her seat, and everyone waited for whatever was going to happen
and silently cursed Judy Thorkelson for being nothing but a great
big tattletale.

Judy complacently ate her lunch while everyone else tried to
avoid the sweep of Mrs. Munson's eyes and inwardly practiced
impassioned protestations of innocence and complete ignorance of
all knowledge of any wrong-doing. Ten minutes passed, then
fifteen, and lunch period was drawing to a close with everyone in
a fever of apprehension. Mrs. Munson's gaze suddenly fell on
Benny Sheehan, and she announced with her usual tone of
disgust, "Benedict Sheehan! Your hands are filthy! Imagine
putting food into your mouth that has been handled by filthy
hands like that! Go to the washbasin immediately!" She followed
him to the washbasin and reached into the pocket of her light
blue smock for her ever-present bar of odiferous Lifebuoy soap.
There was a piercing scream, a garter snake and a bar of Lifebuoy
soap went sailing over her pupils' heads, and Mrs. Munson sank
into a seated position on the floor, making choking noises.

As I was saying, Judy Thorkelson liked surprises, so she was
excited about her excursion before she climbed onto the Cottage
Grove street car for the first long leg to the North side. When
she returned, however, she refused to say anything at all about
her visit to the far north, but Uncle Justus Carlsson told his
friends the whole story a few days later. It seems that Anders'
big surprise was that the Dodgers were in town for a double
header with the Cubs, and he had bought bleacher tickets for
himself and Judy. He had even decided that he would buy Judy a
hot dog and lemonade, but that was not the surprise. Uncle Justus
said that he had pretended to take Judy for a walk and, as they
neared Wrigley Field, he had exploded his bombshell. Not only was
Judy going to get to see two baseball games, but Dizzy Dean was
pitching the opener. "Yah, Yudy. Vit Ditzy Dean pitching, de Cubs
is sure to vin de opener. Maybe dey can make a sveep."  Judy was
so stunned by the thought of attending a Cubs game that she could
not even scream as Anders took her by the hand and pulled her
through the turnstiles into Wrigley Field.

They sat in what Anders called the best seats in the place, about
three feet of planking three rows up in the center field
bleachers, just above the 400 foot marker. Imagine poor Judy
Thorkelson sitting there, holding a hot dog lying limp in a soft
bun and awash in greenish pickle relish instead of a Polish
sausage with horseradish mustard on a hard roll, having to drink
syrupy lemonade instead of beer from her father's glass, and
having to sit in Wrigley Field and watch the Cubs play. But she
did all this out of respect for the fact that Anders' father,
Gaius, was her own father's god-father. At least that's what
Uncle Justus Carlsson said, and perhaps even believed.

Judy's moment of greatness came with one away in the bottom of
the fifth inning of a scoreless first game. I should tell you
that Cub fans of that era did have one redeeming feature. When a
member of the opposing team hit a home run in Wrigley Field and a
real fan, one of those in the center field bleachers that they
eventually closed off supposedly because the glare of the white
shirts there blinded the batters, caught the ball, he would
sometimes toss it back into the field and shout, "GAAR-BAGE!"

Cub fans still occasionally do this and are very proud of
themselves for the fact. They act as if it somehow makes them
very special. It is, in fact, a laudable but hardly unique
gesture. Something of the same sort of thing often happened when
a visitor hit a homer into the right field stands at Comiskey
Park, but the affair was conducted with far less fanfare and
self-congratulation. In Comiskey Park, if the ball was caught by
someone with a good arm, he would simply try to nail the man on
his way to second. These attempts were uniformly ineffectual, but
so too were the White Sox, and that didn't stop either the team
or its fans from continuing to try.

Gabby Hartnett was up and had taken two balls, when the pitcher
laid one down the middle and Hartnett jumped on it. He hit a
rising line drive over the second baseman's head, over the center
fielder's head, over the railing of the bleachers just left of
the 400 foot marker, and into the outstretched bare right hand of
Judy Thorkelson. Everyone was cheering and applauding, not so
much because the Cubs were now up 1-0, but because a little girl
with big blue eyes, long ash-blonde braids, and a starched blue-
and-white calico pinafore had caught the ball almost as if she
had meant to. They were still applauding, Uncle Justus said, when
Judy climbed up onto her seat, threw the ball back onto the
field, and screamed, "GAAR-BAGE!" 
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