In terms of Hollywood origin stories, there are ones far more deserving of far greater pity. No one would confuse my Tinseltown tragedy with the likes of the Black Dahlia. Still, mine was a far cry from an overnight success given it involved me crying on the second floor of the Westfield Culver City parking garage.

I had been in Los Angeles just shy of a week and was ready to leave. I hoped that with enough tears I’d create a transcontinental river. Then I could sail back to Chicago where I would forget this entire move ever happened. I’d pretend my six days in LA were a nightmare brought on by eating Chipotle too close to bedtime. Traveling by river cruise was my only way out. Well, that or a plane ride. Driving across state lines, however, was not an option. Not after my brand new (used) blue Hyundai Tucson had been stolen from the Westfield parking garage.

The stolen car was just the latest LA failure, a list that was growing exponentially. How I wished I could go back in time and stop myself from moving, but I doubted I could have convinced my past self. The future had seemed so bright in those waning Chicago summer days.

On my last day at Accenture (my job since college), I said goodbye to coworkers in the morning and then caught a matinee showing of The Music Man. My friend Mary Alex who worked at the Goodman Theater was able to get me a heavily discounted front row seat. It was a fantastic show, although I was the only one who gave a standing ovation due to being the only weekday matinee audience member who didn’t require a walker.

After the show, I took the train out to Elmhurst where my family threw me a going away party. It was filled with cheers, jokes and even a well-written send-off from our Poet Laureate Aunt Lynn.

After saying goodbye to Elmhurst, it was time to say goodbye to the city. The 2019 series finale on the 5-season run of Danny in the City involved a booze trolley as well as the celebration of my friends Mike and Meg’s engagement. As the trolley crawled along Sheffield, I kept demanding we replay Yellowcard’s Ocean Avenue so I could yell for the ninety-fifth time “That’s me! I’m renting a place off Ocean Avenue”. The night ended with karaoke at Four Farthings where I crooned/croaked Leaving on a Jetplane.

For my flight from ORD to LAX, I created a custom playlist with the opening track being from my favorite Chicago band SAILS, On My Way Out. Once I landed my life became a Miley Cyrus song. I hopped off the plane at LAX with my dreams and my Cubs cardigan, plus three large checked bags. I had stressed over this part of the journey as I would need to successfully move all these bags with only two hands. I used zip ties to connect the bags like a train. It took practice navigating turns in my parents’ basement, but I was a pro navigating the train bag through LAX.

I took a short cab ride north to the Enterprise in Maria Del Rey. I needed a rental car while I went hunting for my first car. Saving money by skipping LAX rentals made me feel like I wasn’t some gullible tourist. I was already in the know.

Windows down I drove up the coast from Marina Del Rey, to Venice Beach, and then into Santa Monica. The ocean’s glistening beach astounded me as I had always thought such heavenly landscapes were reserved for Midwest lakes. I could picture future morning runs followed by ocean dips to cool off. Or maybe I’d honor my childhood idol Johnny Tsunami and take up surfing. It was a whole new city, a whole new terrain. And I was ready for it all.

Finally I reached the address on Ocean Avenue, my new home. I texted the lessor that I had arrived.

Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

After waiting some more, I texted.

And texted.

And texted some more.

After texting some more, I called.

And called.

And called some more.

In between all that texting and calling, I paced up and down the boardwalk as I was liable to self-combust if I stood still. I kept telling myself everything would be fine, but I knew deep down that there was no hiding from the asteroid hurtling towards earth.

Hours later, unwilling to admit defeat, I tried to ignorantly enjoy some Caribbean cuisine at Cha Cha Chicken. Only once I had cleared my plate was I able to finally admit the truth: there was no place off Ocean Avenue.

How did I go so wrong?

Those questions turned out to be easy enough to answer.

My first mistake was using Craigslist for my rental needs. The second mistake was believing the photos of the cute beachfront studio apartment instead of demanding video proof. The third mistake was tossing aside every yellow flag that my “lessor” handed to me. If I had saved up those flags, I would have seen that they formed an insurmountable red flag.

To my defense, July of 2019 was a busy time. Besides finding a new home on the other side of the country, I also had to do the following:

- Travel to LA for the first time ever and secretly interview for multiple jobs all while said companies were unaware of the other ones, but most importantly make sure Accenture stayed unaware of the interviews, or even the LA travel.

- Move out of my Chicago apartment and back into my parents home figuring out what to sell off, what to put into storage (aka parent’s garage) and what goes to LA.

- Stand up as a groomsman in Holland, Michigan for my good friends Sean and Liz.

Listen, I’m not blaming Sean and Liz’s matrimony for my predicament. All I’m saying is that on the morning of their wedding I had to find a FedEx open early enough in northwest Michigan so I could print, sign and send back the lease for my imaginary apartment. Clearly, I should have taken a second that summer to pause and think about what I was doing.

Hindsight was useless to me in Santa Monica. All I could do was call time of death on the dream of living off Ocean Avenue and move on. I googled Marriott hotels close to my new job. Thanks to my old job periodically sending me to Detroit, I had enough points to not completely break the bank.

Once I knew where I was sleeping that night, it was time to have the second hardest conversation with my parents. There’s no great way to tell your parents that you’ve been bamboozled out of your money and are now homeless. (I mean that figuratively, not literally. Please don’t have the ladies of The Real Housewives of Rhode Island fight me over the definition of homeless.)

I assured my parents that I was fine then asked if they could keep this quiet as I was utterly embarrassed.

Afterall, I wasn’t some guy named Jake from Indiana who was homeschooled by parents who used conspiracy subreddit threads for history lessons and counted Bible verses for math where the farthest he’s ever traveled from his bum-fuck town was to attend Indiana University.

I was from CHI-CA-GO. Ever heard of it? Third largest city in the nation. A city where I had successfully leased many real apartments.

And I was educated at the University of NOTRE DAME. Ever heard of it? Of course you have if you’ve read any of my prior essays as I can’t go one Substack post without mentioning my Domer credits. I figured I’d need to mail back that diploma.

Once settled in the hotel, I was able to calm down and go easier on myself. I realized I wasn’t an idiot. I clearly wasn’t as smart as I thought I was, but being a Doofus didn’t mean I was a moron. I had been scared, stressed, and desperate, a lethal combination for giving into insanity.

One positive outcome of the Craigslist hoodwink is that it has made me more empathetic. I no longer look down my nose at those duped by scams. This is a helpful skill to navigate life in LA as the streets are paved with plenty of folks who have fallen prey to cults, California’s third largest export. Or helpful to navigate life in America as the streets are paved with plenty of people who were duped by Epstein’s BFF.

Beyond being embarrassed, I was also hurt. I understood why the crime was committed. What I couldn’t understand was why they had to keep the ruse going for so long? At no point did they ever try to extract more money or sensitive information from me. On the contrary, they answered move-in questions and confirmed timing.

The moment my payment was accepted they should have sent me a note along the lines of “suck it loser”. At least then I would have had time to figure out an alternative housing plan.

Ultimately, what’s done was done. I couldn’t sit in my hotel room moping till the end of time (especially as those loyalty points weren’t going to last me very long). I made an appointment at the closest CarMax to test drive a few cars. I then searched Airbnb for potential short-term rentals. This time I would be reviewing all spaces in person. Lastly, I made evening plans, a night at the movies. And I had the perfect first film to see in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

By the time I arrived to the AMC Marina, the previews were still finishing up so I had time for a detour at the bar. A nice 24oz IPA paired with buttery popcorn was just what the doctor ordered. I received my drink and snack just as the closingAMC ads began. Perfect timing.

I was so ecstatic to sit back and watch the next generation of A-list stars get brutally killed by Leo and Pitt. Maybe it was the magic of the movies, but I felt like a whole new person. Nothing could stop me now.

“Stop, you can’t enter.”

I panicked. Had I gotten tricked into buying a fake ticket?

“But I have a ticket to AMC Marina,” I said, showing my digital AMC stub.

“Yes, but you have a ticket for AMC Marina Dine-in, this is AMC Marina Marketplace. Your theater is on the other side of the parking lot.”

There was no time to complain about the ludicrous nature of having two of the same AMC’s right next to each other. I turned to leave.

“Wait, you can’t take your drink outside. And you can’t bring the popcorn inside the other theater.”

The popcorn was a lost cause, but I refused to give up on the beer even if it meant losing out on the movie. Like Liz Lemon choosing a sandwich over a man, I chose a beer.

The usher was horrified to watch as I proceeded to chug my beer. Not because he was some type of teetotaler. But because anyone who’s played a drinking game with me knows that chugging isn’t my strong suit. It was like watching an inexperienced hunter finish off a deer or Michael Scott fire an employee.

With a belly full for IPA (and a few handfuls of popcorn), I sprinted out of the AMC Marina and raced through the parking lot to the other AMC Marina. I furiously opened the door underneath the AMC sign, but it was stuck. I tried the other doors, but they all wouldn’t budge.

I panted heavily not sure if I was going to scream out in anger at the AMC gods or just puke up my refreshments.

Thankfully my distress was clear enough to helpful onlookers who informed me that the doors I was trying to use were the closed exit ones. I needed to go all the way around to the front entrance.

I finally showed up to the correct theater very late and very drenched in sweat. The movie was fine but I would have liked it a lot more with popcorn and a beer. For a guy who spent his whole life seeing movies, you’d think this was one area I couldn’t screw up. I went back to the hotel feeling like more of a failure than when I had arrived.

It was a bad first day in LA, but the following days did improve. Starting with my first car purchase, a gorgeous blue 2016 Hyundai Tucson. Driving my new baby back to the hotel is how I imagined new parents feel driving home from the hospital.

The first day of work ended up being pretty uneventful, which was all I could ask for. I spent the day holed up with HR signing papers. I had to use a friend of a friend’s address as I was too embarrassed to tell my company that I was living out of a hotel.

The good news was that my living situation was getting an upgrade. That evening I toured a studio apartment attached to the back of a family house. It was no place off Ocean Avenue, but it was real. I signed the short-term lease and handed over what was left of my savings. The landlord handed me the keys and property information including the wifi password: GodSeesUsAll. I hoped it was only God seeing me and not a creepy landlord with hidden video cameras.

The following morning I said goodbye to the Marriott off El Segundo Blvd and packed my blue Tucson with all my belongings. I’d move into my new place after work.

I pulled up to the office feeling positive. Sure, the early screenings of my LA story had been a disaster, but I had made the necessary edits to save the picture. What I didn’t realize was that my LA story was about to become a horror pic.

No longer needed by HR, I spent my second day among my coworkers. That’s when I slowly realized something was off, a tension I hadn’t noticed when I first interviewed. Desks were covered in coffee cups, which I learned were needed for the late night shifts that were a daily occurrence. Eyes were bright red as people took breaks out on the balcony to cry. Sweat stains bled through their clothes because every single second of the day was a fire drill. Folks I had seen a month ago when I interviewed seemed to have aged more than most presidents do during their entire tenure.

I spoke to a few veterans, and by veterans, folks who had been there a week, to understand the truth. We were a month out from the biggest time of the year, Fall TV premieres, and the agency was unprepared. There hadn’t been enough time to ramp up on the new account. The team was only half filled and most people were newbies like myself. Now it all made sense why I got hired. They didn’t want to take a chance on a young whippersnapper from the Midwest. They were desperate for bodies.

When the sun was setting, a stressed coworker looked out the window and wistfully said that with the days getting shorter they were bound to never see the sun.

“The days get shorter here too?” I asked out loud before I could stop myself from making the stupid comment.

Deep down I understood how the heliocentric model of our universe worked. But on a surface level, I had assumed that it was forever sunny and warm in California, which pretty much sums up why I was destined to fail.

Long after the California sun had gone down, I stopped at the mall on my way home. I filled my cart with home goods and food for my new studio. As I stalked the aisles, I once again pondered my foolishness for not anticipating that my job would have had a catch. When was I going to stop being so naive?

I pushed my cart out of Target and down the rows of cars towards my blue Tucson. I kept pushing and pushing only to reach the end of the garage. I turned around and searched again.

But there was no blue Tucson.

I furiously repeatedly pressed the lock button but heard not a peep.

A few days ago I would have spent hours pacing the garage rows believing that my car would turn up if I only I believed hard enough and clapped my hands like I was resurrecting Tinkerbell. But not any more. My short time in Los Angeles had taught me to expect the worst.

And there was nothing worse than my brand new (used) car being stolen along with all my possessions.

I huddled in the corner and began my semi-private mental breakdown. Eventually, I looked up to the heavens begging God to either transport me back to Chicago or take me out of my misery. But I didn’t see the face of God or any of his angels. I just saw the ceiling of the garage, which reminded me that there was a whole other floor.

I held my breath as I ran up the garage stairs. There on the third floor I clicked my keys again. Before I heard the beep, I saw that blue Tucson right where I had left it.

Yes, it was a tad bit overdramatic on my part to have so quickly jumped to “my car is stolen” instead of “I’m on the wrong floor”. Hopefully you can understand the state of mind I had at the time.

I’m happy to say that was my first and only parking garage meltdown, though I would go on to mix up plenty of parking spaces in the future (looking at you Grove). And since that breakdown, life in LA did get better. Not that it was an easy upward trajectory (looking at you COVID). Still, the trendline was positive.

And I’m at a point where I can look back on all of those early moments and laugh. My former coworkers who became some of my first LA friends love to laugh about our rehashed battle scars while complaining about Gen Z coworkers being too weak.

And I’m now a proud foot soldier for Nicole Kidman. I’ve been an AMC A-lister for years and have not only mastered the two AMC Marinas but have also conquered the holy trinity, the AMC Burbanks .

Here’s a helpful tip for newcomers: Burbank 16 is next to the Cold Stone, Burbank 8 is next to the DQ ,and Burbank 6 is next to the Barnes and Noble. And fear not, all three have a MacGuffins Bar.

And I learned my lesson to only rent places I’ve verified in person like the latest rental spot Ryan and I moved into back in August of 2025.

The morning after our hectic move to the Valley, we decided to go on a peaceful morning stroll. We stepped outside and surveyed our new neighborhood. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and the friendly neighbors were strolling by. It was a perfect picture of Valley living except it was missing one crucial element - my car.

My 2016 blue Hyundai Tucson was not parked out front, but I didn’t panic. I figured I had forgotten that it was in the garage. When I confirmed its absence from the garage, I still did not panic. No worries, the car must be farther down the block.

After making a few loops around the block and confirming that there weren’t any sly “No Parking” signs I had missed, I finally came to the obvious conclusion: my old car was stolen.

This time I didn’t cry. I used up all those tears back in 2019.

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Pen pals, ghost stories, bug bites.

These are the typical components of a overnight camp’s farewell package. Yet in the summer of 2005, the children of Camp Eberhart returned home with nothing in their pockets but a deep depression. Horror had disrupted a fun-filled week at the YMCA camp. The likes of which would have made the residents of Camp Crystal Lake blush.

Terror stormed the southwest Michigan camp on a night originally meant to be a fun send-off. The counselors had planned a smorgasbord of events from photography lessons to ultimate frisbee games. There was even a planned book discussion to theorize the events sealed away within Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

The sixth and latest Potter novel had been released a few days earlier. Only a handful of parents had shipped copies to a few lucky campers. For 99% of the camp, we still had so many unanswered questions to explore: Who was the Half-Blood Prince? How would Voldemort ruin end of year exams? Would anyone other than Hermione care that Hogwarts operated off the backs of slave labor?

However, before any of those questions could be explored, roll-call was conducted. This involved more than just each cabin yelling “present”. Status had to be accompanied by a joke, a chant or a fun quote.

Something like - “Cabin 10, the heart of Camp Eberhart, is reporting for duty.” I imagine nowadays roll-call is endless 6-7 jokes.

Last up for roll-call was the eldest boys’ cabin full of 14–15-year-olds who were too cool for any performative chanting. Typically, their enthusiasm mirrored that of the parishioners in a Roman Catholic Church. But that night the boys went full on Pentecostal Revival. The boys stood tall with their chests out and shouted so loud that every sleepaway camp in all the great lakes could hear.”

“On page five hundred and ninety-eight Snape kills Dumbledore!”

Silence. Not a bird chirped nor a frog croaked.

Then an eruption of screams. Campers called the boys liars. Teary eyed counselors stepped forward. Clutched in their hands was one of the few copies of the book in question.

“It’s true, it’s all true,” they wailed as if they were confirming rumors that the camp was out of s’more supplies.

The confirmation led to another eruption. This time the outcry was pure rage. Experiencing a new Harry Potter book was a religious experience, one that could never be replicated. The older boys stole that from us. And there was blood to be paid. The perpetrators no longer standing so high and mighty fled to their cabin. There they sheltered from the growing mob wanting to tie the perpetrators’ feet down with Harry Potter books and toss each boy out into the middle of the lake.

By the time parents arrived two days later, the campers were less homicidal but no less depressed. For years they had been waiting for the next book only for the story to be ruined.

I was not immune to the sadness. However, my deep post-camp melancholy had nothing to do with spoilers. I was not mourning the death of a headmaster at the hands of an incel Potions master.

I was mourning the death of my first summer romance.

—

Camp Eberhart was not my first overnight camp as that distinction goes to Notre Dame’s basketball camp. Despite the mixed results there, I was hungry for another summer away. In 2004 at age twelve, I switched over to Eberhart for a more traditional week of camp, and it turned out to be the best week of the year.

I think my great fondness for overnight camp was that it emulated my ultimate dream - boarding school. Thanks to Hogwarts propaganda, I thought the greatest experience a child could have was attending boarding school, whether it included magical moving staircases or not. Like the Mirror of Erised, Camp Eberhart offered me what I most desired. I got to live in a cabin with all my friends. My days consisted of classes though instead of transfiguration or care of magical creatures, it was archery and water skiing. What the camp lacked in headless ghosts, it made up for with ghost stories shared over a campfire.

I loved the independence. I loved being all grown up.

Come summer of 2005, there was no question I wanted to go back. I needed that taste of freedom once more. And I would get more than a taste.

My friends and I returned to Eberhart as newly teenagers (13). Though we were only one year older, it felt like we were going to a whole new camp.

For one thing, the counselors treated us differently. In the prior summer, counselors told us ghost stories to scare us. But now they told us play-by-play scenes from Wedding Crashers, the latest movie they had seen off-duty. When the counselors weren’t busy recounting Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn’s latest exploits, they played Dane Cook’s comedy album Harmful if Swallowed.

We were no longer the kids the counselors had to watch but were now their co-conspirators.

Yet the greatest difference between summers was the new addition at Camp Eberhart - girls.

Now to be clear, the camp had always been co-ed. It’s just that in the prior summer the girls had existed only in the theoretical sense. In the first summer, when we played games of “who would you rather kiss”, it involved unattainable idols like Emma Watson and Keira Knightly. Now the game featured the girls sitting at the next picnic table.

The biggest moment from our first summer was when us, twelve-year-old boys, had convinced the thirteen-year-old girls to come to our end of week party rather than the older boys’ cabin. Getting the older girls to accept our invite was a huge victory. But that’s all it was to us. A game versus the older boys.

That all changed in the second summer. The girls were very much real and the goal for every kid in our cabin was to catch one. It was a scary task, and we needed to send a canary down the coal mine of love.

Turns out, I was the canary.

Early on my friends and I befriended a group of girls who shared similar classes like Boats, Canoes & Sailing. By mid-week it was time to get serious. The boys huddled together to start laying claim to the girl they wanted to ask out. It was a delicate situation ripe for opportunities of bickering and jealousy. Very much like on Drag Race when the queens jockey for roles in the Ru-sical.

Guys worried they might be left without a date. I didn’t need to have such concerns as my date was agreed upon pretty much on day one. Both the boys and the girls had decided me and my new love interest were the perfect pair.

Or as we both would say - the poy-fect payuh.

Her name was Taylor. She was spirited, cute, and she couldn’t say her r’s to save her life. Which was worse for her given the unfortunate second syllable in her name. I was thankful my Dad vetoed my Mom’s first name choice for me. As a compromise, Bourke became my middle name instead.

To everyone at camp, it only made sense that the two kids with the same speech impediments should date. If God didn’t want speech impediment blessed people to be together then why make them at all? Our fate was written in the stars, I mean, witten in da stahs.

Now you may think this is where I discuss the tortured life of a closeted kid being married off into a heterosexual relationship. That was not the case. I was more than a willing participant.

A summer love? Très chic. How grown up. How Grease. I was so excited to cosplay Danny Zuko.

Because we were the obvious pair, it was implied that we should be the first couple to go official thus making it easier for everyone else to follow suit. I was nervous as my past attempts at love had 50/50 results.

Earlier that school year, I had successfully asked out my classmate Kelly. We dated for a fortnight and went on zero dates. Your classic middle school relationship. I did manage to sneak into her homeroom during lunch once to give her my dessert.

The first time I asked a girl out, it was not so clean. When I was twelve, I was down in Knoxville, Tennessee for the global competition of Destination Imagination. If you’re unfamiliar with the league, it was a global convention for eclectic nerds, theater kids, and kids whose pregnant mothers were addicted to Tylenol.

In attendance with me was my best friend Michael Jank (also a fellow Eberhart campmate). The two of us quickly made friends with girls from all the way across the pond. We continuously egged each other on to ask one of the London ladies out. Did it make sense to start an international relationship at the age of 12? No, but we were without our parental supervision so we were running on five days of no sleep.

It was in this hazy sleepless delusion that I asked the leader of the pack to be my girlfriend.

She declined.

I was taken aback. I was a catch. I tanned like my ancestors hailed from the island of Sicily instead of the County of Clare. I had just learned how to shave the two microscopic whiskers on my upper lip. And in a few years, I’d be voted most eligible homecoming date by the society of western suburban moms.

The Brit’s reasoning:

“Aren’t you gay?”

“What-No- are you..NO!” The little Elton doth protested too much. “Why would you even say that?”

“All you want to talk about is David Beckham and the Spice Girls.”

I was disgusted. I had been trying to be a goodwill ambassador by engaging with her culture. I could have talked about important all-American topics like baseball or Lizzie McGuire. Obviously, the girl wasn’t wrong in her assessment, but I was, and still am, annoyed she got the right answer from the wrong formula.

All that to say, I had mixed results when it came to asking a girl’s hand in junior high matrimony, so I was nervous to dip my toes back into the dating lake. Especially as I knew I was the test case. I might have never had the courage to make the move if not for a close call with death.

I wasn’t much of a fan of boating class as I much preferred swimming in the lake then sailing on it. However, I did enjoy the day our class took a field trip. We paddled our metal canoes across the lake making landfall on a camper’s family dock. There her family showered us with food and pop while we played on the water trampoline. The five-star resort treatment felt like leaving your Disney World All-Star hotel room and spending a day at the Grand Floridian.

In between chowing down on food and trying not to hurl it back up on the trampoline, the sexes awkwardly flirted and gossiped. All it took was for me to make the first move for the hormonal floodgates to open.

Sadly, a very different type of floodgates opened. The clouds darkened and the counselors hastened us into the canoes. We had barely left port when the rain started. Slow at first then a downpour. Kids complained. Counselors pleaded for us to keep rowing.

“What about lightning?” cried a terrified camper from inside her metal deathtrap.

Frustrated and cold, a counselor replied, “It’s just rain. There is no lightning.”

Then with the utmost perfect timing God spiked a lightning bolt across the southwestern Michigan sky. We stopped rowing. Not a sound was made, even the rain droplets went mute. It was as if the lightning had spoiled a Harry Potter novel.

A few Mississippi’s later a roar of thunder boomed across the lake. In response every camper screamed bloody murder while waving their metal pedals around just tempting fate. One group of campers squirmed so much they tipped over.

“WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”

We chanted our new slogan over and over again. Before we could lose our lives or at the very least lose our voices, the camp’s speed boat approached.

There was only enough room for a few canoes worth of campers to be rescued. This would have been a perfect opportunity for us boys to show the ladies how chivalrous we were. Not a chance. It was every camper for themselves. Before we could have an all-out battle of the sexes in the middle of the lake, additional boats from surrounding houses thankfully heeded our call. Not since the evacuation of Dunkirk had there been a naval rescue of this magnitude.

Later that evening, the rain had ceased, and we met up with our classmates to recount our near-death experiences. Before we said our goodbyes, I stepped off to the side with Taylor and asked her to go out with me.

Like joining the priesthood or getting a haircut, you shouldn’t rush into big decisions after a major life event. However, after facing death, it felt like no time but the present to start a relationship.

Other guys followed suit and there was a slew of quasi-relationships. I liked to think of Taylor and myself as the royal couple, or as we would say the woyal couple.

At night us guys would listen to Dane Cook joke about girlfriends. We’d nod along saying “So true Dane, so true.”

As brief as Dane’s status as a Hollywood leading man was so were our relationships. No sooner had the older boys spoiled Snape’s big KO than it was time to pack up and go home.

On our final night together, Taylor and I exchanged AIM usernames and in the glow of the creepy lamppost by the bathrooms we sealed our love.

By sealed I mean a micro-second peck on the cheek.

The next day I returned home. Back to living under the rule of my parents. Back to sharing a room with my brothers instead of my camp brothers. Back to being a child.

“Is something wrong?” my mom asked me when I told her she didn’t need to extend the loan on our library copy of Half-Blood Prince even though I had barely read a chapter.

How could I confide in her? How could she understand what it was like to know the joys of adulthood only to be sent back to a life of childhood frivolity?

I was like those children from the wardrobe who had grown up to be kings and queens of Narnia only to suddenly return back to being children in WWII Britain.

My waning summer days were spent picking at my broken heart. My eyes hung with sadness, my sad huge eyes. Those huge eyes were the inspiration for my AIM name - HugeEyes113.

I used that AIM to speak to my camp friends, and, of course, my beautiful paramour, or as we would say, pawamah. We’d tell inside jokes and reminisce on our great love. My family only had one landline connection so there was never enough internet time to fill the hole in my heart, or haht.

Then one day when Mike and I were messaging the girls, they came back to us with a novel idea.

“Let’s meet at the mall.”

We all lived in Chicagoland so there was no reason we couldn’t meet in real life. That’s when my sadness disappeared as if I had been injected with a IV of Prozac.

Taylor no loner seemed to me like my long lost love, but rather as the cautionary tale Wedding Crashers had warned me of, a stage-five clinger.

Go to the mall? It had only been a week-long summer camp. First, she wants a mall trip. But what’s next? Marriage? I mean, mawage?

Mike and the other guys felt the same way so we continued to give evasive answers until the camp girls got the message, or more so, our lack of messages. We ceased communication by the time the first school bell rang.

What’s crazy is that this whole scenario would play out again years later when I traveled across Europe in my mid-20’s. In the first leg of the trip, I traveled with my friend Rob who did his best to play wingman. In the second leg, I was on my own and that’s when I found myself in a revised version of Before Sunrise. In my version, I traded Julie Delpy for an Australian water polo player. We met in Berlin and had a brief affair before I headed west to finish the rest of my trip.

During my farewell train ride from Berlin, I wistfully reflected on the love I lost. I wondered if I was making the same mistake as Ethan Hawke by going back to America.

Of course, I was no Ethan Hawk and it was not the early 90’s but the mid-2010’s so there was a thing called Facebook. This contraption allowed the Aussie and me to stay connected. It was later that year I would get a Facebook message from my co-star informing me he would be visiting Chicago.

He was ready for our own Before Sunset, but I was not signing on for a sequel.

I lied and told him I was out of town. It wasn’t a complete lie as I had plans in Wicker Park that Saturday. For this Northside guy, traveling west of the Kennedy Expressway was considered going out of town.

As was the case with my summer camp girlfriend, I really loved the idea of the doomed summer romance, more than the actual romance. I love a bit whether it’s pretending to be a grown up or being in a small indie film. This is why it was so important to start my wedding vows confirming to my husband that the wedding was in fact not a bit.

Looking back, I could have handled those prior summer romances better. Maybe I should have accepted Taylor’s invitation to the mall and broken up with her in person. Thankfully there were no long-term hard feelings.

Years later, alumni of Camp Eberhart would reconnect over Facebook. It was easy enough to confirm if we had been former campers - all you had to ask was “were you there when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince got spoiled?” That type of trauma bonds kids for life.

Taylor informed us how that summer had been quite pivotal for her as she had found a lasting love. Not with me. But with sailing. She grew up to be an avid sailor along the north shore of Lake Michigan

This fact was another reminder as to why we never would have worked. She was a sailor and I was a swimmer. She shopped at Old Orchard Mall and I shopped at Oakbrook Mall. She rode the UP-North line, and I rode UP-West.

Plus, looking back now, I’m pretty sure I had a crush on my bunkmate the whole time. So there was that too.

Oh well, we’ll always have Paris, or should I say, we’ll always have Eberhart.

Or as we’d say, Eba-hawt.

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Photo credit to Ryan Milling

The summer of 2006 was a memorable one. It was the summer of awkwardly swaying to Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie, the summer of nearly twisting ankles in precarious Moon Bounces, the summer of binging on coolers filled with pop, mondos, and capri-suns (along with a single can of beer stolen from the adult cooler).

It was the summer of eighth grade graduation parties.

Normally I was a model guest, but there was one Sunday evening in mid-June where I had an acute case of party pooper-itis. There wasn’t a problem with the DJ as he was dutifully spinning Now That’s What I Call Music 21 on repeat. Nor did I have beef with the particular graduate whose honor we were celebrating. Honestly, there were so many parties with different configurations of hosts that I easily forgot whose party I was even attending.

Why was I in no mood to celebrate our accomplished grade school days? Because I was too consumed with fear over my approaching high school days.

The following Monday at zero eight hundred hours, I was to report to East End Park for my very first York High School cross country practice. Even though classes were months away (except for summer school which started that Monday as well), tomorrow was the day I could officially call myself a York Duke.

I didn’t sleep that night. Consumed with worries over my first day impressions, I drowned in a pool of sweat. Plus, the air conditioning didn’t reach the boys’ upstairs bedroom.

In that oven of a room, I prayed for three things:

1. Camaraderie with the other freshmen

2. Acceptance from the upperclassmen

3. Approval from my coach, Mr. Joe Newton

The legend of Mr. Newton had been built up to mythic proportions. However, when your coaching resume includes twenty-five state championships and an Olympics, the only proper proportion is mythic.

I came to find that Mr. Newton’s actual proportions were less mythic and more Tolkien. My hobbit-sized coach sat on the park bench waiting to greet every runner. He was dressed like he was to lead us across the snowy summits of the Misty Mountains rather than watch us run laps on a balmy June day. When I checked in, he was very pleasant and enthusiastic. The elderly man didn’t come across like some hard-ass state champion. He was more like a kind retiree who spent summers coaching in Illinois and his winters in the Shire.

After meeting my warm coach, I took my place on the lawn and played a game of I Spy as the rest of the team joined.

I spied my former IC grade school teammates who fought with me on the battlefields of suburban parochial cross country. I spied former friends and former foes from the mean courts of YMCA basketball. I spied kids who competed alongside me every Sunday in the greatest challenge of all, not falling asleep in church.

There were guys I recognized from the diving board line at East End Pool, and older guys I recognized as the lifeguards who reprimanded us for swimming during adult swim.

Thanks to my older sister, I recognized a decent amount of the upperclassmen, many of whom had gifted my sister with mixtapes in the hopes of winning her affection only for those mixtapes to land in my grateful iPod Library.

Old friends, new strangers, slight acquaintances, and music benefactors, these were my new teammates.

At precisely zero eight hundred hours, Mr. Newton cleared his throat and began his opening season remarks. They ended up being similar to those shared to memorialize the battle of Gettysburg. No, I’m not talking about Lincoln’s brief memorable speech, I’m talking about the other guy who spoke for hours before Lincoln. I clearly had underestimated my new coach. He could have gone into politics as a filibuster savant. Mr. Newton’s voice never wavered. If the ancient Israelites had had him on their side, they could have brought down those walls of Jericho without needing to spend money on trumpets.

Mr. Newton finally ended his marathon speech with a description of the day’s practice (Segments: 45 mins, 45 mins, 30 mins cool-down). Followed by an order: “Freshmen, move to the picnic tables to receive your workout.”

The upperclassmen got up to stretch while the freshmen moved to the designated tables. On my way, I was stopped by my former IC grade school teammate Eddie who told me and a few other IC alumni that we should run with the upperclassmen. His sources had told him that the freshmen workout was just for freshmen who were new to the sport of cross country. Experienced middle school runners like ourselves should run the main workout.

I thanked him for the save. What a disaster it would have been if Mr. Newton had caught me doing the “easy” workout. I’d have been branded a lying cheat like someone lowering their handicap to trick golfers out of their money. Or would you raise your handicap? Eh, I don’t know how golf handicaps work.

As the experienced runner that I was, I lined up with a handful of former IC teammates and the upperclassmen to begin our first 45 minute segment. It felt like I was about to race a tribe of Laestrygonians. I was a tiny freshman surrounded by towering giants, despite the fact that I was likely taller than half the guys. They all seemed so old and cool, what with their learning permits and their short shorts that made my baggy basketball shorts look like a floor length skirt. I assumed that for every minute you shaved off your 3-miler, another inch was shaved off your shorts.

Just as I was busy wondering about the correlation between short sizes and personal records, the whistle sounded. The mad dash began and in the scramble, I lost sight of my fellow freshmen. Were they behind me? Were they ahead? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to look around like some lost tourist. I just ran.

You probably imagine that York’s home course would be as grand as the team’s history. A championship team deserves a championship course. What comes to mind is a a pristine forest preserve where every inch of the path has been meticulously formed for the optimal support. Great elms provide generous shade. The sound of gushing majestic waterfalls fills the air.

Not the case.

East End Park was a half mile loop around a mix of basketball courts and baseball fields. Traffic congestion from both 290 and 294 expressways was the background noise. The uneven ground and small dimensions made it the worst course in the Western Suburban Conference and likely the entire state.

On that first run, I didn’t have time to notice the irony of the course. I was too busy trying to survive.

I was miserably out of shape. Who knew that graduation parties were not the best prep for cross country running? By the third lap, I lost steam. One by one, a new group would advanced towards me, swallow me and then spit me back out.

When a group of approachable sophomores ran by me, I made my last stand. I stuck with them staying a few paces behind like a stowaway parasite. They busied themselves talking shit about kids and teachers who meant nothing to me. If they noticed me, they didn’t ask me questions, which was for the best as I couldn’t form words. It was a walk in the park for them, but for me, it was the battle of my life.

On and on we went around the park. With no watch on me, I could only hope that each lap would be our last, but it seemed like the segment would never end. I kept lying to myself, promising that I just needed to hold on for one more lap. Then one more lap would go by, and I’d lie to myself all over again. It’s like every time I promise my body that it just needs to survive one last Malört shot. There’s always another one coming right around the corner.

Eventually the whistle sounded. The segment was over. The other runners sauntered back to the picnic tables while I crawled. I had time to chug my water bottle, but soon enough we were back on the line.

I was determined that for the next segment, I would not lose sight of my fellow freshmen. I couldn’t go out as a free agent again. However, when we lined up, I was the only freshman left.

The freshmen who had done the “beginners” workout had already been sent home with pats on their heads and paperwork in their hands. As for my freshmen friends who ran the first segment, they had to leave practice early due to summer school classes. Never had a teenager been so envious of summer school than I had been in that moment.

As the lone freshman, I lined up by the sophomores who had carried me through the first segment. If I stuck with them once, I had to believe I could do it for another 45 minutes. And stick with them I did, for all of 45 steps. Then my summer run turned into a sleep paralysis infused nightmare where no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my legs to move. All I could manage was a walk masquerading as a jog. I was so slow that Mr. Newton could have beaten me in a race running backwards with his hands tied behind his back.

That second segment was a fun game called ring around the dumb freshman. Over and over, my new teammates passed me. I wanted to rummage through a garbage can and find a bag to put over my head. I kept waiting for a senior to come up behind me, smack me over the head with a stick and just put me out of my misery.

Time lost all meaning. The segment was never going to end. It seemed that East End Park had fallen into a black hole and been spit out into a new galaxy where one Earth second was ninety-five years.

Suddenly, I could hear it. Archangel Gabriel’s horn blaring to welcome me home.

But it wasn’t my end, just the whistle to signal the end of the segment. I could finally stop running (well, walk-running), but I felt no relief. I still had another 30 minute segment soon to do. Then tomorrow’s practice and tomorrow and tomorrow.

So this was what high school would be? A series of painful and embarrassing loops around some god forsaken park?

What cruel mistake had I made in life to deserve such a punishment? Surely not even the gods who smite Sisyphus could have concocted a fate crueler than the one laid before me.

Drawing my last breath I approached Mr. Newton. I asked to get the paperwork that had been handed to the other freshmen, but I was really hoping for a miracle. Maybe Mr. Newton would see my distress and offer some magic up his sleeve to make the pain go away. Maybe he would tell me the perfect stretch that could restore function to my legs.

I wanted Mr. Newton to diagnose my running problem. And diagnose me he did, with a case of dumb freshman-itis.

When I explained to Mr. Newton that I was a freshman, my friendly hobbit coach acted as though I had just stolen the ring of power from his grasp.

“GOD DAMNIT, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE?!”

“I - I - I -”

“YOU THINK YOU CAN RUN WHATEVER WORKOUT YOU WANT?"!?”

“I - I - I -”

Mr. Newton spared me the need to answer. He shoved the paper in my hand, and instructed me to go home.

“Tomorrow when I say freshmen at the picnic table, WHERE ARE YOU GOING TO BE?”

“The picnic table.”

I hobbled away as Mr. Newton muttered a profanity laced rendition of Bye Bye Birdie’s “Kids”.

Thus ended my perfect first practice. I made a fool of myself in front of the upperclassmen, likely alienated myself to the other freshmen, and had the distinction of being the first person of the class of ‘10 to get a signature Mr. Newton take down.

I should have melted from embarrassment, or flown into a fit of rage over the horrible intel I received. Experienced freshmen should run with upperclassmen. What a load of BS.

But I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t embarrassed. Emotions required energy. Energy I did not have. I lied in bed all day, too tired to do anything, not meet up with friends for a game of Uptown Tag nor continue work on my unauthorized musical sequel to Wicked.

It wasn’t till the following morning’s bike ride to my second day of practice that I had recuperated enough to give my neuroses their full undivided attention. I imagined what horrible embarrassment awaited me at East End.

My goal that day was to remain invisible. Thankfully, Mr. Newton’s second day address was just as long as the first, so I had tons of time to will myself into invisibility. But it was no luck. Once Mr. Newton finished, I was immediately harassed by upperclassmen.

“Hey, aren’t you…”

Yes, yes, I’m the loser who ran too close to the sun.

“…Katherine’s brother? Yeah, you’re little Milling.”

They didn’t mention anything about my embarrassing run the prior day, only my lineage. They said they’d keep an eye on me which felt less of a brotherly gesture and more of a menacing threat. The latter proved true as I would go on to hold the distinction of the freshman who averaged the most daily slaps on the ass. By the end of the season, I’d reflexively throw my hands behind my back to shield my derriere whenever I sensed upperclassmen running up behind me. Oh well, bruised cheeks were a small price for a robust iPod Library.

Later on that second day, I noticed a group of freshmen who were clearly staring, no doubt mocking the idiot who thought he could run with the upperclassmen.

“Hey, we want to ask you something?” they finally said to me.

Here it goes - why do you think you were too good for us? Who the hell do you think you are?

“Why do you wear makeup?”

Makeup?

Apparently I had a closer resemblance to my older sister than I cared to admit. I panicked patting my face down. I pledged to them that I never used cosmetics.

“Your eyes look like they have makeup on them.”

Damn, my dark long eyelashes.

Beyond that false accusation, the second day was actually heavenly. How could it not be? The freshmen workout was a tenth of the upperclassmen workout. Imagine going from bumper to bumper 90-minute commute to walking downstairs to you wfh office. I left practice with plenty of energy, enough to crack the second act in my unauthorized musical.

Honestly, running with the upperclassmen was the best thing that could have happened to me because almost every practice that summer seemed feeble compared to that horrific first outing. Plus future Mr. Newton rants that summer didn’t seem as scary. The worst was over and everything else was running downhill.

It didn’t take long that summer to realize how silly I was for fretting about looking dumb. Of course, I was going to look dumb. To be a freshmen was to be dumb. And you never had to worry about being the talk of town because there was a line of freshmen waiting to do or say something even dumber.

But eventually dumb freshmen become mature sophomores. The summer of ‘07 was no longer filled with grad parties, but rather shifts working at East End Pool. My carefree days were behind me. I had even given up on writing my Wicked sequel realizing it was a childish dream (also I had spotted the actual sequel on a shelf at Borders and was pissed that someone had beaten me to the punch).

On my bike ride to the first practice of sophomore year, I thought about the nervous freshmen and all their fears they probably had. I thought about the grace I didn’t give myself and hoped they’d be kinder to themselves.

I thought about all of that when I should have been thinking about the ginormous water bottle precariously hanging from my handle bar. All it took was a slight crack in the road for the water bottle to fall off, crash into my wheel, and send me flying off my bike.

“Milling, you look like shit,” Mr. Newton said when I checked in. He wasn’t wrong. I had a fight with the concrete street and lost.

During Mr. Newton’s opening summer speech, I did my best to shoo the gnats away, but by hour two, I relented and let them take a summer swim in my open wounds.

The third time ended up being the charm. Junior year I finally had the perfect first day of summer cross country. That’s because I was thousands of miles away on a family trip. Instead of running laps around East End Park, I ran laps around Magic Kingdom collecting Fast Passes. Thanks to all those segment trainings, I could race from Splash Mountain to Space Mountain without breaking a sweat.

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Traveling east along Santa Monica Blvd on the last stretch of the legendary Route 66, you’ll cross a myriad of LA neighborhoods and cities from the beaches of Santa Monica to the exclusive 90210 zip code of Beverly Hills. Keep heading east and you’ll eventually notice a particular change in the surroundings.

The crosswalks will go from black and white to full technicolor like Dorothy stepping out of her crashed house and into Oz. The clothing on the mannequins will shrink to the size of a handkerchief. And every bar will claim to be the real Pink Pony club that inspired Chappell Roan. That’s when you’ll know you’ve crossed into West Hollywood.

As you walk the streets of WeHo, you need to be on high alert. Don’t get trampled by a stampede of ravenous bachelorette parties. Don’t get trapped by a couple who are looking for a third when they should be looking for a therapist. And don’t get accosted by someone far scarier than any mugger, a friend-of-a-friend who wants notes on their middling screenplay.

If you can survive these perils, you’ll continue through West Hollywood where the crosswalks will get less colorful, the mannequins will get slightly more covered, and the bars will go from being gay to being curious to being an ally.

Once you cross Fairfax though, you’ll notice a new crop of establishments. Surrounding the likes of overpriced coffee shops and defunct porn theaters are unique groceries and pharmacies, or at least I think that’s what these stores are. They honestly could be more porn theaters. I have no clue as all their signs are in Russian.

The east side of West Hollywood is known as Little Russia. An initial influx of Russian Jews in the 70’s was followed by a second wave of Russian immigrants after the fall of the USSR.

This part of WeHo had been Ryan’s home for several years. By the time I moved in, I was well aware of the Russian influence and expected to have Russian neighbors.

What was odd was how my future comrades didn’t expect me.

One day early in my West Hollywood tenure, I was on my way back from the corner store juggling a six-pack of beer for myself and a six-pack of mac and cheese for Ryan. As I approached our building, I was stopped by our downstairs neighbor Vlad.

We greeted each other and introduced ourselves. Vlad explained that he had been living with his wife Liuba in the building for over twenty-five years and had been in WeHo a few more after that.

Or I think that’s what he said. Honestly the communication wasn’t great. Vlad’s thick Russian accent made his English difficult to translate while my thick Danny accent made my English difficult to translate.

Eventually, Vlad turned to using hand signals. He gave me two thumbs up.

“Be like this.”

I tried to mimic him but almost dropped my beer.

The next time I encountered Vlad, I was bringing up laundry from my car. Once again, my hands were full, a common trope for a Vlad encounter.

“Hello,” he called coming out of his apartment, “Hello Mr…Mr…”

“Danny.”

“Yes, Da-ny. I need to talk about your girlfriend.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No, girlfriend,” he corrected me. “She has shoes that go like this -” He then raised his arms up and down to mimic the pounding of stilettos, but it was more like the pounding of war drums.

I was confused for a moment but then it clicked. Vlad may speak broken English but spoke fluent passive aggressive. His way of telling us to stop pounding our feet was to devise a fake girlfriend. (Even imaginary women get blamed for the fault of men).

“I understand Vlad. We’ll make sure the girlfriend is quiet,” I said with a wink.

“Ok, be like this,” he said with thumbs pointing up.

The next time Vlad saw me, my hands were full once more, and once more Vlad delivered the same request.

“Tell your girlfriend to walk like this -” He then tiptoed across the sidewalk.

At this point I realized that Vlad was not being passive aggressive, he was just really confused.

“Vlad, there is no girlfriend.”

“But I saw her.”

The thought crossed my mind that Ryan might be hiding a secret life as a drag queen or cheating on me with a woman. Either situation would be quite comical to see.

“Vlad, I don’t know who you saw, but there is no girlfriend, there is no woman in our place.”

I explained that our apartment was like a Republican sponsored blue-ribbon committee on female health – only men allowed. I promised Vlad that Ryan and I would be quieter but again made clear we were not the type to have girlfriends.

“No girlfriend,” he repeated, too puzzled to give me a thumbs up parting message.

That night I complained to Ryan about Vlad’s confusion. Vlad was acting like we were all in an old Norman Lear sitcom where in a special episode the main character meets the homosexuals who move down the block. Vlad had chosen to live in one of the few places on Earth where you’re gay until proven straight.

Ryan had lived in the building for years before we moved into a different unit together. Vlad had to know what team Ryan hit for, so was the problem me?

“Do I really give off straight guy energy?” I asked Ryan.

Ryan did not need to answer as I would answer my own question not long after when I drunkenly performed the entirety of the Oscar-winning movie Chicago.

Despite the lack of girlfriends, Vlad stayed on friendly terms with us. A little too friendly.

One Friday afternoon, I was in the living room starting work happy hour activity where my team was taking a Charcuterie making class over Zoom (we were still in the waning days of pandemic hell). As I was learning the perfect spot for Brie, there was a knock on the door. It was Vlad.

“Dinner ready.”

That was it. He descended the stairs.

“Wait, what do you mean dinner?” I called out.

“Dinner, now, you and Ryan.”

I asked Vlad to hold on as I ran interference with Ryan who was working from the bedroom.

“It’s 4pm,” Ryan said, “can you even call it dinner?”

We both agreed this was a bad time, not just the early time but we still had work to finish (or in my case a charcuterie board). We also needed to prepare for Ryan’s Amazing Race birthday party the following day as well as hosting his high school friends who were staying with us.

“I’m sorry Vlad, another time, I promise,” I said as gently as I could.

Vlad muttered words under his breath, likely putting a Russian curse on me.

After he left, I went right back to Ryan. My Catholic guilt reached a boiling point at record speed.

“I feel so bad. I just wish he had given us a heads up. It’s not like I made plans with him. Did you?”

“No,” Ryan said with full confidence, “other than this one time earlier in the week when Vlad was like dinner Friday and I was like sure.”

“RYAN!” I was ready to rip his head off and place it next to the brie.

“But those weren’t real plans,” Ryan argued, “They’re LA plans. You say you’ll grab coffee or dinner but you never do. Everyone knows that.” Everyone but Vlad.

To alleviate our guilt and erase whatever Russian curse had surely been placed on us, we marched downstairs and knocked on our neighbors’ door.

“At least we can put to rest the notion of us having girlfriends,” I mentioned.

Vlad opened the door looking like a mannequin in a WeHo storefront. He was shirtless.

“Oh sorry,” we said, shielding our eyes. “We wanted to let you know we can do dinner. If you’d still have us.”

Vlad gave a cheer and yelled out to his wife. He then welcomed us in.

“We can come back in a few minutes,” we suggested, preferably when the vibe was less Chippendales.

But that was nonsense, Vlad forced us inside. He and his lovely wife began to reset the table with all the dishes they were in the process of packaging up. There were piles of borscht and blini and syrnyky and more food that I googled afterwards. Clearly this was a dinner that the couple had spent time and money on, and if we had wasted it then I had no doubt a nuclear warhead would have launched from Moscow and landed directly on our bedroom.

The table was covered with so much food that there was no room for any glasses, except those the size of a shot.

Our hosts raised their shot glasses.

“Za zdoróvye!”

I followed their lead and took my shot. Ryan did not.

“Drink.” Vlad encouraged.

“I need to drive later so I can’t,” Ryan said, “but Danny could drink mine.” I guess when Ryan said he needed to drive he meant drive a bus over me.

Vlad’s face brightened up and he poured himself a second. He couldn’t let me drink alone.

I glared back at Ryan who sheepishly mouthed, “It’s my birthday.” Case close. I took the shot.

From there, it was an endless cycle of Vlad forcing more and more shots while Liuba encouraged me to eat enough food to feed all of West Hollywood.

Sometimes I was the cause of my own pain. You see I was desperate for water and, instinctively, I would reach out for a water glass that was not there. Vlad would see this and assume I was reaching for my empty shot glass causing him to pour another round.

You might counter my retelling and say I had free will and that I could have stopped the shots at any time if I really wanted to. However, you would be wrong. As Ryan will tell you, I’d eat a bowl of nails if they were served to me and tell the host I must get the recipe.

By the fifth shot, I was wishing for that bowl of nails.

It was around this time the mood of the dinner drastically changed.

Liuba brought over photos to share with Ryan, clearly distracting him so that Vlad could talk to me alone. He set the bottle down and stared at me like he was ready to propose we assassinate Rasputin. Vlad was ready to talk business, and I felt like the drunk idiot who showed up to work in my underwear. Of course, this was a business dinner. It’s LA, every dinner is a business dinner. Vlad understood this city better than I realized. There are no friends in this city only people who can help get you what you want. And Vlad wanted two things.

First, he told me the banging on the floor needed to stop. I supposed he finally got the message there was no girlfriend walking the hall in heels.

Second, Vlad wanted a new AC. The one they had was on its last legs which explained why it was 110 degrees in their apartment. I had assumed that’s just how old people like it given my grandparents’ condo was set to a temperature that allowed you to cook eggs on any counter.

I pushed back on the A.C. “Vlad, I don’t manage the building.”

“But you got new AC.” It was true. We recently got new AC units. Vlad had watched it all. As the maintenance installed the new units, Vlad began planning this dinner.

Vlad poured us another round to lock in the deal.

As I choked down the shot, Vlad turned his attention to Ryan who had been watching the whole affair with bemusement. There was one request specifically for Ryan. Vlad explained that he had an old friend who he hadn’t seen in years. She was a great friend, but Vlad made it clear they were merely friends with no benefits.

“No this,” Vlad said making hand gestures that easily translated to English.

“Do you know her?”

Ryan was caught off guard. “Why would I know your friend?”

“She’s like you.”

Filipino

Ryan told Vlad he’d check his rolodex of fellow Filipinos for one who would most likely befriend a Russian. Unlike me, Ryan didn’t make any promises he couldn’t keep.

Vlad went to pour another round, but the bottle was empty, thus signaling the end of the evening. We thanked our hosts as they saddled us with leftovers.

Stepping outside, we were immediately hit by a harsh spotlight. It was as if the entire FBI had the place surrounded ready to take us in for grand espionage.

“What is that?” I wailed.

“The sun.”

“How is it still here?”

Had the Earth spun off its axis? No. Dinner had just ended before 5pm. However, I took off sprinting up the steps as if it was midnight and I was Cinderella.

“Are you gonna puke?” Ryan yelled out.

I wasn’t racing to hurl, I was racing to remember. The alcohol was hitting and I could feel myself blacking out. I got to our kitchen and chugged sink water until I could feel all the lights turn back on inside my mind.

“Let’s leave for Target in 5,” Ryan called out.

I wasn’t blacked out but I was still drunk, yet that fact didn’t buy my out of the Amazing Race shopping trip. I ended up being zero help to Ryan at the store other than simulating the experience of shopping with an unruly toddler. Back at the house, I continued to be unhelpful. Clues had to be made, but since I couldn’t walk straight much less write or cut straight, Ryan handled all the clue making. Meanwhile I self-medicated with White Claw to ensure the hangover did not hit me till I was asleep. I also became the night’s entertainment as I acted out every scene in Chicago. (callback from earlier)

It was just after I had perfectly enacted every part in the Cell Block Tango that our apartment door opened.

It was not Vlad looking for a second round. It was Ryan’s friends Cal and Gina who were staying with us. This was not their first time meeting me as there had been the occasional park hangs, but this was the first time they’d met me in our natural habitat. And what would they report back to the good people of the Bay area? That Ryan had shacked up with a drunk who couldn’t be bothered to help Ryan prep for a birthday party as he was too busy butchering Fosse.

“It’s not my fault!” I wailed, “It was the Russians. The Russians did this.”

The following day the Amazing Race party went off perfectly, no thanks to me. A highlight of the race was the road block where teams had to perform a monologue of their choosing in front of the porn theater Studs.

When the dust settled, I did not forget the promises I had made to Vlad. I shot off an email to the building management saying how I was concerned for the health of the elderly neighbors given the approaching summer heat. Within a week a new AC was installed. Vlad offered me Vodka as a thank you gift, but I had had enough.

Over the following weeks, I did my best to be a courteous upstairs neighbor. If I went any lighter on my feet, I would have been floating. Ryan, not so much. Any time Vlad caught me, which was whenever I was carrying heavy items, he’d complain to me. I’d promise to do better and then would complain to Ryan about Vlad’s complaining.

“It’s not just me,” Ryan would say when I tried to throw all the blame at him.

Then one Friday Vlad stopped me on my way back from the corner store. Luckily, I only had a six-pack in my hands this time.

“Da-ny, Da-ny!” Before I could promise to do better, he hugged me. “Thank you, thank you. You are like this.” Vlad tiptoed up the steps.

What changed? Oh nothing, other than Ryan had been gone all week. I now had all the proof I needed to lay sole blame at Ryan’s heavy feet.

“Please tell your roommate thank you.”

Ryan barely had time to walk in our apartment before I launched into my story. I was gleeful in the retelling, Ryan was not.

“So what did you say back to Vlad?”

“I said, I would tell you he was thankful but clearly all this proves that you are the problem. Not me.”

“No, I don’t care about that. What did you say to Vlad about the other thing?”

“What other thing?”

“What did you say when he called me your roommate?!”

“Ummm…nothing.”

Ryan did a lot of stomping around the apartment that night. For once I didn’t tell Ryan to quiet his steps.

The following morning on the way back from errands, Ryan was in a better mood. So much so that he stopped me before we went up to the apartment and planted one of those magical Hollywood kisses…

…only to suddenly break it off as if he had heard a director yell “Cut!”

“Damn it, I thought Vlad was out on his balcony.”

“That’s why you kissed me?”

“Of course, why else would I?”

From then on Ryan was dead set on being handsy in front of our neighbors. I on the other hand was not into it. Look, I don’t mean to kink shame, but voyeurism involving your Russian neighbors is not my thing.

However, I needed to get Vlad on the same page because each time he referred to us as roommates, Ryan grew one step closer to killing someone - I just wasn’t sure if it would be me or Vlad.

I did my best to correct Vlad during our talks. He’d give two thumbs up and say “tell Ryan to be like this”.

“Yes,” I’d reply back, “I will tell my boyfriend Ryan.”

Each time I’d think he’d get it, but it never seemed to stick.

Finally, I lost it when on one interaction Vlad spoke of his granddaughter. Again, I only caught half of what he was saying, but it sounded like he was trying to set me up with her. For so many reasons this was a no for me, especially as I could have sworn I heard the word “teen” at the end of her age.

Enough was enough. I dropped the load of laundry I was carrying.

“I don’t want a girlfriend. Ryan is my boyfriend. BOY-FRIEND!”

And if that didn’t get through to him, I made some hand gestures that I knew Vlad could understand their meaning.

From then on, Vlad never called us roommates. The cold war that had been raging between us had melted. Relations between Russian and Rainbow nations were peaceful. Vlad referred to Ryan as my boyfriend and even stopped asking us to be quiet. Maybe Ryan had learned to be light on his feet or maybe time had taken care of Vlad’s hearing.

Over the years we kept an eye out for each other. There were many Monday mornings working from home when I would hear a yell from outside. “Da-ny! Da-ny!” It was Vlad warning me that the WeHo meter maid had come, and I had exactly ten seconds to move my car before I got a street sweeping ticket.

I returned the favor by helping him out like the time Vlad was in a panic over a woman harassing him on Facebook. I wondered if it was his long lost pinoy friend. Instead, it was Meta AI chatbot.

“I don’t want to talk to her,” Vlad complained. Meta AI had been sending him private messages. They were friendly in nature, but Vlad didn’t see them that way.

I tried to explain to him that it was not a she but an it. The whole ordeal brought up PTSD from teaching my grandpa and grandma how to use a DVD player, which took two different multi-hour-long sessions that resulted in no DVDs ever being played.

After about ten minutes, I gave up trying to explain AI and called it a customer service representative.

“You don’t have to talk to her,” I promised him.

“I wish she would go away.”

“Trust me, me too.”

I’d also try to help in other ways like one time I was headed to Trader Joe’s and asked Vlad if he and his wife needed anything from the store.

“No, no beer.”

“Not beer. I’m going to the store.”

“Yes, the store,” Vlad said pointing to the corner store down the block. “You go to store. You buy beer. Next day, you go to store, you buy beer. Every day you buy beer.”

“I don’t buy beer every day.”

It amazed me. In all the years Vlad had lived in WeHo he had acquired not the slightest semblance of a gaydar and yet, had perfectly learned the art of reading a queen to filth.

To be fair, I did end up getting some beer from TJ’s and on my way back forced one onto Vlad. If he could force a bottle of vodka on me, a can of artisanal IPA wouldn’t kill him.

What could have killed him was a bottle of Malört. I had promised Vlad that when my family visited, they were going to bring a special Chicago liquor. For our wedding, my folks had graciously transported several bottles of Malört across state lines so all our guests could burn holes in their throats.

The day after the wedding I was busy unloading the leftover alcohol into our apartment. Vlad walked out to greet me. I looked down at the box of alcohol and for a moment was going to hand him a leftover bottle of Malört. However, I got cold feet. I had flashbacks from when my sister tricked my grandma to have a Warhead which almost sent her to an early grave.

I opted for a giant bottle of Kirkland vodka instead. Vlad was a happy camper who forgot all about that special Chicago liquor I had previously hyped up. I tried to hand off several of the ninety-five wine bottles we still had leftover. But he declined. The vodka was the only thing he wanted.

As I walked away, he did his usual, “be like this,” with thumbs in the air. Then he added, “Tell your boyfriend be like this.”

I turned back and corrected Vlad for the last time, “Not boyfriend…husband.”

I could see the gears turning in his head, but I went back upstairs before any follow-up questions. It had been a wonderful but very tiring wedding weekend, and I didn’t have the energy to catch Vlad up to speed on Obergefell v. Hodges.

Like many married couples before us, we eventually made the pilgrimage from the city to the suburbs, or in our case, the Valley, which affords many young families and aging Bravo stars a bit more space than West Hollywood.

A few days after our official move to the valley townhouse, I went back to our old WeHo apartment to make one final sweep and say goodbye to my old friend.

“No gift?” he joked when he saw me.

“I have a gift,” I lied.

After I finished cleaning the apartment, I walked to the corner store I had gone to so many times before (but not as often as Vlad would tell you). Instead of my usual six-pack, I got a bottle of vodka, something slightly nicer than Costco brand.

“Here, to say goodbye,” I said handing the vodka to Vlad.

He got upset thinking his joke had forced me into buying the gift.

“No, no, no, I had this the whole time to give to you,” I lied, but in hindsight it was rude that I hadn’t had a gift planned. The amount of money Vlad had saved me on street cleaning tickets was deserving of many more bottles.

He eventually accepted the gift and gave me a hug calling us his best neighbors.

As usual, his parting message was “be like this” with thumbs raised high.

That night I was trying to put our new place together when I dropped a suitcase. The crash on the hardwood floor was like the big quake finally hitting. I winced waiting for the aftershocks, aka a yell from Vlad to be quiet. But it never came. There was no more Vlad or any downstairs neighbor. That night I desperately craved a pair of the highest heels so I could march around the place to honor my WeHo comrade.

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There is a new great scare terrorizing Hollywood. There had been the Red Scare and the Lavender Scare. Now there was the Blue and Pink scare.

Woe to any starlet who gets labeled a nepo baby.

There is no dirtier phrase in Hollywood. Celebrities would rather get caught financing their next project with Saudi money than their parents’. Actors crave the public’s adoration, but how will the public be in awe of their accomplishments if their success was spoon fed?

I’m not here to rebuke nepotism in Hollywood. So what if your first screen credits are films your godfather produced. Who am I to throw stones at your glass bungalow off Sunset paid for by your trust fund? Afterall, my first job was thanks to nepotism. And like many nepotism hires, I was entirely miscast. I never should have won the role of caddie at the River Forest Country Club.

A caddie is no strange job for a young kid making his way in the world. It was, however, a strange choice for a kid who had never played a round of golf that didn’t involve a drawbridge or windmill. I thought a bogey was just an undesirable flavor of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavored Beans, and thought Jack Nicklaus’ 6x champion moniker was for his 6 Golden Globes.

But none of that mattered. Not when I was the nephew of not one but two Evans Scholars.

My godfather, Uncle Kevin, had been a caddie at River Forest Country Club. His tenure started the summer my grandpa kicked him out of the house for being too annoying. He wandered a few blocks over to the country club sitting on the border between Bensenville and Elmhurst. Uncle Kevin worked his way from B-Caddie, to A-Caddie, and then to Honor Caddie eventually scoring the Evans Scholarship that gave him a full ride to Indiana University. There he would live with other Evans Scholars including the man who would one day become my Uncle Pat (thanks to Uncle Pat marrying Kevin’s sister, Lisa).

Uncle Pat and Aunt Lisa would go on to become members of River Forest Country Club so with a double pair of Evans Scholars and club members, my employment was an inevitability, no matter how much I screwed up the training.

The first of two evening training sessions consisted of learning our blocking - where to stand, where to set the clubs - and learning proper cleaning practices for the clubs. Our main job was keeping the gear safe and shiny.

The second session had us out on the course caddying for an older honor caddie. During those few practice holes, I struggled carrying the clubs but so did all the other thirteen-year-olds whose arms and legs were skinnier than the clubs. Still, I completed the round.

I proudly stood ready for final inspection. My clubs were perfectly cleaned, at least the ones in my possession. My tutor immediately noticed I was missing a wedge. I sprinted back to the sand trap from the last hole where the missing wedge laid. As I made my way back, I knew I had flunked regardless of finding the wedge. I broke the number one rule - don’t mess with the merchandise.

I arrived back to my tutor just as the head caddie made the rounds to hear the assessments.

“So how did Danny do?”

“He’ll make a great caddie,” my tutor lied.

I was taken aback, did this seventeen-year-old really believe in me? Did he understand that one mistake does not tell the full story of a man?

Or was he polishing his Evans Scholar application and was not about to upset the nephew of potential reviewers?

“Make sure you don’t do that again,” he sternly whispered to me once the head caddie was out of earshot.

I profusely apologized and promised I would never do that again.

But I did do it again.

And again.

And again.

If you wanted an excuse to buy yourself a new club, let me be your caddie. I was ditching clubs like breadcrumbs as if I needed a trail to find my way back to the first hole.

Every time I raked a sand trap, I’d tell myself “Now Danny, don’t forget the club you just set down.” It was as useful of a reminder as when I tell myself before a night out “Now Danny, don’t forget to not order that third Old Fashioned.”

It wasn’t just clubs that I lost. There was not a single golf ball I could accurately locate. It was as if the golf ball would turn invisible the moment it made contact with the club. I’d stare out into the sky seeing nothing but the planes departing from O’Hare.

On the walk down, I’d frantically plead for help from the other caddies in identifying my ball. One of them would take pity and locate a ball in the rough.

“Titleist 2, is this yours?”

Then I’d realize that in my panic to find where the ball was, I had forgotten what ball was missing.

Was it a Titleist 2? Titleist 1? Wait, maybe it was a Calloway?

I could remember how many stars Mark Caro from the Chicago Trib gave a movie months ago but I couldn’t remember the number on a ball I cleaned minutes ago.

There’s nothing a middle-age man loves more than on a day where he can’t hit par to save his life has to trace around the golf course searching for his ball only to then find out that the club he will need is still over on that last hole where he double-bogeyed.

Clearly, my inability to do my job was cause for termination, but my worst quality as a caddie was being a poor conversationalist. It’s not that any of the members were looking for deep philosophical debates as I carried their clubs (what were left of them). The golfers just wanted a cheery young chap who would laugh at their jokes and make agreeable comments.

“Great swing Mr. Johnson.”

“Great joke Mr. Johnson.”

“Great nuanced take on the Iraq war Mr. Johnson.”

Many golfers were excited to find out that their caddie was a “Danny” so they could live out their full Caddyshack fantasy. Sadly, I was not off book when it came to the sacred text. I was always so confused as to why around the time the second beer hit on the back nine, the golfer would chuckle to himself then ask:

“Do you take drugs, Danny?”

To which I replied back, “Benadryl when I have a cold.”

I was a terrible scene partner.

The golfers wanted someone who would “yes, and…” them or at the very least “yes” them. Instead they got a brick wall. I was already a shy kid around strangers, but add the fact that I knew I was awful at my job and all I wanted to do was bury myself in the sand trap.

The worst part was that no matter how terrible I was, I always got a generous tip at the end, which then riddled me with guilt.

Sure, as a babysitter I was often overpaid for my services, especially on nights when the parents had a “fun” time and didn’t get back till well past midnight. They would dump out their wallet to apologize for the “inconvenience” even though I had been passed out for hours after raiding their kitchen like I was the Grinch stealing Christmas. But at least I hadn’t lost any of the kids.

Maybe the generous tips were a sign from the members that mistakes are part of life and nothing to be ashamed of.

Or maybe they didn’t want Danny Milling spreading word around the parish that Mr. Johnson was a cheapskate.

Despite the generous tips, I still hated the job. It’s hard to enjoy something you are so terrible at. The only exception is my love of the sketch tutorials at the Animation Academy in Disneyland. I always make time for those classes even though my sketches are at best terrible and at worst hate crimes.

Every night that summer, I’d pray for God to destroy the River Forest Country Club. I wanted Him to smite the club off the map (while not impacting my grandparents house close by).

On the drives to River Forest at the crack of dawn, I’d intensely listen to WGN hoping for Spike O’Dell to announce late breaking news that a black hole had engulfed River Forest. All eighteen holes were lost to the space time continuum, but Bill and Barbara Bourke of Bensenville were unharmed.

No such luck.

Upon arrival to the club, I would wait for hours and hours in the caddie shack with nothing to do besides playing pong on my mom’s cellphone, provided I was so lucky as to get to bring the phone with me on that particular day.

But I preferred mindlessly waiting in the caddie shack (which was a shack with just wooden benches and a broken TV) to the alternative - working. Every time the head caddie entered to announce recruits for the next foursome, I sweated bullets like I was at The Hunger Games reaping.

By afternoon it was do or die time. The head caddie would either let me know there wouldn’t be any slots for me so I could pretend to be disappointed and go home.

Or I would finally get chosen.

You might be wondering if any of my fellow caddies took pity on me, but why would they?

Sure my family didn’t hold equity in the club, and we weren’t even second-tier social members. But just because I wasn’t the boss’s son, doesn’t mean I wasn’t at the boss’s son’s birthday party.

It wouldn’t have taken long for the other caddies to spy through the hole in the caddie shack to find me sunbathing next to the pool while I ordered food off my uncle’s tab. And it doesn’t inspire camaraderie when you tell others you won’t be working the club’s Fourth of July tournament but you will be attending the club’s Fourth of July fireworks show. By the time of my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary that took place at the club, the caddies logically assumed that the kid downing his 95th Shirley Temple was a spy.

No one could feel safe shit talking Mr. Johnson when they knew I was headed to Mr. Johnson’s lake house that weekend.

Finally the day came. The teacher letters arrived in the mail welcoming back Immaculate Conception Grade School students, thus announcing the end of summer. While other ICGS students treated the letter’s arrival as if they were 1940s housewives spotting an army vehicle pull up to the house, I celebrated the death of summer as it would finally mean the death of my employment. (To be fair though, my favorite day of summer was always the day we got our letters. Thank goodness I was blessed with 20/20 vision as being a four-eyed nerd would have been too much.)

Upon returning home from my final day caddying, I immediately told my parents I was not going back next year. They were not surprised. I fell ill that summer with a horrible cold that miraculously flared up anytime I was meant to caddie. They were fine with me not going back but demanded that I find an alternative job the following summer. In the Milling household, summer employment was mandatory for all “teens”. It was a rule that would become more of a guideline and eventually a half-hearted suggestion as my younger brothers grew up.

The following summer I was nervous to return to River Forest as a guest. I contemplated wearing a disguise to the Fourth of July fireworks show. I figured they would have posters of me hanging around the club as if there was a warrant out for my arrest.

Turns out there was. Only not for me.

The head caddie had been caught embezzling money from the club. I could no longer claim to be the worst caddie.

I would go on to play the nepotism card again nine summers later. This time I pulled strings to work the pool rather than the golf course. Although I had years of experience as a lifeguard, I was still unqualified for the role. Literally, my lifeguarding certification expired the week before I started guarding at River Forest. Oh well, I spent more time washing towels than guarding lives that summer.

My relationship with the game of golf has evolved over the years. I eventually learned how to play thanks to my friend Matt who worked at the Oakbrook golf course a few miles south of River Forest. Matt provided us with free driving range tokens and helpful pointers during his breaks.

And though I didn’t get an Evans Scholarship, I did take golf as my gym elective freshman year. At Notre Dame, freshmen were required to take “gym” electives to enrich our mind, body, and all that jazz.

Nowadays, I’m always down for a round of golf at a bachelor party. And I no longer have trouble finding where my ball went. It’s hard to lose your ball when it doesn’t leave the tee.

A game that once terrorized me now gives me joy. You could say that’s a heartwarming story of growth, but I fear it is merely a sign that I’m turning into my final state - old white man. I mean, I already have my tickets for the latest WW II film about the meteorologist behind D-Day.

Ultimately, unlike many others in Hollywood, I don’t fret nepo babies. Why should I when there have been so many great ones, à la Jaime Lee Curtis, Michael Douglas, and Liza Minelli.

And as for the bad ones, they will eventually fall through the cracks into oblivion, like I did.

The lesson I learned was that although my godfather was born to be an elite caddie, it didn’t mean I was meant to be one. It’s the same story for my husband’s family. Ryan’s godfather was a wonderful kind uncle and not at all like the ruthless dictator of the Philippines that his godfather had been. Yes, Ryan’s great-godfather is that dictator. But perhaps godfather traits skip a generation. There’s still time for Ryan to fall into fascism. Lord knows he has enough shoes to be the second coming of Imelda Marcos.

So perhaps there is hope for my godchildren. Amelia or Logan might grow up to become the honor caddie their godfather never was. They certainly couldn’t be any worse.

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Showing off skills at my brother’s Scott’s bachelor party up in NW Indiana (video courtesy of Liam Gaughan)

Proof that I can hit the ball (just needed a few Miller Lites in me)

Edit: Picture of me and my first paycheck courtesy of my parents. Glad I didn’t lose my tip.

“I don’t believe you.”

My freshman year roommate wasn’t buying what I was selling. We had been swapping hometown stories, and my description of Elmhurst did not meet his expectations. I suppose he expected me to describe a boiler-plate Chicago suburb plucked from a John Hughes film. Instead I described a desolate place ripped from a Roland Emmerich disaster film.

I regaled my roommate with tales of storms that flooded Elmhurst streets and homes and knocked out power for days on end. What most confused my roommate was how nonchalant I was about these recurring cataclysmic storms.

“But that’s life,” I argued, “isn’t your town like that?”

“No, that’s not normal.”

Despite Elmhurst’s severe lack of proper storm drainage or sturdy power lines, the western suburb still held many virtues. The town had great schools, great parks and great express trains that get you into downtown in under thirty minutes.

But the real jewel of Elmhurst was its modern day Lyceum. This establishment was a place of learning, a place of magic, and a place of free refills on drinks and popcorn.

York Classic Cinema has been around before the first talkie screened, before the first winner thanked the academy, and before the first losers lied about the nomination being the real win. York’s marquee jets out the front of the building, its lights guide the weary traveler. The interior with its ornate carpet and chandeliers will make you believe you are about to watch the latest Norma Desmond picture even if you are seeing the latest Minecraft.

York isn’t hidden away in some mall along the highway. Rather, it’s situated in the heart of uptown Elmhurst surrounded by local shops and restaurants along with the quintessential chains (i.e. Starbucks, Chipotle, Buffalo Wild Wings). The rest of the city center is filled out by the latest fads. There were smoothie shops that blended into cupcake shops that transformed into burger shops. The latest trend is luxury apartments meant to attract city couples and suburban divorced dads.

More important than its proximity to Chipotle was the theater’s proximity to me, a mere half mile from our stucco bungalow on Myrtle Ave. From a young age my parents let me travel to the theater without parental supervision. They couldn’t well stop me given that from an even younger age they were leaving me without parental supervision to watch my younger brothers and cousins. If I was old enough to keep an infant alive, I seemed old enough to walk to the theater without getting hoodwinked by Honest John and his sidekick Gideon the Cat. My parents didn’t need to worry about me veering off course towards Pleasure Island as I was never walking alone for long.

Halfway on my journey at the corner of Elm and 2nd, I’d pick up the Siskel to my Ebert, Michael Jank. Sometimes our duo would turn into a fellowship with the likes of Taylor and many more joining us. But rarely was I seeing a movie in the 2000’s where I wasn’t breaking popcorn with Michael.

We had our whole routine down. Before the theater we’d stop at the Walgreens across the street where we’d stuff our pants with all the candy we could conceivably conceal. Then at the theater we’d split a small popcorn. Just before opening credits, one of us would get the first of many free refills.

Michael and I were so addicted to York’s popcorn that we’d purchase it even if we weren’t seeing a movie. We saved popcorn bowls so we could just walk into York whenever to get a refill. Eventually the theater caught on and enforced a ticket requirement for popcorn purchases. Rude. Still nothing could stop us from being frequent fliers to York.

The best part of the outing was the walk home where we’d recite the bits we loved or mocked the bits we hated. These bits would then get recycled over and over again joining our ever expanding lexicon.

My least favorite part was when we’d split off back at the corner of Elm and 2nd. My Irish imagination fueled by the cinema had me seeing danger behind every house. Those final few blocks always had me holding my breath, not that I ever admitted that.

No fear of the dark could stop me and Michael from seeing practically every movie that rolled through York like Dragon Wars, a film about ancient dragons attacking Los Angeles. The only one who could save the city was a random white guy who was a Korean dragon slayer in a former life (and possibly Shirley MacLaine in another). Plus, Daryl from the Office was there to help. All of my friends walked out of that showing agreeing we had simultaneously seen the worst and greatest film. It was a true lesson on camp.

Then there was the Lindsay Lohan clunker, Just My Luck, a far cry from her Parent Trap and Get a Clue days. Not that the film’s quality mattered to us as we were too busy playing freeze tag. The weekday noon showing was completely empty except us ICGS eighth graders who had the day off to prepare for graduation mass that night.

Of course, nothing can compare to all the midnight showings from Harry Potter flicks to Christopher Nolan puzzles. My favorite part of the experience was getting “high” beforehand. And by high I mean picking up a Starbucks frappuccino mocha from the Jewel. For a high schooler who thought weed and marijuana were two different drugs and who wouldn’t regularly drink coffee until his 30’s, those mochas had me feeling like my brain was getting incepted.

However, there is one York theater experience that sticks out more than all the others. Not because the movie was a masterpiece or because the popcorn had been especially buttery that day, but because it represents why theaters reign supreme. York brings people together, and I’ll never forget the time Mike and I went on a dubitable double date with Toto and Winkie #3.

---

While the rest of the country spent the fall of 2004 wondering who would lead us come the new year, I was far more concerned on finding out what would be Immaculate Conception Grade School’s 2005 spring musical.

The prior few years had seen classics like The Music Man and Bye Bye Birdie grace the IC gymnasium. Vegas bookies favored staples like Grease, Annie and The Wizard of Oz. It turned out that sixth through eighth graders would wind up heading to the Emerald City, but instead of following the yellow brick road, we would be easing on down the road in a production of The Wiz.

Any former musical theater kid has their fair share of skeletons in the stage closet. Perhaps there’s a photo of you sporting too much bronzer in West Side Story. Or maybe you went a bit crazy with that eye liner in The King and I. Luckily, I can say that no one at ICGS abused their make-up during our production of The Wiz. And hey, at least our predominantly white grade school didn’t take on Dreamgirls or The Color Purple.

Of the my three-years of musical theater at IC, seventh-grade’s The Wiz was by far my least favorite production. It had nothing to do with my qualms around the source material but everything to do with my qualm around my lack of screen time with the Tin Man, aka Michael.

Last year’s The Music Man had plenty of town scenes requiring the full cast, which meant unwieldy practices where we spent more time goofing off than learning the Shipoopi. In The Wiz, there were only so many scenes that required Crow #4 / Kalidah #5.

That’s why I found myself home on Friday waiting for the Tin Man to get done with practice so we could form an evening plan. Eventually the house phone buzzed, and I picked up ready to read off York’s showtime listings from the Chicago Tribune. But Mike already had a plan: 7:20 showing of The Ring Two.

I never saw The Ring (one), but I knew the basic premise - watch a videotape of this creepy girl Samara, get a phone call and then die seven days later. The goofy plot device was well entrenched in pop culture. Plus, after a block party in my neighbor’s basement, I saw the opening of Scary Movie 3 where Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy expertly parody The Ring’s premise.

“Trust me Danny, we have to see it.”

It had been decided. I scarfed down some Friday night pizza and made my way to the corner of Elm and 2nd to pick up my date.

Mike and I busied ourselves on the walk to the theater by fine-tuning the lyrics to our latest set of parody songs. Not only were Mike and I aspiring cinephiles but we were also aspiring Weird Al Yankovics. Our most recent album took inspiration from The Wiz.

We transformed the Wicked Witch of the West’s tune “No Bad News” into “No Bad Pulp” a song to reflect my love of orange juice but affliction to pulp inspired by one sleepover morning when Mrs. Jank had the audacity to offer me the wrong kind of oj.

“When I wake up in the morning, and I need a glass to drink. Don’t nobody bring me no Bad Pulp (no bad pulp).”

Our real crowning achievement was our parody song of The Munchkin’s tune He’s the Wizard inspired by a recent rumor about our classmate “Kate”.

“It’s a Zy(gote) It’s the zy, it’s the zygote of Kate…

And you know without her placenta it would be impossible to live…

It’s a Zy(gote), and it lives in Kate. It’s the Zygote!”

When Kate was missing from class one day due to a doctor’s visit, another rumor ran rampant that Kate was getting the “A” word. Upon hearing this, our substitute teacher had a full blown exorcism. Once she stopped speaking in tongues, she took the girls to one side of the class to speak on the evils of planned parenthood as well as the evils of the show Friends starring that whore Rachel Green who had Ross’ bastard. (If you ask me there was some mixed messaging going on).

Anyways the boys were left to fend for ourselves so Mike and I cracked open our Science textbooks and Wiz playbooks and came up with an egregiously inappropriate song.

For those wondering, the initial rumor was false and spread by the girl herself. Although if I was her, I would have gone full Roxie Hart from Chicago. At school mass, I would have fainted while taking Communion. Then when teachers and priests hovered around asking if I was ok, I’d go, “Oh, I’m all right. I just hope the fall didn’t hurt the baby.” Then from the back of the church Queen Latifah would yell out “Baby?” Camera then zooms in on Catherine Zeta-Jones, “Shit.”

Anyways, as we approached York Theater, Mike no longer was in the mood to workshop our parody songs. He was agitated, nervous, dare I say scared? Mike wasn’t averse to horror films unless they involved clowns due to watching the miniseries It at a young impressionable age.

“Let’s stop at the fountain first,” Mike said as we turned the corner onto York St. The fountain, mecca of pre-teen hangouts, was situated in the plaza in front of the Chipotle.

Even though it was Mike’s suggestion to stop there he seemed hesitant with every step forward. What was so scary waiting for us there?

Then I saw them. They were more terrifying than any demonic clown or homicidal videotape.

They were girls.

Eighth grade girls.

Back in 2005, a pair of Uggs and a Motorola Razr may have been the must-have accessories for millennials, but for seventh grade boys, there was no greater status symbol than hanging with an older woman. An eighth grade girl were even cooler than the mysterious seventh grade public school girl.

I was well aware of the two girls waiting for us at the fountain. For one thing, I was aware of every kid in ICGS along with their family’s preferred church pew, but these two girls in particular were in the musical with us as Munchkin/Winkie and Toto. Critically, I was also well aware that our entire ICGS musical production was now in grave danger.

In the 1939’s The Wizard of Oz, there was a discarded sub-plot romance between Dorothy and the Scarecrow. That is why Dorothy so rudely says “she’ll miss [the Scarecrow] the most” upon departing from Oz leaving the Lion and Tin Man to just stand there being like “well screw our drag.”

However, in the ICGS production of the Wiz, it was the Tin Man that Dorothy had eyes for.

Michael and Dorothy’s wild love affair began in the Fall during a semi-mandatory evening dance class. Earlier that day he had promised to ask her to be his dance partner. One wooden fox-trot later, they were officially going steady. However their love fizzled out by the new year likely due to never actually going on dates but just “dating” in a vague middle school sense. By the time The Ring Two premiered, Michael and Dorothy had broken up…or had they just gone on a break? The issue was murky. (This is where watching Friends could have been beneficial regarding the topic of breaks.)

The questionable relationship status between Dorothy and the Tin Man was exactly why it would be a bad idea for word to get out that the Tin Man was galavanting around town with Dorothy’s dog. The AIM group chats would have gone nuclear spilling into rehearsals. This is a prime example of why, like NYU, the theater should only accept men who are on the alphabet. Straight men like Michael have far too much power in these spaces.

It was imperative that any after school activity between Michael and his canine paramour be masked hence the need for a Crow/Kalidah and a Munchkin/Winkie to tag along. If anyone asked, we would just say we happened to run into each other. The lie wouldn’t have been hard to believe as every Munchkin, Winkie and preteen in Elmhurst had decided to see Gore Verbinski’s sequel.

On that Friday night, York Theater was the epicenter of preteen gossip and hormones. The hottest ticket in town was the 7:20 showing of Ring 2 , and Mike and I entered with the hottest dates, aka girls who were a month shy of making their Confirmations. We made our way to prime back row seats afforded to us by the senior status of our dates.

Toto and Michael sat next to each other flanked by their respective ladies in waiting. From our seats in the back row, we could view the entire chaos. The theater was strictly the Mighty Meal demo. Anyone without braces likely walked out as there was a constant stream of popcorn flying through the air. Kids were routinely running around and switching seats like it was musical chairs.

The crowd did not settle down even when the movie started although we gave a loud cheer when we realized the protagonist of the movie was the Brad Pitt of DCOMs (Disney Channel Original Movies). Ryan Merriman had been the star of such classics as Smart House, a movie ahead of its time about the dangers of leaving our lives in the hands of AI, and The Luck of the Irish, a move about the struggles of the Irish in America that would help inspire Ryan Coogler’s Oscar winning movie Sinners.

The crowd continued to be unruly as Ryan Merriman, legend of the small screen, traced around the large screen. Then just as suddenly as our hero appeared he got violently killed by the evil Samara. The theater was shocked into silence. How could they kill off the main star? Clearly the theater was too young to have seen Drew Barrymore in Scream.

From that point on, all eyes were locked on the screen. There was no more popcorn throwing or seat switching. We held on tight to the seats as the rollercoaster continued.

Every other minute I wanted to bury my head in my hands, but couldn’t on account of the eighth graders sitting next to me. Thankfully Mike came up with a fun idea that we should all turn our hoodies around so that the hood could cover our faces during scary parts. It was a “goofy” suggestion so that the delicate girls could shield themselves from the horror on screen. Needless to say Mike and I were constantly putting those hoods over our faces as a “joke”. We were so concentrated on not pissing ourselves in front of the eighth graders that we only averaged three refills on popcorn, down eighty percent from our usual.

All that fear was finally released in the climatic moment when Naomi Watts kicked Samara down that well and expertly used the one F-bomb a P-13 movie is allowed to have.

“I’m not your fucking mommy.”

The crowd cheered louder than the theater in West Hollywood cheered after the Nicole Kidman AMC ad at the opening night screening of M3GAN.

The Ring Two would go onto be ravaged by critics sitting at 21% Rotten Tomatoes. If those critics had been at the 7:20 showing at York Theater, they would have hailed it as a cinematic masterpiece along with the rest of us. Or maybe those critics would have liked the movie if only they had seen it with cooler dates

We exited the theaters like conquering heroes. We replayed the “i’m not your mommy” scene as the girls waited for their ride. Once their car pulled up, they asked if we needed a ride but we declined.

“You’re not scared?”

“Scared?” We taunted. We then did our best Simba impression and said we laughed in the face of danger.

That laughter died the moment we were no longer shielded by the light of York’s marquee. Suddenly it seemed like Samara haunted every alley and bush. Our steps became slower and smaller while our pulses became quicker and louder. At this rate, there would be ninety-five more Ring movies before we made it home.

Already I was panicking at the thought of walking the final blocks alone. I’d need to force a sleepover. I didn’t care how early the Tin Man’s call time was tomorrow.

For mid-March in Chicagoland, we were sweating as if we had just marched in the St Patrick’s Day parade across the equator. We were too scared to speak. But as Oscar winning lyricist Howard Ashman said, “when the emotions are too strong for words, you sing.”

A whisper came out of Mike’s mouth, “When I wake up in the morning…”

“And I need a glass to drink…” I breathed back.

“Ain’t no body bring me no bad pulp…”

“No Bad Pulp!”

From there we frantically yelled out the lyrics to our parody song while taking to the streets. We then switched over to belting out “It’s a Zygote” so loud that Diana Ross could hear us from her Hollywood mansion. There was no way Samara could kill us while we sang parody songs of The Wiz. It was our loophole.

When Mike said his goodbye on the corner of Elm and 2nd, I didn’t plead with him not to leave me. I continued easing on down the road laughing and singing all the way.

Sadly, the grand time at the theater didn’t translate to a relationship between Toto and the Tin Man. I think she realized that whatever was going on between him and Dorothy wasn’t worth the mess, besides she would soon be in high school. There were bigger dogs to sniff.

Mike and I continued walking to York until we moved out to Chicago. Nothing compared to our hometown theater, but we still had a good time seeing movies, even when tackling Michael’s childhood trauma (i.e. watching It Chapter 1).

I would go on to see It Chapter 2 by myself in LA. Seeing the concluding chapter without Michael amped up the homesickness. When I returned to my sublet after the movie, I cried. I missed my Siskel.

I had also came home to find the fourth ant infestation that week so there was that too.

It’s amazing to see York still standing year after year. Hollywood constantly feels like it’s one more box office bomb or un-ending strike or ill-advised merger away from implosion. But through it all York has kept the marquee lights ablaze. I love that I get to come back and watch movies alongside folks who have never heard of an Ellison, Sarandos or Zaslav.

That’s not to say York isn’t immune to change. As Elmhurst upgraded its storm drainage system so did York upgrade its facilities. York expanded its theater count, expanded the chair sizes, and, most importantly, expanded its refreshment offerings. The popcorn might no longer be $3, but who cares when you can buy three IPA’s.

The first time I took my husband to York, I made sure we did things properly. We walked by Mike’s corner. I recited all our annoying bits and parody songs. I showed off the city center, where some establishments like Walgreens and Chipotle still stood and paid our respects to those that had fallen. RIP the Fountain.

Ryan marveled at the old-school look of the marquee and interior.

“What do you think?” I asked with arms wide open beeming.

“I don’t believe it.”

“What do you mean? The theater is exactly as I described it.”

“Exactly. But all this isn’t normal.”

It’s typical to assume your life is the norm. So that might lead you to assuming it’s normal to live in a town that doubles as the latest disaster set in the Universal backlot.

Or you assume that it’s normal to live so close to the magic of the movies.

And more importantly, live so close to your best friend.

But most importantly, live so close to the best popcorn in Chicagoland.

Kalidah, Tin Man, and our fan Taylor.

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“What is your proudest achievement?”

Facing an impending avalanche of student loans, I stacked my senior schedule with job interviews. I applied to any and all roles that would consider a lowly student from the college of Arts and Letters, or lovingly referred to Arts and Crafts by my classmates who called home the college of engineering or business. In each interview, I fielded the same old questions.

First there were the personality questions: What’s your best and worst attribute?

Delivered answer: My relentless curiosity, and my inability to resist taking on more work.

Real answer: My immaculate summer tan, and my inability to resist funny straight guys who when drunk make me think that I stand a chance.

Then comes the litany of “tell me about a time” questions: Tell me about a time you overcame a challenge? Tell me about a time you led a new initiative? Tell me about a time you and your friends committed vehicular manslaughter and then after ditching the body in the woods, you made a blood oath to carry this secret to the grave?

Finally, we get to the pièce de résistance : What is your proudest achievement?

The question always brought depressing flashbacks of my freshman orientation. After the fight song tutorial but before the mandatory blue and gold Kool-Aid, a la Jonestown, the administration paraded out some “average” upperclassmen to demonstrate what our four years could look like.

One student spoke of her time reprogramming the entire South Bend grid system to ensure smoother traffic flow and reduction of accidents. Another student single handedly delivered clean water to an entire African nation and was then crowned the whitest of all white saviors. The third student blended her scientific and theological research to conclusively prove not only the existence of one true God, but said deity rooted for the Irish.

The accomplished students were meant to inspire, but they only inspired dread. How could I measure up to that? I pleaded to my parents not to be disappointed if I graduated Nobel prize-less. They assured me a diploma (within four years) was the only expectation.

Sitting through those interviews, I regretted not having more demanding parents. My greatest fear entering college was not making friends when it should have been not curing an incurable disease. Then I could have had a good answer. Instead, I was left with an array of generic ones that changed depending on the interviewer.

If the recruiter from the CPG company that produced more bio-waste than the nuclear power plant in Springfield loved to brag about how they were somehow saving the planet, I would highlight my time volunteering.

If my interviewer was willing to steal candy from a baby for the sake of improving shareholder value, I’d focus on my business club participation. We partnered with companies and presented strategic recommendations to a group of bored employees annoyed they had to waste their time listening to a bunch of idiotic students all because their boss wanted to ensure their offsprings get into Notre Dame.

And if I suspected the interviewer to be a runner, I’d highlight my Disney World marathon where I PR’d in the half-marathon (no need to mention how I ran the second half slower than the line for Space Mountain).

Given that about a million people passed me in the back-half of my marathon, I can’t claim running one is all that special. Neither is sparing an hour or two away from partying to collect soup cans. No wonder I was never getting called for the second date.

So it was probably during the 95th interview I had one week when I lost it. I pulled a Bill O’Reilly and said “F it, we’ll do it live”.

By that, I mean I finally answered truthfully

“What’s my proudest achievement? An igloo.”

--

For my second semester freshman year, a blanket of lake-effect snow covering the entire campus greeted me. Students chucked snowballs at friends to welcome them back from winter break. I stayed out of the line of fire, holed up in my room in Fisher Hall, trying to solve an equation.

I had left the fall semester with almost a dozen friends in the college of engineering, but returned with only one. It wasn’t that my friends had dropped me off the group chat, but they all had dropped engineering. Most had gone to greener pastures and wallets in the school of business.

I tried to calculate the pros and cons. Was my intended major, chemical engineering, really the right path? Did I want to drop engineering only because of the peer pressure from the other engineering school drop-outs? Or did I only want to stay an engineer so I could feel superior to the ones who couldn’t hack it?

What I needed was a Teen Angel to burst into my room and croon career advice. Instead I got my former engineering friends dressed like they were majoring in the Iditarod.

“Let’s go, we’re doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“Snow Job.”

---

After only one semester at Notre Dame, us freshmen had learned what it truly meant to be a Domer. It wasn’t knowing every line in Rudy nor knowing the best food stations in the dining halls. It was having the pure belief in oneself that you are the most Domer of all the Domers that had ever or will ever Domer.

Our school newspaper the Observer was filled with letters to the editors from alumni who complained about the current crop of students. Like the time sophomore year when an alumnus ranted against the students who dared not return to the football home opener after the second stadium evacuation due to severe storms. “We never committed this crime in my day,” the proud Alumnus stated, which is funny to say given there had never been stadium evacuations in his day. That’s like me scolding my future child for trying drugs in high school by proudly claiming that “I never tried drugs.” Easy to say when no one was offering them to me.

I also remember getting accosted by a friend’s parent at a Notre Dame basketball game. He was horrified that we’d have the gall to show up to the game…sober. “In my day, we tailgated the basketball games just as hard as the football games.” All I could offer was a profuse apology for leaving my binge-drinking at the cleaners along with my hoodie and my F-you flip-flops.

However, the behavior was not limited to alumni. From seniors down to sophomores, they loved nothing more than to regale us with tales of parties so grand they’d put Gatsby to shame.

One of these grand adventures was Snow Job, a small party in an igloo just outside the dorm. It could only fit a few friends, but still, those nights of igloo drinking were apparently the “sickest” nights ever. Something us “dumb” freshman could never understand.

The back-to-school snow gave us the perfect opportunity to finally shut up all who had come before and leave our permanent mark on campus (permanent until the spring thaw). However, we weren’t content with just a recreation of the original Snow Job. Oh no, we were going to build the Shrek 2 of igloos.

The 2001 DreamWorks animated film Shrek is a wonderful film in its own right, but its successor is the apex sequel. Shrek 2 stays faithful to the spirit of the first while pushing the story forward in a perfectly organic way (aka Shrek and Fiona leave the swamp to visit her parents in Far Far Away). The characters you love from the first are back along with the type of breakout characters you couldn’t imagine the franchise ever existing without (i.e. Puss in Boots). Themes explored are not merely a retread of the first, but advance the character development in wildly fulfilling ways, and if all that wasn’t enough, the movie tosses in the greatest climatic action sequence set to Jennifer Saunders belting out I Need a Hero.

In 1842 Fr. Edward Sorin traversed the snow covered Indiana land until he stopped on a plot between two lakes. There he built a log chapel that would evolve into the greatest university (according to Domers). Over 150 years later, we surveyed the same snowy land and found a spot in between two dorms where we would build an igloo that would house the greatest party in ND history (according to this Domer).

On the west side of Fisher Hall, we made an outline of the igloo mirroring the size of a large two person dorm room, over twice the size of the original Snow Job. Three walls would be constructed with the fourth being the outside brick wall of Fisher. The door to the igloo would be the window that led into my buddy Tom’s room. Tom technically lived on the basement floor, but due to the dip in land on the west side, it was the perfect level.

From there we scavenged the dorm for shovels and plastic tubs that once were used to move in our Hollister shirts and Sperry’s. These tubs now would be the mold for our snow bricks.

Creating the first layer of snow bricks was easier than if we were building a sand castle on spring break. The flakes were perfect for packing, not too heavy, but stuck together like a triple covalent bond (remember, I was chem engineer major). The snow was a beautiful fresh shade of white still untouched by urinating animals or drunk college kids.

After that first day, we figured we would be partying in the igloo in no time. But the dawn of the morning brought a disruption to the supply chain far greater than the 2020s disruption. (supply chain issues are still a thing, right?)

There was no more snow. Well, that’s not true as it hadn’t melted. What had disappeared was the moisture leaving us with useless snow. The flakes were no longer bonding as if they needed to leave room for Mary, Joseph and Jesus.

It was time to put that incomplete chemical engineering degree to use. After a few trials, we finally devised the perfect recipe for packing snow. It was once more closely guarded than Coca Cola’s recipe, but I see no reason to hide it now. The instructions are so complicated that no mortal could hope to replicate it just like no one other than Elphaba can truly hope to read the Grimmerie.

Recipe for Packing Snow:

1. Fill container halfway with snow

2. Pour a shovel full of water onto snow

3. Fill rest of container with snow

4. Pour another shovel of water onto snow

5. Pack it down

Having developed the perfect concoction for packing snow, we then had to solve for acquiring the water. This meant bringing an empty tub to the first floor showers, filling it up, and then carrying it down the hall out the back door and around the bend to our construction site all while trying not to spill.

Sadly, I couldn’t steal Knute Rockne’s magic hat, wave my arms, and bring to life some brooms to be my water carriers. We needed help, not just with acquiring water, but everything else.

While Jesus had to travel along the shores of Galilee to find his fishermen, we merely had to stalk the halls of Fisher. Luckily, the men of Fisher didn’t need much convincing. The guys from Florida were still enamored with the idea of snow while the guys from Minnesota needed to prove that no one knows snow like them. The dorm’s lushes wanted to secure their spot in the igloo party, and even the dorm’s teetotalers couldn’t resist the fun .

There was a role for everyone to play. We needed packers, brick layers, and inspectors. We needed folks to fetch the water and shovel the snow. I stayed on as CIS, Chief Inspector of Snow.

My fellow engineers busied themselves with constructing the roof. Using snow was out of the question as it would heavily restrict air flow, not to mention the complication of ensuring we didn’t get caved in. Thus it was decided that a tarp would be used for the roof. Guys constructed a wooden rig that was placed from one end of the igloo up to the second floor. When the tarp was laid, it provided vaulted ceilings.

With exterior complete, we moved onto the interior. Walls were adorned with pukish-green spray paint that splashed “Snow Job II” on the walls. We built a bar made of snow and ice with “21+ only” spray painted on for protection. A weird idea had spread across campus that merely placing “21+ only” signs around a party provided immunity to the party hosts from authorities charging them with supplying underage drinkers. It was as ineffective as folks making Facebook statuses saying they don’t consent to Facebook using their data.

Friday evening we completed the final step, the laying down of the Goodwill Rug. We saw every thing that we had made, and behold, it was very good. Celebratory fist bumps were exchanged, but the real celebration would occur the following day at the opening night of Snow Job II. All that was left to do was light a candle at the grotto and pray Snow Job wouldn’t get shut down before it ever kicked off.

---

At most universities, the idea of partying in your dorm was completely out of the question, but Notre Dame is not like a regular college, it’s a “cool” college. It would rather you drink in the house than run a muck in South Bend. Most underage Domers left their fake IDs at home and ditched bar hopping for dorm hopping. These were university-sanctioned parties. All you had to do was fill out a form and ensure there was at least one bag of chips to fulfill the “food” requirement.

Hosts moved their furniture and belongings to a neighboring room save for a lone bedframe reused as a bar. You needed optimal space for sweaty kids to drink and grind to the crooning voices of LMFAO, Ke$ha, and Tyga. Music and awkward dancing were cut off at 2am sharp. Parietals were 2am on weekends and midnight on weekdays, which meant members of the opposite sex could not be in the dorm.

Dorm parties typically occurred in male dorms due to female dorms having stricter RA’s. When female dorms did host, they went all out. Instead of vending machine snacks, they’d have homemade goodies. Instead of piss-water beer and a Grey Goose bottle that was refilled with Skull, they’d splurge on actual alcohol. I’m not ashamed to say that many of my worst hangovers were sponsored by the ladies of Badin, Pasquerilla West, and many more. If that makes me a feminist then call me Danny Friedan.

The records will show that Tom had filled out all appropriate paperwork to host a party Saturday night. The problem was the gray area around throwing parties in the igloo adjoined to your dorm room. It was best that Student Affairs never peeked behind the quad.

The biggest threat to the party was our rector, Fr. Rob. We couldn’t tell how he felt about the dorms latest ADU. He was a bit of an enigma who spent most his days walking his recovering alcoholic dog Ellie around the quad. He was not the most friendly though that could have been due to his deteriorating eyesight, which made it difficult for him to recognize anyone. He was like my mother-in-law who after our wedding still couldn’t pick any of our groomsmen out of a lineup. All those white boys looked the same to her.

Despite his eyesight problems, there was no way Fr. Rob could miss all of us mimicking ants bringing beer case after case to our snow built anthill. Yet he did not snitch on us. We found out later that he actually bragged to the other rectors about his igloo. Knowing he protected us makes up for the time he mistakenly fined me for drinking hard alcohol in my room (beer and wine were only allowed) even though it had been my friend drinking.

---

Saturday came and it was Christmas morning at Fisher Hall. All day we waited with increasing anticipation for the party. As soon as the sun dipped below the golden dome, we got ready.

We donned our finest clothing. For some like myself, it was our proud Fisher Cardigans that were as sacred as Master green jackets, for others they went with a tuxedo t-shirts. We shared the few brushes we had and over-sprayed the cologne we’d been gifted for Christmas.

We proceeded to the basement and into Tom’s room. One by one we climbed through the window using the desk chair placed below the window. Just a bunch of Alices eagerly climbing through the looking glass. Although Snow Job II was missing hookah-smoking caterpillars, it still felt like wonderland.

At the time I would have described the atmosphere of the pre-party as “sick” or “insane” with a few “let’s go!” thrown in their as well. Looking back, I’d describe the atmosphere as pure giddiness, which I realize is not the bro-iest adjective to throw out. But that’s what we all felt, giddy. We built an igloo that vastly surpassed Snow Job I. We felt like Lindsay Lohan at the end of Parent Trap. We did it, we actually did it.

We filled our cups with the winter branded jungle juice, specially concocted for the occasion. That first sip was like taking our very first sip of alcohol all over again. We reveled in the magic of the moment. For once there was no one shouting “who do you know here” at us. This was our party, our night. Even if no one had showed up, it would have been the perfect party. But the crowds did come.

First it was the VIP guests which included girls guys were trying to impress and ambassadors from male dorms who had friendly relations to Fisher. Then the crowds and the lines.

We should have called it Snow Job 54 . Everyone wanted to get in. The who who of campus all showed up like Austin Swift (yes, that swift) and football stars like Manti Te’o, sadly his girlfriend could not attend (nope, not gonna make that joke, #JusticeforManti).

Despite the grandness of the party, my favorite part of the night was the pre-game when it was just us workers reveling in our achievement. That’s the only part of the night that has stuck with me all these years. It’s been fifteen years, and I can’t recall the actual party. To be clear that was not a cause and effect statement. Those were independent statements as I couldn’t remember Snow Job fifteen minutes after it happened. Those wintery themed drinks were stronger than we had realized. I, and many of my dormmates, were blackedout before a single football player unsuccessfully tried to squeeze through the window. On the bright side, our guests were spared the poison we had consumed.

Late into the following morning, I was finally coherent enough to make it downstairs and assess the damages. It looked like there had been a blizzard in Tom’s room that poured down not only snow but also mud, alcohol and God knows what else.

“Finally, someone’s here,” Tom said as he wheeled in cleaning supplies. Apparently recruiting people to build was far easier than to clean.

“Take this - hey come back!”

Tom cursed my name as I ran off. I couldn’t stay and help as I remembered an epiphany I had had at Snow Job just before the blackout set in. I needed to get to the College of First Year Studies immediately.

The experience of Snow Job had clarified my academic and professional future. The engineering feat we had achieved by building an igloo that could withstand the rigors of a college party was the height of man ingenuity. That’s why I needed to drop engineering. Why waste my time in a field I had already mastered. Time to take on the next adventure, business (that adventure would last a year before I started a new adventure in arts and letters).

My academic announcement was overshadowed at dinner by a more pertinent announcement. Snow Job II would be a one night only affair. Student Affairs had finally made a visit to Fisher. One look at the igloo and they deemed it unsuitable for student use. Death trap was the official language they used.

Snow Job was left to melt. We went on to throw more themed parties like Bro-Bots and Ho-Bots, where we made robot costumes out of cardboard boxes. But nothing would compare to Snow Job II.

- - -

I ran a marathon because I needed something to motivate me to burn off those light on alcohol but heavy on calorie beers. Plus I wanted an excuse to ride the Tower of Terror.

I only joined those clubs as I thought they would look good on a resume. I wonder if the same could be said for all those volunteering hours too. Was I really seeking good or just seeing attention (from job recruiters)?

But with Snow Job II, we ultimately did it just to see if we could. Maybe at first it was to prove to upperclassmen that we were better, but we ultimately did it for the fun of it.

And I’m not the hero of the story. I didn’t save Snow Job II. I was just one of many who worked together to build something we could be proud of. I was part of a team. I was proud that my friends and I could just come together and explore. Build something greater than the sum of our snowballs.

It wasn’t a great answer to show off how awesome I am, but it was the truth I told the one recruiter (minus the blacking out part).

It’s hard to know if my recruiter appreciated my unorthodox answer as there was no second round interview. Though I don’t think I can blame Snow Job II. I believe where I went wrong was my answer to his next question:

“So why would you like to work at our company?”

The problem with scheduling as many interviews as possible is you forget to prepare an answer for why you applied.

I blanked on an answer until I finally muttered, “I love your catchy jingle.” Then proceeded to do a brief 8 bar rendition.

“That’s the other guys’.”

And sometimes you also forget which company you even applied to.

After focusing on quality over quantity, I was eventually able to secure a job. From there I would go on to have more jobs, but there will never be another Snow Job (II). Or so I thought…

Fifteen years after the sequel, Snow Job was rebooted, but with a twist. Since our igloo had last graced campus, there has been many changes. Fisher Hall was demolished to make way for a new dorm. Fishermen relocated to a transitional dorm on the north side of campus. Fisher descendants opted out of paying for naming rights to the new dorm so the men of Fisher transitioned to being men of Coyle. Despite the difference in names, we still share a love of playing with snow.

Coyle Hall recently made the news for hosting a two-thousand person mass in their newly constructed igloo. Instead of a bar, they built an ice altar. Instead of serving wintery blackouts in a cup, they served the blood of Christ. For they had not built Snow Job 3, but rather St. Olaf’s Ice Chapel. The beautiful gothic architecture mirroring the grand Basilica that loomed above the igloo was a stark difference to our more brutalist supersized igloo cell.

When the news broke, my friends’ group chat lit up with calls to donate cases of beer to Coyle so the men could learn how to properly party in an igloo. But I don’t want to be that alumnus who dismisses the current generation for not being Domer enough. If they prefer to be filled with the Holy Spirit rather than a mixture of Everclear, blue Gatorade powder, and unconfirmed reports of crushed up Adderall then God speed to them.

But I must agree with my friend Tomas who wisely stated, “They may have built a chapel, but we built a cathedral.”

Who wouldn’t be proud of that?

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Tomas helping with the tarp set-up from second floor window.

Myself, Michael, Sean and Tomas looking classy in our Fisher cardigans (I’d go on to lose it like I lost every single article of clothing I brought to Notre Dame).

Getting drinks ready at the bar. Tom (owner of the bedroom window/igloo door is second to left with a tuxedo-shirt and hat.

The men of Fisher. For many of us, this photo will be the last thing we remember.

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140 Hours till Hamilton…

The clock struck midnight on January 13, 2018. I was officially 26. But I wasn’t celebrating. I was panicking.

No, I wasn’t trying to cram in doctor visits before getting booted off my parents’ healthcare. Nor had my hair magically gone from pepper to salt at the stroke of midnight. It wasn’t my healthcare or my hair color that I had lost on that Friday night. It was my winter coat.

I had scoured the entire dive bar crawling on a floor that was one gigantic rat glue trap to no avail. My coat was nowhere. My stubborn 26 year-old self was prepared to stay in that bar searching for my missing outerwear until the clock struck midnight on my 27th birthday. My friends, who could correctly identify a lost cause, dragged me out.

The way I treated my stolen coat, you’d think it was a trendy Canadian Goose sported by every North Shore new hire at work. Or even worse, my new J.Crew peacoat I had received as an early birthday present from my parents.

The missing garment in question was a no frills winter coat from Kohl’s. Still, it had kept me warm for four harsh Chicago winters and, before that, four harsher South Bend winters (and springs).

“How could anyone be evil enough to steal a coat?” I shivered through my teeth as the Uber pulled up.

“Obviously, the person didn’t mean to. Some drunk thought it was theirs.”

“That’s no excuse!” I yelled at my friends as I jumped into the backseat. “Just because you’re drunk doesn’t mean you are exempt from abiding by the law or from the social parameters of a polite society,” I preached with the same conviction of a “family values” politician all while his phone is buzzing with Grindr notifications.

“It’s diabolical. If I had to walk home today, I’d freeze to death.” My friends pondered the idea of kicking me out and testing the theory.

As we pulled up to my building, I was unwilling to get off my Friday night soap box.

“I’m sick of this. We’re not in college anymore. We’re too old for stupid drunk antics like stealing a coat. It’s loser behavior.

“How drunk can you be to steal a coat?”

I got out and slammed the door shut before my friends could respond. No matter, by the time the bells from St. Michael’s church echoed across Old Town and made their way over to my Sheffield apartment on Sunday morning, I’d have my answer.

106 Hours till Hamilton

Where am I?

My mind had jolted awake from its stupor, but it was too painful to open my eyes.

I felt the cushions underneath me. I was on a couch. But whose couch?

I heard the rattling of an L train go by so I must be on my couch. (Being bosom buddies with the Brown Line was the only reason I could afford the one bedroom place.)

I then patted myself down like I had been selected for a special TSA screening.

Phone - Check.

Wallet - Check.

Keys - Check.

Phew, I had made it home in one piece. Now the mystery remained as to why I was in so much pain.

The Friday night before my birthday was meant to be a simple affair. A few drinks out, home by midnight. Was this really what twenty-six had in store for me? I think I’d have traded a few more gray hairs for a working liver. Besides, the drinks occurred before midnight -

My coat!

I sprung up, eyes wide open. The memory of Friday night came back. I stared over at the back door hoping it was all a bad dream and I’d see my Kohl’s winter coat.

Nope, there was no Kohl’s coat, there wasn’t any men’s coats. But there was a lovely woman’s peacoat.

A one night stand with a woman? That was not on my 26th birthday bingo card.

“Hello? Anyone here?” I asked with more fear than if I thought there were masked intruders.

The apartment was silent.

Maybe a drunk girl had stumbled into my apartment like Goldilocks, but instead of three bears she found one recently expired twink?

I slowly crept towards my bedroom like I was approaching the bogey-woman.

“HA!” I yelled as I jumped into the bedroom, but it was empty besides the Gatorade bottle I had thoughtfully left by the bed for my future self.

I didn’t have a visitor so why did I have a woman’s coat?

I checked the coat for clues, but there were nothing.

Then I heard the ringing of the bells. Why would church bells be ringing on Saturday?

Good golly miss molly!

It finally dawned on me. This was Sunday morning. Not Saturday. It was no longer my birthday.

I looked back at the women’s coat hanging all my itself, and the worst case of hangxiety hit me like an L train.

The fact that there weren’t two coats hanging meant that not only had I lost the memory of my Saturday night, but I had also lost my new J.Crew coat.

105 Hours till Hamilton

Over the next hour I was Sherlock Hungover reaching out to all my friends for clues as to what happened the night of my birthday. Why had I swapped my new J.Crew coat so I could go out in winter drag?

I first reached out to my friend Rob as he was the starting point of my night. Thanks to my parents having plans to see the opera, I was an orphan on my birthday. Of course I had told my parents to keep their plans as an even greater gift than a new coat is getting to play the martyr. Rob’s family had been gracious enough to let me join them for their West Loop dinner.

“How did I get so drunk at dinner?” I questioned Rob.

“You didn’t. You got drunk after dinner when we did a fifth and a friend.”

That was right, Rob had convinced/forced me to celebrate my birthday with a bottle of Tullamore Dew.

“You set me up.”

“Spare me,” Rob said using my own catchphrase against me, “I drank more than you.”

“So what happened to my coat?”

“Talk to Mark.”

The night had ended at Four Farthings, our go-to karaoke spot. Rob could only handle me butchering so many Killers songs before he passed me off to my friend Mark who got stuck with the job of getting me in a cab home.

“When you took me home, did I have a woman’s coat with me?” I asked Mark.

“I didn’t take you home.”

“Rob, said you put me in a cab.”

“I did.”

“So why didn’t I get home?”

“Because you jumped out of the cab halfway down the block.”

Mark described how I was Harry Houdini of the northside. Each time he had successfully gotten me into a cab. He’d return back to the bar only to find me on the stage screeching out another tune.

By the third escape, Mark berated the bouncer. “Why are you letting him back in? Look at the guy.”

By this point, I was singing in tongues.

“He’s completely wasted.”

“Yeah,” the bouncer replied, “but he seems like a nice guy.”

My aww shucks midwestern alter boy charm had always been my ticket out of trouble. It’s why bouncers always let me back in or why Notre Dame stadium ushers never sent me to the drunk tank.

“He looks like a good kid, just needs a bit of water.”

My boyish charm was a blessing and a curse. The curse being that I could never take public transportation without someone inevitably asking me for directions, whether it’s the LA metro (yes, LA has public transportation) or the London Tube. Apparently I look extremely approachable as well as someone whose mother chugged Tylenol when pregnant.

Mark had finally given up on me and passed me over to Laine. She had lost the game of drunk potato and was now my last hope.

“Hey birthday boy,” Laine replied after picking up my call.

“How could you let me do this?” I yelled back.

“What?”

“How could you let me go home without my coat. I’m staring at a woman’s coat that wouldn’t fit me if I was turning six rather than twenty-six!”

“You know Danny,” Laine said through gritted teeth that were grinding so loud I could hear them from her apartment down the block, “you weren’t the only drunk person in that cab. And my job was to get you to your apartment, which I did. I was not on coat duty.”

Laine then added, “You seemed fine in the car. You spent the whole ride singing Hamilton.”

Hamilton!

“Laine, I am seeing Hamilton in four days -

“I know you told us ninety-five times in the cab”

“You don’t understand, this Thursday evening, I have dinner plans with my parents and sister to celebrate my birthday. Afterwards I will be taking my mother and sister to Hamilton as their Christmas gift - ”

“Did you cheap out on your Dad?”

“No, he just doesn’t care to see musicals that aren’t about the French revolution or a woman who sings ABBA songs while trying to figure out which guy knocked her up. But that’s not the point!

“I am expected to wear my J.Crew coat, the one I received as a birthday coat, to this outing so my mother can marvel at her fine work. If I do not show up in said J.Crew coat, I will have to explain to my family how I was stupid enough to lose not one but two coats in one weekend.”

I could hear Laine restraining herself from laughing. “Danny, you’re 26, I think you can handle this one on your own.”

80 Hours Till Hamilton

On Monday morning I woke up with a “cold” that forced me to work from home. Around lunchtime, I messaged my team that I was off to pick up medicine.

Instead of walking to the nearest CVS, I made the mile trek east to Four Farthings. According to Google, the bar would not be opened again till Tuesday evening. I couldn’t wait that long.

I was determined to be like Lady Gaga walking along the Washington Mall looking for clues. However, my detective work would needed to happen while there was still sunlight hence why I couldn’t wait till after work.

Seeing the bar in daylight was odd. It was like seeing a teacher out of school or seeing a Malört bottle out of Chicago.

I pressed my face against the window. In the empty bar, I could see the ghosts of my past dancing to the tune of Once Upon a January like some horrible live action remake of Anastasia.

I saw the stage I jumped on whenever my name was called or wasn’t called. I saw the table under which I dumped a birthday shot that even in my state knew was one too many.

Then I saw it, hung underneath the front-corner of the bar, a dark grey peacoat. I pressed my face as hard as I could against the glass.

Could it be?

Yes, it was! It was my coat. I was saved.

51 Hours till Hamilton

My coworkers thought I was still down with a cold, but I was actually feeling great. However, I didn’t want to take any chances. The bar opened at 5pm, and I was going to be there right as it opened.

Twenty minutes till five, I threw a BRB status on my Teams, grabbed the kidnapped woman’s peacoat, and headed back to Four Farthings. I had been so stressed the past two days, but it felt great to put this messy weekend behind me.

I approached Four Farthings and took a quick peek inside. Yep, coat was still there. I opened the door and -

Nothing. It was locked. I checked my phone. It was five. I checked Google and the online hours said five to twelve. But then I saw the sign on the outside of the bar. The sign I had missed yesterday as I had been so focused on the inside.

Winter Hours

Sunday - Closed

Monday - Closed

Tuesday - Closed

Wednesday - Open

On the cold walk back, I went through the litany of people and institutions that had failed me. I cursed Google for its misinformation. I cursed the bar owners for not creating a neon sign that could be seen from space so I wouldn’t have missed it yesterday.

But most of all I cursed any and all who participated in Dry January. Closed bars is the sad result of people being lazy. As Kim Kardashian aptly put it, nobody wants to drink anymore. Nobody wants to get off their ass and drink.

27 Hours till Hamilton

Another day, another “cold”. “Hope you feel better soon, get some rest,” my coworker messaged me. Sleep would not cure me, only a J.Crew coat could.

For the last time, I made the trek east to Four Farthings. It was ridiculous that this problem had dragged out till Wednesday, but all would come to a happy end. I told myself that the past few days had merely been previews. Tomorrow would be the official start to 26. A year that would be bring maturity and stylish outerwear and -

Not since Michael Scott saw Toby return back to the office had anyone yelled with such profane disgust. Despite it being 5:00, despite it being Wednesday, a day marked as open on their winter schedule sign, the bar still remained cold.

I spun around trying to find some hidden cameras, was I on a reboot of Boiling Point? Let’s see how many times we can trick this idiot into walking across Lincoln Park in freezing temperatures.

But there were no hidden camera crews. There were no bartenders. There was just me, a J.Crew coat, and a locked door that separated me from ever finding peace.

24 Hours till Hamilton

I had hoped that perhaps the wait staff had just been late. Maybe there was a vicious car crash on Lake Shore Drive blocking every lane. Or maybe they had slipped on ice, gotten amnesia, and thought they operated on Pacific time. Any reason to explain why Four Farthings would now be open when it had been closed earlier in the evening.

As I got closer to the bar, I convinced myself that I could hear phantom karaoke singing.

Yes, that has to be Sweet Caroline drifting in the wind.

But the music was all in my head. The bar was still dead.

I picked up a rock and felt the weight in my hand. It was heavy enough to break glass, but could I do it? Would I risk felony charges just so I could retrieve my coat?

In the dark, it was almost impossible to make out my coat.

My coat. But what if it wasn’t mine?

What if my desperation had caused my eyes to play tricks on me? There must be a million dark grey coats in the Chicagoland area. It could just as easily be a Banana Republic coat over J.Crew.

I tossed the rock aside. There was no point risking jail time for what I finally realized was a fool’s folly.

3 Hours till Hamilton

On Thursday, I had a decision to make. Do I continue my path down stupidity? Do I once again fake a cold so I can work from home? Do I continue to march myself the mile east to Four Farthings only to find that it is once again closed?

And even if it was open, what if the coat in question was not mine? What then?

Wouldn’t I be better off going downtown to work and taking my lunch break to head east to Macy’s where I could attempt to find a replacement J.Crew? Then no one would be the wiser. Sort of like an LAPD changeling situation but with hopefully more accurate results.

No, I chose to work from home and once again make my way to Four Farthings. Was it because I believed in miracles? Maybe, but I also was too cheap to buy myself a new coat.

On the walk over, I made every deal in the book with God. If He would ensure that I got my J.Crew coat back, I promised to do twenty-six right. I would feed the hungry and tend the sick. I would organize a coat drive so large that every inch of Illinois would be covered. And sleep would not hit my eyes until I made amends for my sins and returned this woman’s peacoat to its rightful owner.

I was twenty-six, time to grow up. My health was no longer shielded by my parent’s insurance nor should I expect my mistakes to be shielded by my fading boy-next-door smile. Like a skinny queen on Drag Race, I needed to stop relying on that body.

I needed to face the music of my own making.

“Please,” I begged as I turned the Four Farthings door handle.

Locked.

It was over. I banged my head against the locked door in defeat.

The door clicked opened.

“Sorry about that. I thought we had unlocked it.”

The bartender who had opened the door smiled at me, but I couldn’t form any words of thanks just as I was unable to form words by the end of my Saturday night. All I could do was walk past her and go straight to the mystery coat. I carefully lifted the garment off the hook.

I closed my eyes as I was too scared to look at the tag like looking at my credit card statement after a night out.

Breathe Danny. On three - one, two, three -

The tag read J.Crew. The coat fit perfectly, it was mine.

“Lots of people leave coats,” the bartender explained pointing to the backside wall of covered in hung coats.

“Here’s one more to add to the wall,” I sheepishly said setting the woman’s coat on the barstool. I then quickly slipped back out before the bartender could ask any questions about my stolen goods.

Yes, I had promised to move heaven and earth to reunite the coat with its owner, but God helps those who help themselves. And as for the litany of other promises I had made, well, I had plenty of time to get to those. Right now, I had a dinner and show to catch.

1 Hour till Hamilton

“Who would steal a coat?” My family asked as they offered me sympathy over dinner at The Italian Village in the Loop.

“Thank God, it wasn’t your new coat that got stolen,” my mother said beaming at her handiwork. I had doused the coat in cologne so its weeklong stint at the bar was a lost memory.

“Could you imagine?”

The conversation eventually veered into our excitement to see Hamilton. Despite having been in Chicago for over a year, tickets were still hard to come by.

“On WGN, they had reports of people getting scammed online like on Craigslist.”

I almost choked on my last noodle from sheer laughter. “I’m sorry but what idiots. How stupid do you have to be to get scammed by Craigslist?”

I would have to wait till my 27th year to learn that answer.

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To steal the spotlight from the Son of God is a pointless pursuit, much like my annual attempt to convince my Filipino husband that Christmas music should be withheld until after Thanksgiving rather than Labor Day. Jesus is the reason for the Christmas season. Therefore, anyone else born on December 25th is just a chorus member stationed behind the sole star of the pageant, Emmanuel.

Should we pity these poor Capricorns as being victims of poor bedroom planning?

No.

The only thing worse than having your birthday fall on Christmas is having a sibling who does. For it is the siblings, not the parents nor the Savior, who bear the brunt of a late December baby’s severe inferiority complex.

The point of this preamble is to lessen your shock when I tell you that Scott, my Christmas ‘94 brother, misses my list of greatest Christmas presents. The holiday season is not a time for me to wax poetry on the beauty of brotherhood.

If it makes Scott feel better, our baby brother John isn’t on the list either. Since John was born on the 5th day of Christmas, he was spared the festive trauma. Still, I remain quite bitter about his birth. The issue isn’t that John had a birth, but the manner in which he was born.

You see, I never truly appreciated the drama that Scott’s unplanned Yuletide homecoming brought. Imagine my sister and I stampeding down the stairs on Christmas morning only to find in front of the tree, not our parents, but our Aunt Lisa and Uncle Pat. I should have demanded that my aunt spill all the Eggnog flavored tea.

What was it like getting the midnight call? Did my parents cross paths with Santa on their flight to the hospital? Did the doctor make it to the hospital or did he get run over by a reindeer?

Instead of pushing my aunt for the drama, I pushed her out of the way to get to my presents.

In the six years between Scott and John, I had consumed enough media to appreciate the comedic miracle of birth. I understood the concept of labor in that it was a time bomb that could explode at any moment but most often occurred at the least opportune times. As John grew inside my mother, my imagination grew inside my clueless head.

One likely scenario I concocted involved my mother going into labor while grocery shopping at the Jewel. I’d be forced to get behind the wheel and transport her to the hospital. As I sped down York Avenue, a cop would pull me over, but before I could explain why an eight-year-old was driving, my mother would let out a sitcom level howl. The cop would tip his hat and tell me “God speed son.”

Another likely scenario was set at the grade school’s Christmas mass where just as my Mom was handed Communion her water would break. The breaking of water was a topic I was very familiar with thanks to television, although I had no idea what actually “broke” nor what this “water” liquid was. Regardless, I still imagined my mom would be forced to give birth right there in church in front of my entire grade school.

So what ended up being the story of John’s birth?

On the morning of December 29th 2000, my siblings and I were dropped off at my cousin’s house. Later that day, our dad called to tell us the scheduled C-section was successful.

Where was the D-R-A-M-A? Where was the comedic farce? How would I ever write a future Substack post about this bore of a birth?

For very different reasons, both my December brothers miss my top ten list of greatest Christmas presents.

A set of brothers who do make my list are Italians who are good with a plunger. My Nintendo Gameboy Color and Nintendo Gamecube along with their related Mario Bros games are without a doubt all-time Christmas presents. I think John and Scott would whole-heartedly agree too.

Another high watermark was my first ever laptop, a used Windows 95 contraption. It lacked games, a CD slot and Internet. But it had Microsoft Word. Goodbye handwritten letters to Santa.

I have to give an honorable mention to the perennial pairs of socks. Like any kid, I’d roll my eyes, but deep down I was incredibly thankful. The greatest unsolved mystery is the case of my ever disappearing socks, perhaps they are somewhere on the island of misfit toys.

However, there is one gift to rule them all. Greater than any Nintendo gaming system or human child. My favorite gift were the Legos Santa delivered Christmas 2001. This was no ordinary Lego set. This was the Lego set named after the greatest producer of miracles - greater than Jesus and Santa combined. This was the Lego Moviemaker set brought to you by Steven Spielberg.

The Steven Spielberg Lego Moviemaker was two toys in one. There was the Legos themselves that formed a Hollywood studio set complete with props and a city-scape set. Then there was the camera that hooked up to the computer (the family computer, not my laptop as the moviemaking software would have caused mine to self-combust). Through the Lego computer program, you could edit scenes, add sound, and include special effects. Everything you needed to win your own Palm D’Or. That alone made the gift far superior to any other Lego or Christmas gift, but what solidified Steven’s number one standing was that it was the gift that kept on giving.

For instance, Spielberg’s Legos gave me the gift of patience. The camera came with a stop motion feature so patience was necessary for making ten second clips of Legos walking that would take over 95 hours to create.

Then there was the gift of feedback, and how to accept feedback. This was necessary when I’d hold screenings and get told that I might want to consider cutting the ten minute scene where a Lego stays stationary while my tone-deaf ass croaks out an original song.

Lego Moviemaker was also a form of free therapy. My favorite movies to shoot were destruction titles where I’d film the Lego towers crashing down over and over again. Clearly I was working through some childhood post-9/11 trauma.

However, the greatest gift the toy gave was the gift of clarity in the form of a small sticker on the lower left corner of the box. I first noticed the price tag on the box after we had finished opening presents. The shock of seeing the tag was so severe that I dropped my mug of hot chocolate. Thanks to that Lego toy I found out that Santa Claus was as real as Keyser Söze.

At first I felt as though I was living in a world where Christmas suddenly took place in July, but after the initial shock receded, the pieces came together like a perfect Lego set.

I finally understood why Mom and Dad would always tell us to watch a full cycle of A Christmas Story on TBS before waking them up again to open presents as if they had spent all night shimmying down chimneys.

Or why after having woken up my parents a second time, we would have to wait in the dining room while my parents “checked” the living room to make sure Santa had actually arrived as if they were completing one final inventory check.

“Are you happy with your Lego gift from Santa?” my dad innocently asked me as I examined my Lego Moviemaker.

Enough was enough. I was going to get my Dad to confirm what I knew to be the truth.

Danny: So you’re saying this toy was delivered by Santa Claus?

Father: Yes.

Danny: Interesting. Can you identify what this is on the bottom left corner of the box.

Father: A price tag.

Danny: Let the record show that the defendant identified the sticker as a price tag. That’s odd, why would a price tag be on a toy from Santa Claus? Does Santa Claus have a Marshall Field’s credit card?

Father: I don’t -

Danny: Did Santa’s elves go on strike?

Father: I can’t answer -

Danny: Then answer this - Did Santa deliver this present or did YOU?

Mother (stepping in): You don’t have to answer that Jeff.

Father: I’ll answer the question. You want answers?

Danny: I think I’m entitled to them.

Father: You want answers?!

Danny: I want the truth!

Father: YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!

Son, we live in a world that has Christmas trees, and those trees have to be adorned with presents by men with bank accounts. Who’s gonna do it? You? Santa Claus?

You have the luxury of not knowing what I know…and my existence, while boring and not as holly jolly as Ol’ St. Nick is the reason you wake up to presents.

You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t like to talk about on the jungle gym, you want me buying presents -- you need me buying presents and eating those cookies.

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a boy who rises and opens gifts that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide them. I would rather that you just said “thank you” and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a job application, earn a paycheck, and buy your own gifts. Either way, I don’t give a DAMN who you think is giving you gifts…

Danny: Did you deliver the presents?

Father: YOU’RE GOD DAMN RIGHT I DID!

Ok, maybe my memory is a tad fuzzy. Perhaps the exchange was a little less courtroom drama-y.

Instead I may have made a few smartass comments to my dad regarding the price tag and Santa. I expected my Dad to congratulate me for being so clever instead he did some gentle parenting:

“If you have a problem with the toy, I have no problem returning it. Is there going to be a problem?”

Nothing more was said. I understood his threat. Speak the truth and all the joy under the tree would be gone. I gleaned at my ignorant younger siblings enjoying their gifts then over to my elder sister. Our eyes locked. In our shared silence, she welcomed me into the league of older siblings who knew too much and left me with a warning not to fuck up a good thing going.

So I continued to give life to the ruse. I ripped the price tag off the Steven Spielberg Moviemaker set and burned the evidence. Every future movie ended with a special thanks to the benefactor of the film, St. Nicholas.

As the years went on, I played my role well. I helped my brothers write letters to Santa. I assured them that the lack of a chimney in our house would not prevent him from delivering gifts. In return for my part in the charade, I received sparkling gifts courtesy of the North Pole by way of Oak Brook Mall.

The years went on and Scott eventually crossed over to the other side, but the traditions remained alive. Almost nothing had changed in the ways we went about Christmas from when I was in preschool to high school. The nighttime ritual of cookie arrangements followed by a bedtime story remained. So did spending hours awake because we were too excited to fall asleep only then to wake up too early so we had to watch A Christmas Story before my parents were willing to get out of bed. Then each time we exclaimed how much we loved a present, our parents would respond with a comment on the cleverness of St. Nick.

There had been some slight alterations and additions over the years. One new tradition was John’s regifting habit. My little brother would go around the house and pick up random objects to “gift” us all on Christmas.

“Why do you do that?” my friend once asked me. We were hanging in his basement just a few days before Christmas, and I had been talking through what Christmas would look like in my household.

“I don’t know, cuz it’s cute. It’s not like John has money to buy actual gifts.”

My friend shook his head, “No, not the regifting part but all the Santa stuff and everything else.”

While I was an older sibling, my friend was a younger sibling. He shared with me his Christmas routine, one that he had pretty much known all his life. Like me, he was more than fortunate enough to have Christmas memories of presents under a tree, but that’s where the magic stopped. There were no traditions before bed. There were no restless nights where you listened to hear if your brothers across the room were asleep and surely enough they were just as wide awake as you. There’s no morning ritual of watching A Christmas Story where you are so busy reciting the lines you know by heart that you forget why you woke up early in the first place.

For my friend the 25th was a day when presents were exchanged, but for me, I still got to believe the 25th was a day of miracles.

I suppose that in this way, my little brothers deserve to rank high on the list of the greatest Christmas presents. Jesus might be the reason for the season but Scott and John were the reasons I got to cosplay as the kid from the Polar Express hearing the ringing of Santa’s sleigh bells long after they had gone silent for my contemporaries.

All good things must come to an end. Eventually there came a year, when we no longer could pretend to overlook John pretending to not know the truth. It was the Christmas when we realized that John was not just too old for Santa but also too old to get away with his whole regifting shtick.

John and Scott gifted me an extension on childlike wonder long past my expiration date, but they also gifted me free labor. I utilized them as day players in my films such as my magnum opus James Bone: Flush Another Day starring my best friend Michael Jank as the titular character out to solve the mystery of the unflushed toilet.

Sadly, that classic film stands alongside London After Midnight and Hitchcock’s The Mountain Eagle as the greatest lost media. Maybe Santa or a highly skilled tech elf can one day figure out how to retrieve the film from an old computer. I might then have a new all-time Christmas present.

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2008 was the year millennials stormed the political arena. We demanded our voices be heard. We spread the message of hope and change like a benevolent plague. Even those of us too young to vote still found ways to support the junior senator from Illinois.

Our dedication paid off come November. We watched our candidate take the stage in Grant Park to declare victory. On that night millennials learned that when we come together, we win.

Well, more like they could win. As I was one of the seemingly few millennials not on the Obama train.

Back then I was the very model of a modern young Republican. I loved America’s troops and fought against America’s enemies (i.e. the Dixie Chicks and the gay agenda). I delivered speeches in school about the dangers of immigrants from down south and wrote book reports on the musings of Mark Steyn. There was no way I would ever support a non-Republican, much less an Islamic socialist hiding in Democratic clothing.

Which is why no one could fathom the heel turn I would make by the end of the school year. Months after Obama’s inauguration, I was still no fan of the Democratic party, not because they were too extreme, but because they were no better than Republicans. I’d come to believe that all donkeys and elephants were mere slaves in this cruel capitalist circus. Long before that millennial Mamdani made free buses cool, I led the charge to get a Socialist elected.

How could an innocent all-American boy devolve from preserving freedom to pushing socialism?

Liberal indoctrination masquerading as public education.

York Community High School required juniors to take a year-long US History course. There were two options - regular or seminar. The former was taught by a host of competent teachers. The latter was taught by a hippie-dippie who was permanently lobotomized during her time at Wisconsin-Madison in the late 60’s. When she wasn’t busy protesting over spoiled cheese or whatever they protested about up there, she spent her youth promoting peace at music festivals in upstate New York.

Ms. Davis was the type of teacher who was already celebrating Indigenous People’s day when others were still having students dress up as “Indians”. Her idea of a field trip was to bypass the Field Museum in favor of graveyards housing former communists. When she wasn’t busy “teaching” US History, she taught her other passion…Women’s Studies.

If Alex P. Keaton had a boggart, it would be Ms. Davis.

I would have preferred taking US History Infidel sponsored by the Taliban than Ms. Davis’ US History Seminar class.

Except, I had no choice. Her class was the only one that offered honors credit. I couldn’t let my distaste for the term Herstory put my GPA and class ranking in jeopardy. All I could do was pray that tales of her liberal nonsense were as unfounded as those tales of weapons of mass destruction.

“Students, put your textbooks away,” Ms. Davis declared on the first day, “you’ll have no need for them.”

This moment was the genesis of my award-winning eye roll. My worst fears had come true as I found myself in a horrible simulation of Dead Poets Society, my least favorite Robin Williams flick (which is saying something because I still have Jumanji nightmares).

Ms. Davis passed out our “new” textbooks, A People’ History of the United States by a guy called Howard Zinn. A quick survey of the book’s back cover praise made it clear that I was being forced to read Rush Limbaugh’s toilet paper.

Now if the situation happened today, that Zinn book would have been my golden ticket. I’d make a few TikToks covering my suffering, which would go viral in the right circles. I’d then get invited to make the rounds on podcasts and cable news where I’d testify to the horrors of being denied an education that glorifies the founding fathers in exchange for one that makes me feel bad about inconsequential things like slavery and genocide. If I played my cards right, I’d use my fight against Ms. Davis to launch myself onto the Mount Rushmore of next gen Republicans next to the carved face of Kyle Rittenhouse.

Sadly, my phone did not have TikTok or internet service at the time. There was nothing I could do but keep my eyes from getting permanently stuck to the back of my head. My primary concern was my GPA. I would not have it ruined by Ms. Davis’ prejudice against white “straight” men. If she thought the Madison police could be brutal, she was no match for an overachieving teen desperate for his next high.

Luckily we never came to blows. As the class rolled on, I received fair marks both for assignments and class participation despite my refusal to hold my tongue against the liberal shenanigans being discussed. It didn’t seem to bother her at all when I and others refused to drink from her “free for all” Kool-Aid. In fact, she seemed most bothered by those who performatively chugged the Kool-Aid.

For example, one day Ms. Davis assigned us a 5-page essay on the major players’ justifications for entering into the Great War.

The girl next to me bravely stood up, “But Ms. Davis, what if…” paused for effect, “you don’t believe…” more pausing “in…war.”

Boom, mic drop.

I imagine the look on her face will be the same one made by the person who finally invents world peace. How brilliant my classmate was to have solved Ms. Davis’ trick question. The girl continued to hold for applause that did not come.

“So should I just write that? I don’t believe in war.”

“Depends,” responded Ms. Davis, “Are you planning to write one word a page?”

My appraisal really started to turn when Ms. Davis assigned us our winter break project. The topic was labor movements. At first, I was ready to write an essay repeating “I don’t believe in labor unions” a thousand times over, but the project was not an essay. Or at least it didn’t need to be an essay. In fact it could be whatever you wanted it to be.

So that’s how I found myself hogging the portable DVD player on the snowy NYE drive up to Door County Wisconsin. I was watching Charlie Chaplin’s entire filmography (or at least the entire filmography stocked at the Elmhurst Public Library). My purpose was to understand how Chaplin’s films spoke to labor issues of the day. Were his movies a call for the common man to unite? Or were they propaganda perpetuating the American myth that all was possible if you had the fortitude to pull yourself up from your bootstraps?

I don’t recall where my thesis statement landed. I do recall Chaplin being quintessential Hollywood, an outspoken liberal who pulled every trick in the book to avoid paying taxes.

By the Spring semester, I was ready to embrace whatever new project Ms. Davis had up her wiccan sleeves even if it would entail going against my entire belief system.

“We are holding an election,” Ms. Davis announced to the class. It would be not just any election, but the 1912 election, famous for having four major candidates.

For those who need a refresher on the players, there was William Howard Taft, the Republican incumbent up against his fellow Republican, the former president Theodore Roosevelt. Teddy had grown dissatisfied with his former party and was running under a new banner, the Bull Moose Party. Then there was future president Woodrow Wilson hoping to break the Democrats’ cold streak.

And who would I be playing?

I’m sure Ms. Davis got a great chuckle when she assigned me the role of the fourth candidate - Eugene V. Debs, Indiana statesman, and leader of the Socialist party.

Back in 1912, Debs garnered the largest share of votes that any Socialist before or after would receive (6%). I was determined to beat that by 94 points. Adam Smith be damn, I was getting an A.

I went back to the Elmhurst library to swap my Chaplin videos for opposition research. I checked out every book I could on the four candidates. Would I need them all? No. But the more books I had meant the less books available for my opponents.

The next day, I took what I liked to refer to as a mental health day. About once a semester, I would select a day to be “sick”. The day in question would have to meet a few criteria: (1) no scheduled tests or presentations and (2) non-race week. Essentially, a non-essential day.

In the morning I’d mimic Amanda Seyfried in Mean Girls telling my mom I was cough cough sick. My mother never questioned the validity of my illness or forced a thermometer on me. Maybe she trusted that I would never lie about my health or maybe she didn’t care if her manic A-obsessed son needed a break every now and then.

After all, it wasn’t like I was using these sick days to attend Cubs games or perform on parade floats or give my best friend a mental breakdown. Instead I would use the day to reread a Harry Potter book with intermittent breaks to watch Scooby Doo and play Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

However, for this mental health day in the spring of my junior year, I ditched the Chamber of Secrets for presidential biographies. I immediately identified that the key to success was not by getting my class to adopt socialist values, but by highlighting that my opponents’ values were unpalatable to a millennial audience.

I showed up to class the next day ready for battle. I had done my research and was loaded with a wide arsenal of attacks. More importantly, my VP had made delicious cupcakes. Together we were the perfect ticket.

The moment Ms. Davis began the debate. I put my foot on the Ford Model T gas pedal and never let up.

Taft was easy to strike down as no one likes a one term president. I framed him as a corporate stooge beholden to the political machine. I conveniently forgot to mention that he actually brought on more anti-trust cases than Roosevelt ever did. Oops. I did, however, mention that silly rumor about Taft needing a crane to get him out of the white house bathtub. The presidency is a visual sport.

At first I thought Woodrow Wilson would prove a problem as he was the eventual winner. I feared confirmation bias would sway voters. But luckily Wilson’s time as president of Princeton provided me with a wealth of material to torpedo his campaign such as his efforts to discourage the admittance of black students. And if that wasn’t good enough, I also shared some great quotes he had regarding women being unfit to vote.

“That’s not fair!” yelled my opponent, “I passed the 19th amendment!”

Ms. Davis ordered the class to strike that fact from the record. The voters had to vote on what had been done and said up until 1912, not on what would eventually be done.

This left me with my final opponent, Mr. Teddy Bear himself. He was by far the toughest of the three. He was a beloved president who was mostly known today for his conservation projects and his name-sake stuffed animal. The ticket was cocky. They thought they had the win in the bag as they could position Teddy as being outside the political swamp. He was neither Republican nor Democrat. He was a Bull Moose.

And they might have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for the meddling Debs ticket and a little event called the Brownsville Affair. The 1906 incident was an all too common American affair where a black community is wrongly punished. This time it was black servicemen who were stripped of their pensions and rights. Racism and not supporting the troops, not great Teddy. The Roosevelt ticket couldn’t get out a single word without me hounding them on the affair. Sure it is a bit uncomfortable how gleefully I paraded this tragic incident solely for the betterment of my own goals rather than to actually shine a light on our racist past to ensure we learn to be better.

But hey, I was a socialist, not an angel.

The votes were counted and not since Reagan in ‘84 had there been such a landslide victory. Eugene V. Debs was declared the winner of the 1912 election.

“Are you really telling me you want Debs as your president?” Ms. Davis asked the class as if she was Pontius Pilate decrying the crowd’s chants for Barabbas.

Ms. Davis then went on to list all my “interesting” ideas for the country like abolishing a tiny thing called the US Senate. Oops, forgot to mention that. I guess my opponents should have taken mental health days of their own.

Ms. Davis’ surprise turned into tentative pride, “So you really want a socialist as your president?”

Eventually a classmate burst Ms. Davis’ bubble. “We didn’t vote for Debs because he’s a socialist. We voted for him because it’s clear Danny did way too much work.”

The class nodded in agreement with one kid adding, “and the cupcakes were good.”

No matter the reasons, Ms. Davis and I left class that day satisfied with our victories. I had gotten my A, and she at least got her class comfortable with the notion of voting for a socialist.

However, her victory was short-lived. Not long after the election, Ms. Davis announced that there would be no more future 1912 election simulations as there would be no more US History Seminar.

What was the reason for the cancellation?

Had enough parents complained about the dirty book being read in class?

Or had parents complained about a recent lesson where she cosplayed as a member of the Black Panthers and spent class “recruiting” us? Honestly, I could see complaints coming from many sides of the aisle.

Or had the administration caught wind of Ms. Frizzle’s field trips that not only included communist graves but also the Mexican Heritage Museum where half of us examined artwork made from the mixture of paint and the artists’ semen while the other half ditched the trip to join a random protest marching down Roosevelt Rd?

In the end, Ms. Davis was screwed not by anything she taught, but by what she didn’t teach - the AP exam. The administration decided that offering AP US History was imperative to staying competitive in the AP obsessed secondary school landscape.

I found myself once again living through a terrible rip-off of Dead Poets Society. Here we have the outside-the-box teacher refusing to teach to the restrictive test. Unlike Robin Williams, Ms. Davis was not getting the pink slip. She could continue to teach US History, but without honors credit. However, the school might as well just have cancelled the class altogether. In order for her discussion-based lessons and unstructured projects to succeed, the class required a healthy balance of overachieving students, none of whom would choose her class over an AP offering.

In a last ditch attempt to save her class, Ms. Davis bargained with the administration to not make any final decisions until after the AP tests. There were a handful of students, myself included, who signed up for the AP test. Perhaps if we collected enough 5’s (the highest score) then she could keep her class intact.

The week leading to the test, I traded my copy of Zinn for a used copy of the AP study guide. I spent every free minute memorizing the names, places and events that our class had glossed over in favor of a deep dive on the Pullman Strike.

I like to believe I was motivated beyond my personal needs. I like to think I was propelled by a higher cause as if I was in some epic Disney Channel Original movie where I needed to win the rhythmic dance competition so the prize money could be used to save my grandmother’s historic liquor store.

I went into the test feeling uneasy about my chances as I figured there wouldn’t be many questions about Charlie Chaplin’s filmography or Eugene V. Debs political aspirations. I was correct, but there were questions about the Bull Moose Party and the causes of World War I.

I was feeling good after the multiple choice section and knew I was golden once I saw the first essay topic:

Describe the formation of labor unions and how they would shape both political and social life in America.

The spirit of Eugene V. Debs was shining down on me.

Weeks later the letters arrived. I along with other classmates received the magical “5” score. But it was too late.

Before I had written a single word about the Pullman Strikes, the administration had already pulled the plug on Ms. Davis. Goodbye Zinn, hello AP.

On our final day of class, there was no great send-off. We didn’t hop on our desks and recite O Captain, My Captain or the Worker’s Hymn. We said our thanks for an interesting year and Ms. Davis wished us well.

We’d go on to graduate from York the following year, and Ms. Davis would leave York not long after that. I’m not quite sure where she headed next. Perhaps she went to a public school that was in closer proximity to communist graveyards.

As for where she is now, she might be rallying members of her retirement home to unite against the injustices of their care. Or maybe she’ll show up on my TikTok feed as the granny getting arrested outside an ICE center.

At times I feel guilty that I didn’t do more to save Ms. Davis’ class beyond getting a self-serving AP score. Maybe I should have posted viral YouTube videos and made appearances on MSNBC. Maybe I should have rallied my fellow millennials together until our united voice was so loud that the administration had no choice but to relent.

Or maybe this was a battle Ms. Davis was always destined to lose.

However, as I fold away my No Kings protest shirt that was made by my husband, I’d like to think that she may still win the war.

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Each evening, from October to October

Before you drift to sleep thanks to ZzzQuil

Think back on all the tales that you remember

Of Wrigleyville

Ask ev’ry person if he’s heard the story

And tell it strong and clear without false frill

That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory

Called Wrigleyville

Wrigleyville! Wrigleyville!

- Richard Burton in a revised production of Camelot sponsored by Portillo’s

Despite living in LA longer than I ever lived within the proper borders of Chicago, I’m still not fully settled. I am caught off guard by the billboards along Sunset Dr. promoting movies and shows that will never be known outside the LA bubble. I still expect to see hair growth ads starring Brian Urlacher.

My inability to shake off my Chicago roots is likely due to my inability to go long without returning. While my mother may believe I don’t visit often enough, my American Airlines credit card limit begs to differ. I love my visits, but they are a reminder that I can never truly go home again. The Chicago of my 20’s is disappearing. For every new gray hair that takes root, an old haunting ground closes.

Tragically gone is the bar where I lost my virginity. It was with my roommate in Boystown, classic. Brendan’s Pub on Halsted south of Belmont was where my roommate Tom and I took our first shots of Malört. We went there for Tom’s sake as it was a Boston Bruins pub. The ex-Bostonians who patronized the pub were friendly and welcomed us to their adopted city with free “shots”. Until that day, I had never heard of Malört, Chicago’s infamous spirit that survived prohibition, but I will never forget it thanks to the permanent holes in my organs. Brendan’s has since been replaced by a cocktail bar where they likely make pretentious Malört infused cocktails, sacrilegious to the very nature of the drink.

When I wasn’t busy downing Malört shots, I was busy singing at Four Farthings, our favorite karaoke bar on the intersection of Dickens, Cleveland, and Lincoln. The emcee Luis gave Joel Grey a run for his Oscar, and he always saved a few slots for us to sing our standards like Unwritten and Breaking Free. Four Farthings is now an Italian restaurant so the only singing done comes from Dean Martin impressionists.

The greatest musical travesty was the loss of the iconic River North staple, the Rock ‘N Roll McDonald’s. The musical temple was the vibrant home for all our bathroom breaks during countless birthday trolleys. It now stands as a testament to the soullessness of post-modern architecture. When they sing about the day the music died, they are referring to the McDonald’s on Clark.

Potentially no neighborhood has changed more than the north side neighborhood of Wrigleyville. While the Ricketts’ efforts to Nashville-fy and Disney-fy the neighborhood have brought their fair share of cheers and jeers, my gripe is not with those billionaire baseball owners. It is with the city itself as Chicago destroyed the greatest bar it ever had.

It’s been over 84 months, and I can still smell the peeling paint. The glassware had never been properly cleaned. The bar stools had never been wiped. Johnny O’Hagan’s was called the Pub of Dreams, and it was. It really was.

The year was 2015. My best friend Mark and I had only just finished our 17-year educational journey together the prior spring. Our arrival to the north side coincided with the Cubs arrival as serious playoff contenders. That October the Cubs faced the Pirates in a do-or-die wild card game. Mark and I ventured into Wrigleyville hoping to be part of the moment. We found an unassuming pub almost hidden from the rest of the Wrigley mania. Johnny O’Hagan’s on Roscoe was situated right where the Brown line split from the Red/Purple line as if the pub was a mighty boulder parting a great river.

Surrounded by elevated train tracks, we watched the Cubs take the lead in the first inning and never let go. Together Mark and I got to experience the Cubs first playoff victory since we shared a sixth-grade homeroom. At Johnny O’Hagan’s, the Miller Lites had never tasted so sweet.

The Cubs would go on to win more playoff games, but not enough. As usual, we were left to say “there’s always next year”, although this time it was not said with the usual flippant optimism but rather a determined certainty.

During the off-season, the Cubs made some key moves as did Mark and I. We moved in together just on the border of Wrigleyville. There we could enjoy Mark’s last year of “freedom” before marriage, and by “freedom” I mean cooking frozen pizzas and watching reruns of Scrubs, usually with his fiancée Mary Alex.

Over our 5 for $20 Tombstone pizzas from Jewel, we tracked the Cubs progression cheering as they ended the season 1st in the NL Central division. Wild card game not needed.

No longer newbies to the ways of October baseball, Mark and I were ready. For each game we had a ten-point action plan: primary bar, back-up bar, back-up to the back-up bar. We’d identify the point person who would grab a spot, the number of people in our party, and the number of people we were willing to cut from our party in order to fit an open table.

That October was the most exhausting month of my life. I felt like Lady Gaga as I was always on the go. My life was no sleep, Red line, bar, another bar, another bar, Brown line, next beer, no fear.

This type of October lifestyle was only made possible thanks to my job at Wrigley (the gum company, not the filed). There I had a boss who was thankfully a Cubs fan, but more importantly was a former frat star now masquerading as a respectable husband and father living in Naperville. He encouraged me to live the life he could no longer lead. Ditching work early, I felt like Jane leaving Wendy at home so I could fly off with Peter to Neverland.

Knowing we were not just partying for ourselves but for those that could not, we took our bar-hopping jobs very seriously. That’s why we were extremely careful of where we would go for Game 6 of the NLCS. The odds were in the Cubs favor to finally earn a World Series berth after 70 years, but us two Notre Dame boys knew that anything can happen in a NLCS Game 6, especially if a Notre Dame grad happens to catch a foul ball. We couldn’t take any chances, which meant avoiding any bars that were tainted with prior losses.

Cue Johnny O’Hagan’s. We had not been there since last year’s wild card game so it was still batting a thousand.

On Saturday morning, Mark and I got to Johnny O’Hagan’s at opening and snagged a central table with views of all the televisions. For eight hours we sat there nursing our Miller Lites. We didn’t have cards, we didn’t have wi-fi, but we had each other and a shared dream.

By the time the sun went down, Johnny O’Hagan’s, along with the rest of Wrigleyville, was at capacity. We ended up needing to sneak a few friends in through the window, but eventually we were all set to cheer on the Cubs.

Johnny’s proved to be the smart choice as the Cubs took an early lead and were holding onto it. No longer nursing those Miller Lites, we drank up preparing to celebrate a NLCS victory. Nothing could dampen the night until -

“Hey! Big Kath’s brother!”

A stranger with a shit-eating grin pushed his way over to me. I had no idea why this guy was talking to me or why he was calling my sister Katherine “Big Kath”. I tried to ignore him, but he was persistent.

“Hey man, I want to say hi to Big Kath’s brother.”

“I’m watching the game.”

Normally, I would strive to live up to the friendly confines ethos, but I wasn’t in the mood. Yes, the Cubs were winning, but I was still a bundle of nerves. I couldn’t waste energy on some guy who had a nickname for my sister that was at best dumb and at worst insulting.

“I wanted to ask you about Big Kath - ”

“I don’t want to talk about my sister.”

“I don’t want to talk about your sister either.”

“Then go away.”

“But I want to ask about Big Kath.”

“Stop calling her that!”

“But that’s your brother’s name!”

“Leave my brothers out of this!”

The closest I ever came to a fight was outside the senior bar at ND where a guy slapped me so I ran behind my friend Ricky who was captain of the boxing team and ordered Ricky to punch the slapper. If it was not for Mark’s swift intervention, I might have finally experienced my first brawl.

“Listen! Listen!” Mark yelled, pushing himself between us. “He doesn’t know who Big Cat is, he doesn’t know Big Cat.” Looking back it would have been easier if Mark could have just told the guy I was gay.

“What’s a Big Cat?” I asked.

Mark explained to me about this entity called Barstool Sports and a personality there who also hosted a popular podcast called Pardon my Take. The guy was known as Big Cat…not Kath.

The stranger then revealed that Big Cat had been at Johnny O’Hagan’s earlier in the night and at one point I had been standing next to Big Cat (I assume it was the bathroom line). Due to our “similar” looks (i.e. white, but not pale) and body language, the guy assumed I was Big Cat’s brother. I guess I was the only dude under 30 who didn’t give two Malört shots that Big Cat was there, which would be the way a brother would act towards his semi-famous brother.

“I’m sorry dude. I bought this beer for Big Cat’s brother.”

The man handed over a crisp IPA.

“I can be Little Cat.”

Luckily the Cubs didn’t have any similar miscommunications or surprises as they would go on to defeat the Dodgers. I hugged my new friend and then joined my old friends as we burst out of Johnny’s like confetti into the streets. There under the elevated trains, we celebrated our long awaited ticket to the World Series.

Later that night we hosted friends and Mark’s future in-laws. We popped all the champagne bottles we could collect from 7-Eleven and cooked all the frozen pizzas in our freezer. The fire alarm eventually went off but could barely be heard over us blasting Ben Zobrist’s walk-up song, aka his (now) ex-wife’s song Alive (trust me, it’s a bop).

Going into the World Series we felt confident that this was our moment, but that confidence was drained by some terrible early games. None more so than Game 3. What was supposed to be a celebration of Wrigley Field hosting a World Series game turned into a sick form of torture for fans as they watched the Cubs lose 1-0.

Thanks to having interned that summer at Wrigley (not the gum company, but the field), my brother Scott was able to take my Dad to Game 3. Scott recalled that the drive home after the miserable loss was the scariest drive of his life as he expected our Dad to drive the car straight off 294 highway right through a Brian Urlacher billboard.

Despite the terrible losses, the Cubs pulled out a few miracles to push the series to Game 7. Whether the Cubs could pull off the unthinkable was up for debate, but what was not was the location for our Game 7 viewing. Once again, we were ready to ask too much of Johnny O’Hagan’s.

While other bars along Clark partook in heinous price-gauging, our bar in between the L tracks shunned price tags on reserved tables or jacked up bottle service only fees. Johnny O’Hagan’s remained a bar by the people for the people.

Mark and I left work that Wednesday as early as needed to get in line. Once opened, we were able to snag a spot in the corner with enough room for our usual gang.

The game quickly became the most glorious case of déjà vu. The Cubs once again took an early lead and maintained momentum throughout the game despite Cleveland’s attempts to claw back. Entering the bottom of the 8th, we hesitantly began formulating our escape plan to celebrate the impending victory on the streets.

But then, disaster.

Sadly this time it was not in the form of a drunk confusing me with being the sibling of a random podcaster. No, it was in the form of Cleveland tying up the game in the 8th and a scoreless 9th sending us to extra innings. Technically it was anybody’s game, but it felt like the game was Cleveland’s.

Under not so hushed breaths, I frantically prayed to anyone who would listen while cursing myself. How could I have been so foolish to get my hopes up? What was I even doing with hopes and dreams? Didn’t I know better than to believe that change was possible? To live is to suffer, and suffering is all any of us ever deserve.

Maybe it was me reciting the rosary about 95 times or maybe it was Heyward’s rain delay speech or some other cosmic force, but the Cubs wound up scoring two in the top of the 10th. When Bryant and Rizzo made that final out, I thought Johnny O’Hagan’s would crumble like the walls of Jericho due to the celebratory burst that we all let out.

The curse was broken. Cubs fans from all parts of the globe could finally celebrate, and those in the next life could finally rest. Squeezed in among the cheering crowds along Sheffield, we knew how lucky we were to be celebrating this victory at the epicenter of Cubs nation. Eventually we made it back to our apartment where we drank enough champagne to fill the Chicago river and ate enough frozen pizzas to empty out every Jewel.

The celebration continued onto Friday when we took off work to attend the parade. When I think back on the World Series victory, it’s the day of the parade that I return to the most. The game itself is filled with memories of dreaded angst while the parade is only pure joy.

Standing along Michigan Ave cheering up at the players passing by, I felt as though the story was just beginning. It was the beginning of a sports dynasty that would rival all others. It was the beginning of a new life for myself and friends, a life that I couldn’t quite name but knew it was one of endless possibilities. Most of all, it was the beginning of happiness.

Little did I realize that I was mimicking Meryl Streep in the Hours. I would come to quickly learn that the parade was not the beginning of happiness, but rather it was happiness. It was the moment.

Watching a replay of the game that night at a packed bar, I believed that this was how life would always be. I would always feel like I was flying.

Smash cut - to me flying off my Divvy bike and landing with a thud on the intersection of Fullerton and Racine.

Unlike Mark who knew when to leave the party, I decided to keep the good times going by joining friends at a now defunct bottomless brunch spot to watch the Notre Dame game on the Saturday after the parade. On my way, I was hit by a car door opening. I had enough strength to crawl from the intersection to the sidewalk where I then passed out.

I wasn’t out for long as the teenager who doored me shook me awake, pleading with me to not be dead. I wasn’t, but the boy was in such a state of panic, it took him awhile to realize that. I felt like I was in a Monty Python movie reassuring him that I wasn’t dead yet.

Once I calmed the boy down (and took down his parents insurance information), I called Mark to retrieve me as I was in no condition to be riding or drinking. Mark offered his condolences, but I rejected them. So what if my body was slightly broken, it would mend. What mattered was my spirit, and that remained in tact, never stronger.

Smash cut to Tuesday’s election where my spirit broke and has continued to break time after time.

As for that Cubs dynasty I was so sure of, I don’t need to remind any fans that the Cubs would not go on to repeat in 2017. I don’t blame the players or the management or the Rickets. I blame the people of Chicago.

Mark and I were unable to watch any of the 2017 playoff games from Johnny O’Hagan’s because there was no Johnny O’Hagan’s, there wasn’t even an empty building. The pub tucked between the two L lines had been demolished. As Joni Mitchel once sang - “paved paradise and put up a flyover.” Chicago’s eminent domain destroyed the Cubs good luck pub so that a flyover L track could be built to ease congestion between the Brown and Red/Purple lines.

Busy commuters who had once complained about delays from track switching could now save a few measly minutes of time as they traveled through Wrigleyville. But at what cost? All I know is the Cubs have not won a World Series since I last stepped foot in Johnny O’Hagan’s.

This is my first time writing about that special watering hole. A Yuppie’s liver is a deep ocean of secrets. But now you know there was a bar named Johnny O’Hagan’s and that it saved me... in every way that a person can be saved in relation to their favorite MLB team. I don’t even have a selfie of the pub. It exists now... only in my memory.

The Camelot of the north side is gone. Even if they were to tear down that flyover and rebuild Johnny O’Hagan’s brick by brick, there would be no going back, at least not for us. I now live in Dodgers Country where I’m constantly at risk of getting into brawls with Dodger fans thanks to my Giants-loving-Dodgers-hating husband. And as for Mark, he is now the boss who needs to catch the train to get back to his wife and kids in the suburbs.

I suppose Camelot is really anywhere you are 24 and lucky enough to be surrounded by good friends, friendly pubs, and Brian Urlacher hair growth billboards.

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Van Wilder, Fat Amy, and Flounder - these are the type of nicknames you might expect to hear floating around a college campus. You likely wouldn’t expect to come across a freshman answering to “Dammit!”

When people find out that my college nickname was Dammit! (exclamation point included), they expect the name to be accompanied by some grandiose tale filled with the type of debaucherous antics that would make the former staff of the National Lampoon blush. People assume I did something to deserve the crude moniker. Yet my nickname is not my just reward for bad behavior. There is no origin story to share, or at least not one long enough to justify its own post.

The simple reason for my name is that I was randomly placed down the hall from the sophomores in charge of naming freshmen who wanted to name a neighbor Dammit!, and I looked like the type of kid who wouldn’t go straight to the Dean of Student Affairs.

They were right. I silently accepted my fate, not because I feared standing up against peer pressure, but rather I had long been conditioned to answer to that type of name.

All my life my family has called me Doofus (full name: Doofus MaGoofus), which is basically the PG version of Dammit!. It was also unwarranted as I had been born a perfect baby with my only defect being original sin. Instead of affectionately naming me something like sweetie or precious, I was Doofus.

Although I had done nothing to earn these nicknames, I have done my best over the years to live up to them. There was hardly a resident of Fisher Hall who did not at some point wail “Dammit!” over the ringing bells of the Basilica after waking up to find their futon had been desecrated.

And my family has a rap sheet on me with such highlights as the time I realized I had forgotten to pack the portable DVD player for our road trip to Disney World just as we had crossed the Indiana border. Or the time the rest of my family was driving back from Florida and had reminded me not to deadbolt the backdoor before going to bed so they wouldn’t be locked out of the house when they arrived home at 2am after having been in the car for 20 hours. Spoiler: I deadbolted the house then went to bed with ear plugs.

So I guess I can’t argue when I’m called Doofus, but I do think about the question posed by Glinda the Good Witch: “Are people born doofus or do they have doofusness thrust upon them?”

Were these nicknames merely self-fulfilling prophecies? If my mother had called me “Savant” would I have grown up to be a multi-Nobel Laureate who doesn’t mistakenly tell his husband that the dress code to his own brother’s wedding is black-tie when it was in fact garden-cocktail?

And I love to dream of what my four years in South Bend could have been if only on that fateful night out on South Quad those sophomores had scribbled on my white t-shirt, not Dammit!, but “Guy with a healthy relationship with alcohol who won’t use drinking as a crutch to handle the crippling anxiety he has over his sexuality.” Think of all the innocent dry futons that could have been spared.

I’m at peace with my nicknames and what impact they may or may not have had on my life. My only annoyance remains with their lack of a compelling origin story. That’s why my favorite nickname is one that I earned, warts and all.

My favorite nickname’s origin story mirrors all great tales where a young protagonist stands up against a seemingly unbeatable villain. In this case, my seven-year-old self was up against Immaculate Conception Grade School’s greatest bully, also known as the Bully Superior.

Sister Loretta was the most feared nun at ICGS. She was also the only nun still teaching come the late 90’s, but I’m sure that even if the school was run by a convent, Sister Loretta would rank as the cruelest. She was as mean as you could get without utilizing corporeal punishment although the mental warfare she inflicted was far harsher than any snapping ruler.

She was the Wicked Witch of the Western Suburbs, and not in a new age misunderstood anti-hero way. All of us students from first grade up to eighth were the suffering munchkins praying at every Friday mass for a house to drop upon her or maybe just a simple tumble down the stairs.

If you assumed Sister Loretta taught religion, you’d be wrong. And no, she wasn’t the arts teacher instructing us on rosary making. You could guess all day, but I fear you’d guess flying before you nailed her specialty.

The elderly woman of the cloth was responsible for ushering a generation of ICGS students into the digital age.

In a way, being the computer teacher was a perfect job for a crank like Sister Loretta. She was quick to remind us that each computer cost more than our lives so she’d go scorch earth if any of our fingers still had trace residue from last period’s lunch. She was also the perfect person to preach against the evils lurking within the internet and keep us on the straight and narrow cyber-web. Yet her most important job was to ensure our typing was next to godliness.

Sister Loretta would place cloths over our hands to keep our eyes locked on the screen. To peek below the cloth was a mortal sin.

I won’t delve into the various incidents of her torturing my classmates who dared to finger peck. Those are not my stories to tell. I will let the survivors speak out once they are ready to share their stories beyond the walls of their BetterHelp therapy zoom calls.

My story with Sister Loretta comes from a first grade lesson when we took a break from typing to use a primitive art program. We were tasked to be like mini-Victor Frankensteins and use the computer program to draw our own “monsters”.

Once our monsters were complete, each student went up to Sister Loretta’s desk to recite the story we had created about our monster. Since our spelling skills were still minimal, Sister Loretta was our typist.

One by one my classmates went up to share their “stories” which were more like fun facts: “My monster likes yo-yos…My monster eats pizza…My monster suffers from undiagnosed bipolar disorder…”

In-between fun facts, Sister Loretta would interrupt: “Speak faster…speak slower…speak up…don’t yell!” There was no pleasing her.

Luckily I was too invested in my monster’s story to be afraid of the monster beside me. I excitedly went up to her desk and shared my story, which ended up being more involved than a few fun facts. Given that it’s been over a quarter of a century, I don’t recall exactly what I said, but I believe Christopher Nolan would use my story as inspiration for his various multi-layered time-jump screenplays.

On and on I rambled not noticing how strange Sister Loretta was acting. By strange, I mean she was silent except for the sound of her rapid typing. Only after I started getting lost in a late third-act subplot did she tell me to wrap it up.

Sister Loretta then snatched the story from the printer and then snatched me.

“Follow me.”

I could hear the gasps from my classmates. Sister Loretta was personally hand delivering me to my teacher. This was not good.

As she barreled down the hall with me in tow, my mind barreled through thoughts of what I could have done wrong. It must have been something with my story. Had I delved into blasphemous topics somewhere in the second act? Had I accidentally inferred that my monster would one day find salvation through faith alone rather than faith paired with good works? It all made sense why Sister Loretta had let me ramble on. She was letting me string together the rope to hang myself.

My homeroom teacher was enjoying a well deserved break from annoying children when Sister Loretta broke the tranquility. Rather than listing off my committed sins, she merely told my teacher to take a look at my assignment.

“All this from Danny?” my teacher asked once done reading.

Sister Loretta shook her head in the affirmative then quipped, “We might want to rethink this Long Story Boy.”

She was like Professor Dumbledore acknowledging to Professor Severus Snape that Hogwarts might “sort too soon.” Instead of using a magical talking hat to sort us into houses defined by our primary values (Bravery, Intelligence, Kindness, and Racism), Immaculate Conception Grade School sorted us into two learning tracks - higher and lower. Of course they weren’t called that. I believe they used a color scale so as to not offend, but there were enough students with older siblings who spoiled the ruse.

Being the doofus that I was, I was put in the lower track. I can’t blame them for doing so as I likely didn’t give them a lot to go off of. I’m sure the pennies these educators were making for wrangling 64 first graders wasn’t enough to justify an intensive learning assessment. As was the case with most things at ICGS, you got what you paid for. Plus, if a boy’s own family calls him doofus, certain inferences will be made.

However, thanks to Sister Loretta’s insistence, my homeroom teacher would go on to call my parents to not only share my new nickname but also the good news that although there weren’t coherent words coming out of my mouth, it seemed like there were some interesting thoughts rattling around in my brain. The teachers reevaluated Long Story Boy’s tracking. I got a new reading class and my family got a new nickname to call me whenever I told a story that had long lost their interest before arriving at the inciting incident.

Even when used against me, I don’t mind the Long Story Boy as I’m very proud of its origin. I believe I can lay claim to being the only student in ICGS history who was dragged out of class by Sister Loretta and lived to tell the rambling tale. For a nun who had seen everything from Vatican II to Macintosh II, I was able to give her a surprise.

Just as Glinda the Good had a fondness for her Elphie, I too had a soft spot for my wicked witch. Sister Loretta not only bestowed upon me a nickname I can be proud of, but she also instilled in me the necessary typing skills to keep up with my long-winded nature, whether it’s typing out a twenty minute best man’s speech (sorry Mike and Megan) or typing out the latest Substack post that could have easily been cut in half if only I could afford a half-way decent editor.

Clue

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I’m so appreciative to all the generous support and encouragement over the past months. I can’t thank you all enough.

See you in October!

Danny

(picture of me buried at the North Avenue beach)

The class of ‘06 was shaping up to be an elite recruiting class. Florida scooped up the home-school phenom, Tim Tebow, who would eventually lead the Gators to a national championship. Georgia signed Matthew Stafford who would achieve an undefeated bowl game record and find greater success in the NFL with a Super Bowl victory. Florida State University recruited Myron Rolle who would complete his football career without a college or professional championship. All he has to his name is a Rhodes Scholarship and a medical degree from Harvard.*

Clearly, the class of ‘06 was stacked with talent, but the recruiting question splashed across rivals.com message boards and argued ad nauseam on ESPN was where would the young xc runner from Elmhurst decide to go? Yes, the sports world waited with bated breaths for my high school decision.

Although my eighth-grade season hadn’t hit the highs I had hoped to achieve, I still had proven myself to be a worthy addition to any future freshman cross country team. York Community High School was the obvious next step for eighth graders in District 205, yet for the graduates of Immaculate Conception Grade School, there were ninety-five Catholic high schools within the Chicagoland area from which to choose.

Despite the plethora of options, the decision was easy for many of my classmates as they were forced to attend preselected high schools by their overbearing parents. I pitied those kids and their lack of free will. Thankfully, my generous parents made clear early on that high school was my decision. If I was old enough for the Holy Sacrament of Confirmation where I committed myself to the church for the rest of my life, I was certainly old enough to commit myself to school for the next four years.

My parents had taken the same laissez-faire approach for my older sister Katherine, although York had been an easy choice. Her only other contender had been Trinity High School, the all-girls Catholic school in River Forest. Having been raised by the dual beacons of 90’s girl power, the Spice Girls and the USWNT ‘99 World Cup Winners, an all-girls school was quite appealing. Sadly though, Trinity never stood a chance against York. Katherine could survive four years without boys, but she couldn’t survive another day in ugly plaid uniforms.

Obviously, Trinity was not an option for me, but York was a decent one. Thanks to my sister, I was well familiar with the school’s abundance of offerings but also the abundance of students. The thought of going from a class size of 50 to 650 seemed far too steep as if I was going from pre-Algebra to AP Calculus. My sister may have been desperate to get away from her Catholic roots, but I desired to stay closer to home.

There was no place closer to ICGS than ICHS (now known as ICCP). The high school was far less imposing than York, and the smaller class sizes allowed for greater individual attention. Still, I had to cross ICHS off my list. Shopping for a high school is like shopping for a home, the number one rule is location, location, location. ICHS was located next door to ICGS, as in next door to my annoying little brother Scott. I already shared a room with my brothers, I didn’t need to share a campus too.

I needed to get out of town, which meant hopping on the Union Pacific West Metra line and heading east to Oak Park. There I found Fenwick High School, the perfect blend of old and new. I would still have my familiar religion classes thrown in between Science and English, but I wouldn’t be attending mass in the same vicinity as my younger siblings. At a class size of 250, it was the suitable next step.

Some may question why I would want to go to a school that required commuting by train when I could easily walk to York or ICHS with one leg tied behind my back. But I loved the idea of a locomotive commute. It would be like taking the Hogwarts Express every day. Instead of reading the Daily Prophet to learn of recent breakouts from Azkaban prison, I’d read the Chicago Tribune to learn of recent ex-Governors being sent to prison. Besides, taking the train felt so grown up. I was old enough to decide my destiny and that meant crossing county lines.

If trains and theology classes weren’t enough, Fenwick also had Michael Jank. Having been best friends with Michael since our days in preschool, it seemed a shame to end our educational streak at fourteen.

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I informed my parents that Fenwick was at the top of my list. They remained neutral and cautioned me that I would need to take the entrance exam. I understood that their lack of enthusiasm was merely them not wanting to count their chickens before they passed the exam.

Despite the pressures, I was relatively confident leading up to the exam. It wasn’t like I was Elle Woods needing at least a 175 on my LSAT so I could follow my ex-boyfriend Warner Huntington III to Harvard Law. I figured I could scrape by as long as there wasn’t a vocab section where I had to select the syllable that was stressed or a pronunciation portion.

Luckily, the test stuck to the standard reading comprehension and math problems. However, I left Fenwick assuming I’d never be a Friar. You see before I had answered a single question, I had flunked. As the administrator handed out the tests, my pencil fell to the ground. I leaned forward to pick it up, but I wasn’t used to the type of desk I was sitting in - the kind where the seat and desk portion were connected. I’m still not sure of the physics of it all, but somehow I managed to cause my desk-chair hybrid to tip over. The crash was so loud that the kids taking the Benet Academy entrance exam in Lisle could hear me.

I left that day assuming my desk incident would land me on the Friar blacklist. I was sure sitting in a seat was a basic pre-requisite.

As the days went on, I fretted over what I would do. Fenwick had been my top choice. Where else would I go? Finally the day came. I snatched the letter from the mailbox and hurried up to my room where I promptly told my two brothers to leave me in peace. I needed to face rejection alone.

Only, the letter did not deliver rejection, but rather acceptance. There was no stopping me now.

I called my parents to the dining room for the press conference.

“Mother, Father, I have made my decision, I will be taking my talents to Oak Park. I’m going to Fenwick.”

I figured the next step was to alert the media. If we hurried, I’d be the headline topic on ESPN’s Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption.

My parents didn’t go to the phones though. Nor did they come to embrace me with enthusiastic hugs.

“You’re not going to Fenwick, Danny. You’re going to York.”

“But, but,” I stammered, “It’s my choice, I chose my choice.”

But it had never been my choice. My parents explained to me that my fate had always been predetermined in much the same way as Neo’s explained by the Architect in that convoluted climatic Matrix Reloaded scene. The free-will that I so fervently wielded like a sword was a mere butter knife.

“Why did you tell me I could choose?”

“We thought you would make the correct decision to go to York on your own. Your sister goes there after all.”

“But Michael Jank is going to Fenwick!” I countered.

Last Halloween when I dressed as Robin it was Michael who was dressed as Batman, not my sister.

My parents rolled their eyes, “Yes, but what about Joe Newton?”

I had no idea who my parents were talking about as I wasn’t friends with a Joe. Then it hit me. Joe Newton wasn’t an incoming freshman, but rather York’s head cross country coach. Why did my parents think he’d play an important role in my decision making? Probably, because he was the most successful coach in high school cross country history, and likely all of high school sports history, winning more state titles than there were kids in my homeroom class. So celebrated was he that he coached the US olympic team in ‘88.

I could see my parent’s logic. Would I really pass up the chance to learn from a legend all because I was too scared to enter classrooms that weren’t adorned with crucifixes?

Still, I wouldn’t let my parents win. They had bet that they could have their cake and eat it too. I would force them to be the bad guys they didn’t want to be. My cross country future be damned.

“But I have to go to Fenwick,” I demanded, “I passed the entrance exam.”

“We don’t know how you managed to do that when you can’t seem to add.”

Besides assuming that I valued my cross country career above all else, my parents had also assumed that I could perform basic arithmetic:

Scott + John = 2 brothers

2 brothers + 1 me = 3 boys

3 boys + 1 shared bedroom = 4 years of public high school

By this point I was running on pure delusional adrenaline. I demanded that my parents find a way to pay for my education. Instead of smacking me over the head, they delivered a fair proposal. I could go to Fenwick, but to do so I’d drain my college funds thereby ensuring I would attend community college which meant another four years sharing one room with two brothers.

The next day I proudly told my class that I would be attending York.

Doing what anyone does when they realize they have no control in their life - I faked it. I became York’s #1 fan. I bled green. If you said you saw me taking the Fenwick exam, you’d need to get an eye exam. The York Duke had always been and would always be my one true Savior. Most importantly, I scorned and ridiculed any and all who were stupid enough to not attend York. I’m sure some saw through my BS: the Duke doth protest too much.

I know I deserve your sympathy. How cruel life was to force me to attend a world class public high school. The only thing worse was realizing my parents knew better than me. It didn’t take long to understand what my parents had always known that beyond any financial or cross country considerations, York was the perfect place for me.

My parents had also known that Fenwick would have been an absolute utter disaster. Besides forgetting about my shared bedroom, I also had a tendency to forget things like my running shoes, or my homework, or the check for AP tests that’s due today even though I had known about it for weeks. Luckily, my mom always dropped off my forgotten items as she went about her daily routine like buying groceries at the Jewel or volunteering at IC or stopping at her sister Lisa’s house so she could complain about her idiotic son. If I had gone to Fenwick then in the words of Joe Newton, I would have been “screwed, blued and tattooed”. I may have dreamed of riding the train, but I don’t think my mom would have been as eager.

There’s a famous signing day incident where a young man surprises both the press and his family. Instead of Alabama, he whipped out an FSU hat. His poor mother was so distraught at her son’s unsanctioned decision that she immediately walked out of the press conference. The kid would go on to have a mildly successful collegiate career but would never play a game in the NFL. I wonder what would have happened if his mom had stayed at that press conference, yanked that FSU hat off his head, and taught him that free will was overrated.

*Thank you to the support of the Sports Guys™ group chat for help with the football recruitment references.

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There are some moments in life so joyous you catch yourself questioning if they really happened. It’s a shortlist, the best of the best. For me, they include the time I got married, the time the Cubs won the World Series, and the time I defeated the Elite Four in Pokémon Yellow on my Gameboy Color without help. (The first time I won, I used Pokémon my neighbor traded to me. He used the Cinnabar Island glitch found in Pokémon Blue/Red to quickly level them up.)

Then there are moments that stand out not just for the joy they brought but for the seismic shifts they produced. What might be the most important event of my life occurred at the twilight of my time at Immaculate Conception Grade School. I was sitting at home minding my own business when the telephone rang. In those days, there was a contraption called a house phone and it was the responsibility of everyone in the shared living space to answer the phone and take the messages the outside world had to offer.

On that day, I answered the phone with the usual refrain, “Hello, Milling household.”

What came out the other end were the kindest words I ever heard -

“Hi, is this Jeff?”

I dropped the phone letting the receiver hang. Whatever message was intended for my dad was insignificant to the greater message I had just received.

You see, for as long as I could answer a phone, no one had ever mistaken me for my dad. The normal phone conversation went as followed:

“Is this you Mary?”

“No, not Mary.”

“Oh, is this Katherine?”

“No, not Katherine.”

“Oh, Lisa, are you over at the house?”

After having listed off my mom and sister, the callers would then go through every aunt on the family tree all before even considering that the person on the other end of the line could in fact be the eldest son.

The summer of 2005 was a summer of change for me. My voice deepened, not to the level of the three Patrick’s - Patrick Warburton, Patrick Page, and Patrick Star - but deep enough for callers to stop confusing me with all my female relatives.

I started to shave my face regularly, and by regularly, I mean every two weeks, and by face, I mean my upper lip. At my family’s beach vacation, my younger cousins teased me for having hair grow out of my armpit. Little did they know that the same fate awaited them. Besides growing hair, I also grew five inches. I entered eighth grade sporting a new uniform - capris.

My transformation from boy to man perfectly coincided with the Immaculate Conception Grade School cross country team’s own transformation. The previous year, we had been a band of rejects who fled south to run with our cross-town rivals. Us IC runners had been nobodies like Lindsay Lohan at the start of Mean Girls.

That all changed come eighth grade, we were a whole new team. Those of us early runners had been successful prophets spreading the good word of cross country leading to a flood of new recruits. It helped that cross country had great selling points. Our coaching staff led by Nan Sack were cool and kind - they didn’t make you drop and give them twenty if you messed up. Unlike the football team who practiced in the evenings, our practices were right after school just how the cool high schoolers practiced. Then at the end of each practice we were refreshed by a nice cool Gatorade provided by a rotation of volunteer parents. The football team drank from hoses. The word was out - cross country was cool.

What also helped cross country achieve this status was being new and fresh. Cross country was the start-up that had scooters in the office and personal baristas. Football was the old crotchety Fortune 500 that didn’t even have summer Fridays. Just like how every start-up thinks they are changing the world, we too thought we were trailblazers. Cross country offered the chance to be a founding father of a whole new sports empire.

All these factors allowed the team to bulk up its roster and finally get respect from our classmates. Suddenly, cross country was Lindsay Lohan at the midpoint of Mean Girls when she officially became the new queen bee. And who was the leader of our pack? No need to ask the Shangri-Las. It was the eighth grader who wore capris to school and scheduled bi-weekly shaves.

Did the extra inches I grew shave time off my two-miler? Did the body odor spewing out my new hairy armpits propel me forward? Or did my sleek shaved lip provide that extra aero-dynamic resistance needed to get ahead? Whatever the reason, somehow I was the fastest long-distance runner at Immaculate Conception (short-distance still belonged to fellow teammate Connor who made Pete Wheeler from the Backyard Sports games seem slower than Mikey Thomas).

It was very odd being top dog. Oh sure I had been the big fish before but only in very small puddles. Yes, I was a starter on the basketball team, but it was the B basketball team. And back in first grade, I went around the world so often in math flashcards that I could have reversed time and saved Margot Kidder before Superman had the chance. But that great feat took place in the B math class. Every achievement came with an asterisk. With cross country, there was no A or B distinction. Finally I was atop of a food chain that didn’t separate the big fish from the guppies.

With great power came great responsibility. It was up to me to lead our team to victory, and by victory, I mean second place. As was the case in all sports, first place belonged to St. Michael’s. Not even if the real archangel himself descended down from heaven to run with us did we stand a chance against St. Michael’s. They had first place locked up as a team as well as first, second and third for individual placement.

Our main competition, both for second place as a team, and my competition for a top five finish was a different saint - St. Alexander, our neighbors to the west. Famously, Alexander was the founder of Jerusalem's library, but not one you would want to visit after school. Its shelves lacked the complete collection of Captain Underpants series, and its computers lacked the latest Oregon Trail games. All the library had were a bunch of theological scrolls. True to their name, the runners of St. A’s were a bunch of nerds.

One look and you could tell they were losers. Their outfits screamed virgins even more so than our team name, Immaculate Conception. Their bulky tie-dye shirts that were rejected uniforms from the Rupert Boneham fan club announced to the world world that they didn’t take themselves seriously. Us IC Knights wore singlets like real runners. Sure the singlets were so old they were disintegrating before our eyes, but still, they weren’t rainbow cotton atrocities.

What was more damning was what St. A’s chose to do in their uniforms. They spent pre-meets trading cards. At first, I assumed it was Pokémon cards, which was bad enough. Sure we were all obsessed with Pokémon back when we were too young to drink holy communion wine, but by eighth grade, still playing Pokémon was embarrassing. However, St. A’s didn’t play Pokémon, nor Yu-Gi-Oh!, nor even Digimon, but some other random ass Japanese card game. I assume it’s the kind of game you only are introduced to once you enter level 8 of nerdom sort of how Scientologists are revealed the “truth” of human origins once they reach Operating Thetan Level Eight (or so I heard, as I never made it pass those free breakfasts they offer in LA).

Honestly, even if they had ditched the tie-dye shirts for leather jackets and swapped the trading cards for Marlboro packs, St. A’s still wouldn’t have been cool. Their best three runners had less body hair than the newborn wing of Elmhurst Hospital. The top runner looked like a miniature Harry Potter, but the kind of Harry Potter who can’t perform magic, only “magic tricks”. The kid had a bowl cut to end all bowl cuts and glasses so big I think they were formed by every discarded glasses from the 80’s melted together.

St. A’s were total losers in all aspects, except when it came to running. Week after week, I missed out on a top five placement thanks to Temu Harry Potter and his band of misfits. I vowed I would change this losing streak come conference. My reputation was at stake. Everyone knew that a top five placement was my elusive goal. Conference was my last shot.

My coaches motivated me the best they could. My teammates pushed me the best they could. Even my parents did the best they could by bribing me with a celebratory Portillo’s ribs feast and chocolate cake should I achieve my goal.

The day of the conference meet, I did my best to keep my eyes focused on the prize and not on one of the St. A’s runner’s new unibrow. The gun sounded and we took off. True to form, St. Michael’s trio grabbed an early lead with myself and the St. A’s trio leading the second pack. I told myself “top five” over and over again. I listened to the encouragement of my coaches, and drowned out the chants from my misguided parents who kept yelling “RIBS”. I appreciated their intentions, but the last thing you want to be thinking about as you are trying not to puke from exhaustion is Portillo’s cooking.

It ultimately didn’t matter what anyone shouted at me because just as had been the case for all previous races , eventually St. A’s slipped away. By the one mile marker they created a twenty foot gap that I couldn’t break. I was left to run the rest of the race staring at the back of that stupid bowl cut. I switched from being focused on catching up to focused on insulting the losers ahead of me. My silent jabs did nothing to slow them down though. The race ended, and once again I was shut out from a top five finish.

I ended my IC cross country career learning the important lesson Lindsay Lohan learns at the end of Mean Girls. Calling someone a short hairless nerd won’t make them any slower and it certainly won’t make you any faster. Cross country doesn’t care which relative you get mistaken for on the phone. It doesn’t care about your haircut or your shaving regiment or your pants length. The fastest guy wins and the fastest guy could be anyone. Even the guy polishing obscure Japanese trading cards before the race.

I’d like to think the humbling that occurred in that suburban park allowed me to grow into a less judgmental and more open-minded man. After all, I did wind up marrying a guy who still religiously plays Pokémon Go. Only thing more embarrassing than that is marrying a guy with a Substack.

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In the fall of seventh grade, I entered into an arranged marriage. Like any participant on Love is Blind or Married at First Sight, the driving force behind my rash union was not romance, but desperation. Having failed in both football and theater, I seemed doomed to be a lonely loser who had no extracurricular activity to his name. That’s why, sight unseen, I said I do to cross country.

Cross country might seem like a glorious sanctuary sport with an open-border policy willing to take in any and all. However, there’s a reason why cross country can afford to be so generous just like there’s a reason all those dating show participants are still single. No, cross country didn’t have mountains of hidden online gambling debt nor a too-close for comfort relationship with its mommy. The troubling truth was that cross country is not actually a sport.

A sport should have techniques to master and interesting plays to learn. Cross country is just running. Every practice was the same thing over and over - running. There’s no fun game like knock-out or running bases to break up practices. It’s just running. The only fun part of practice was going home. Obviously, if cross country was a cool sport, then it would be overcrowded with willing participants. Beggars like me didn’t get to be choosers.

The love story between me and cross country was far from love at first sight. It was a sterile arrangement. Cross country needed bodies, and I needed a way to still call myself an Immaculate Conception Grade School Jr. Knight. Since I couldn’t be a Jr. Knight through football, I figured I could still be one through cross country, or so I thought.

I quickly realized I had been hoodwinked. The IC cross country team turned out to be as real as my first LA apartment, as in non-existent (a story for another day). Not only did IC lack a speech pathologist, but it also lacked a cross-country team. Yes, there were brave selfless parents willing to coach the few losers who had signed up, but we were not enough to form our own team. Instead of being the Jr. Knights, we were the Jr. Refugees forced to cross the border of St. Charles Rd into enemy territory where we ran with Visitation, aka, the other catholic school in town.

Immaculate Conception Grade School and Visitation Grade School had a rivalry fiercer than that of Notre Dame vs USC or that of Bette Davis vs Joan Crawford - and if neither of those metaphors landed for you then you are not my target audience.

In a sense, you couldn’t really call it a feud as that would allude to equality among the entities. There was no comparing the two schools. For starters, IC had an exquisite gymnasium that made Viz’s look like a schoolyard marble pitch. IC’s early leader, the great Monsignor Plunkett, had the foresight to know that the best way to maintain a loyal parish was not by building a grand chapel, but building a mediocre one underneath a grand gymnasium.

Location wise, IC had the clear upper hand as it was situated down the street from the town’s library, or as one local paper described it - “the Taj Mahal of mid-size suburban libraries”. Viz, meanwhile, was next door to the worse of the two public pools, an especially useless neighbor come the off-season school year.

Our mascots reflected the very difference in the schools’ values. We were the Knights - icons of chivalry plucked from the pages of a Chaucer tale, ready to nobly fight the crusades all for the glory of Rome. Viz were the Vikings - immoral invaders, scavengers. Remind me, how many papal wars did the Vikings ever fight?

The superiority of IC was embedded right there in our names. Immaculate Conception was in reference to the controversial dogma that states Mary, mother of God, was born without original sin. The belief of the Immaculate Conception is such a hot-button topic that protestants still get their knickers in a bunch over it. If your school name can’t fuel religious conflict, then what are you doing here? Visitation, meanwhile, is named after Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth to give her the heads up that Lizzie was pregnant with a baby to be called John (the future Baptist). A name to honor a biblical ultrasound, groundbreaking.

Now Visitation did have one thing that Immaculate Conception did not - a fully functioning cross country program. Yet, that only furthers my point. IC had historically been filled with such elite students that a cross country program never had been needed. But Viz, they were overflowing with rejects perfect for the sport of last resort.

Throughout the fall, I was forced to run alongside kids I did not respect nor trust. Even if our practices had been comprised of taste-testing candy rather than running, I still would have hated the Vikings. It was clear that the arranged marriage between me and cross country had been an utter mistake. Therefore, I went into my first cross country meet with no expectations other than severe disappointment.

I found out that a cross country meet was very different from my prior football games. Instead of one opponent, teams from across the western suburbs gathered to race with representation from all the various saints from Alexander to Francis to Michael. My fellow Knights and I wore our blue singlets differentiating us from the yellow-clad Vikings, yet this only allowed the other teams to laugh at us for having to run with Viz. In one sense, the meet was a convention of the biggest losers of suburban parochial schools, and we were the worst of the worst.

As I made my way to the starting line, I yearned to be back at a football game where I safely stood on the sidelines, or back on the stage where I stood three rows deep during 76 Trombones. There was no hiding. While the rest of the boys silently prayed to Our Lady of Victory, I was praying to My Lady of Mediocracy. I figured that’s all I could hope for.

The gun went off causing us to dash like we were being chased by our respective school bullies. For a quarter of a mile, it was a lawless stampede and my chief concern was to not get Mufasa’d by the herd of 12-year-old wildebeests surrounding me. Eventually the dust settled, and the runners were sparse enough where I could breath easily. I couldn’t see any of the other IC runners ahead of me, nor even a Viz runner. I assumed they were somewhere far up at the front. I was left to fend the back by myself. I could sense a few runners behind me, but I dare not look back. I was afraid to see the caboose. Ignorance was bliss.

“Don’t be last, don’t be last.”

I silently repeated the chant over and over. I blocked out the shouting from the fans, even that of my mother’s whose voice makes noise-cancelling devices self-destruct. I maintained focus on putting one foot in front of the other, which I had more success in doing than getting the footwork right of the Shipoopi number in last spring’s Music Man.

Eventually, I could see the finish line. I was surprised as it arrived sooner than I had expected, or maybe it hadn’t. In that first race, time had lost all meaning like COVID lockdown. All the way till the end, I kept my eyes locked on the finish line, refusing to be like Orpheus and look back.

Immediately upon crossing the finish line, I was herded into a trough like maze with the other runners. The organizers needed to ensure that runners’ places were accurately counted. I could see a helper at the end of the line passing out useless participation ribbons, which infuriated me. Already, I had the keen intuition to know that the Boomers who handed us these participation trinkets would be the same ones who would complain about how entitled millennials were in the workplace. Trust me Boomer, I wasn’t asking to be coddled.

I took my ribbon unceremoniously, and made my way back to the team tent. Viz’s head coach, who I had up to that point eyed with suspicion for after all what kind of mother would send her children to Viz, sprinted up to me waving her arms in celebration as if she needed to tell me that Elizabeth was pregnant with John.

“Great run Danny! You were A-MAZE-ING!”

Instinctively my eyes rolled. I had heard this type of pity talk too many times back when I was told how amazing I was at standing on the sidelines of the football game.

She grabbed my participation ribbon. “14th place! Top 15, that’s incredible.”

She then sprinted off to cheer on the next finisher. I was left to cradle my two-cent ribbon, which had become the most precious item in the world to me. Mediocracy be damned, I had actually accomplished success. I was 14th out of a million seventh-grade boys (give or take a million). As only the top 25 received numbered ribbons, I felt wonderfully singled out like those kings in the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring who received those special rings - minus the whole turning into Nazgûls.

It’s amazing how an orange 14th place ribbon can completely change your outlook on life. I’ve heard of looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses, well you haven’t experienced life until you have looked at it through an orange-dyed ribbon. Cross country was suddenly the greatest sport ever. At each meet, I got to perform for roughly fourteen minutes (far more time than I had ever received during a football game or musical). For my troubles, I received a beautiful ribbon to show off my success. Then I was free to play the floor is lava on the playground until the rest of the races were complete.

But the truly best part of cross country was the post-race feasting that awaited me. Viz’s tent held the most magical brunch - mainly because it involved endless amounts of Dunkin’ Donuts.

During that first meet when I rounded the corner on finishing a half dozen donuts with my sights set on an even dozen, I realized I wasn’t only wrong about cross country, but I was also wrong about Visitation. Afterall, would Satan's helpers treat me to such delicious food? These kind moral Christians took me and my fellow Knights in when we had nothing to offer. Without them, I wouldn’t have the orange ribbon or a pink sprinkled donut. They truly were doing the Lord’s work. For so long I had been focused on seeing the evil in them, blind to Viz’s true goodness.

The season went on. I no longer minded the practices because every step taken there was a step closer to meet day which meant more ribbons and, more importantly, more carb-loaded treats. The other students at IC noticed mine and my fellow runners’ radiant smiles and bounce in our steps. Word spread of cross country’s superiority so that by next year we had an abundance of new recruits. However, our success meant that we had more than enough folks to form our own team. Viz graciously let us go with no contract disputes and wished us well as we formed our separate Jr. Knight team.

I wish I could tell you that I showed the same amount of grace. I wish I could tell you that I repaid the favor to Viz by not only singing cross country’s praise but also the praise of the school south of St. Charles. I wish I could tell you that when I heard an insulting Viz joke filter through the halls of IC, I was there to rebuke it. Sure, who would have believed me even if I had? My classmates would have been like the townspeople in Beauty and the Beast when Belle failed to convince them that the giant talking beast down the road was actually a sensitive soul. Still I should have tried.

Prejudice runs deep infecting every pore of the soul. When my best friends Mark and Mary Alex recently bought a house south of St. Charles Rd, my first reaction after I Zillowed the listing was to text them “don’t tell me you’re gonna send your kids to Viz”. I can’t help myself.

So let this story be my first step to finally giving back to the school that changed my life. Cross country would go on to become my soulmate and I would never have been able to find that love without Visitation. But there’s actually a far greater reason as to why Visitation deserves all my flowers.

You see, one Sunday round the time I was running circles around Viz, my family’s hectic schedule was such that we were forced to forgo Sunday mass at IC and instead head to Visitation. My siblings and I acted like the closeted guy at a gay bar - fearful of seeing any other IC students who could out us. We nervously sat in Viz’s chapel as the minutes ticked on, thankful we didn’t see anyone else we knew. Eventually, we realized we also didn’t see a priest. More minutes elapsed until finally an usher walked down the aisle like a bridesmaid sent to deliver an unpleasant message to the waiting groom.

“I’m sorry, there was a miscommunication and there won’t be a priest for tonight’s mass. The parish apologizes for the mistake.” That was that. My family said a quick Hail Mary then left, ending the shortest mass of our lives.

To give a boy purpose, to give him a safe space to grow, to set him down a path that would forever alter his life, that’s all well and good. But to give a boy a Sunday where he didn’t have to sit through an entire mass…that is truly the greatest gift of all. Thank you Vikings, from an ever grateful Jr. Knight.

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For several summers, I lifeguarded at the local pool, but for the summer of my junior year, I was determined to ditch the park district teen gig for a corporate grown-up internship. I desired a job that would put my in-progress economics degree to good use. It was time I translated economic theory from the classroom to the real-world. It wasn’t easy, but after countless applications, interviews, and rejections, I finally landed an internship at a non-profit as the director of strategic operations and customer success, more colloquially known as a camp counselor.

Yes, the job would not be as glamorous (or profitable) as the Wall Street internships my fellow econ classmates had secured. Still, I hoped I could pick up a few accomplishments to fill out my relatively brief resume.

I had never set foot at Camp Tannadoonah before agreeing to spend ten weeks there. My first impression of the southwest Michigan site was that I had stumbled upon the set of a low budget rip-off of Friday the 13^th. It was mine and the other counselors’ job to spruce up the camp before the kids arrived so the place was less “slasher” and more “kumbaya”.

During that pre-week, I realized that I would have been much better off trading in some of those micro and macro-economic classes for basic home economic classes.

I was a useless landscaper, a pathetic arts and crafter, and a black hole of ineptitude when handed the simplest of tools. One time the counselors found me struggling for hours to drill a screw into a signpost. I complained that the power drill was broken. To my surprise, the drill had a reverse function. The only utility I provided was a laugh for the other counselors who were either life-long campers or good ol’ boys from Indiana who could take apart my car and put it back together faster than I could open the hood.

Once campers finally arrived, the camp was beautiful and welcoming, no thanks to me. I felt very anxious that the campers would sniff me out as the weak link. I wanted to be liked and figured I had an ace up my sleeve. Due to the camp’s proximity to South Bend, most campers revered Notre Dame, and I was the only Domer counselor. As I helped campers find their cabin, I called out a boy’s ND football shirt.

“You know, I go to Notre Dame,” I said with all the smugness a true Domer could muster.

“Cool, do you play football?”

Me? Play collegiate D1 football? Had the five-minute detox from their screens already made their eyesight go haywire?

“No, I don’t play football.”

“What sport do you play?”

“I don’t play any sport.”

“So…” the campers asked with all the disdain only preteens can muster “…what are you?”

“I’m a student.”

That was the wrong answer. Who knew that kids don’t care about your game theory or developing economy classes even if they did take place next door to the house that Rockne built.

Things went downhill from there. The older boy’s (age 12-13) whose cabin I was assigned to quickly learned to defer to other counselors if they needed help with anything - archery, fishing, fire making. Especially on the topic of girls, I was looked over in favor of counselors with girlfriends. They assumed my lack of one was not by choice but by ineptitude.

The topic of the opposite sex was by far their favorite topic of conversation. Morning, noon and night the boys discussed the girls as if camp was the first time they had ever encountered a female.

The campers’ lustful obsession reached a fever pitch the night before the end-of-week dance where the boys would get to visit the older girl’s cabin for the soiree. The night before the fling, the boys decided to serenade the girls with love letters.

For a while the cabin was peaceful as the boys silently crafted their perfect sonnets. The serenity was broken once a boy read over his fellow camper’s shoulder and found out that they were writing to the same girl. This started a chain reaction of each boy checking who their bunkmate’s paramour was only to realize that every single one of them had written their letter to the same Sandra Dee.

I wasn’t all that surprised as most of their conversations had revolved around “Sandra”. There had been a few times when I had to tell them to knock it off when their discussion had focused too much on her “assets”.

Shouts of “I saw her first” and “she doesn’t like you” and “we’ll see who she chooses” rang throughout the cabin. Although I had tried to avoid being involved in their preteen shenanigans, the boys were in desperate need for a qualified professor to teach them a lesson - not a lesson in love, but a lesson in economics. The boys were too focused on Adam Smith and his theory on individual ambition serving the common good. They needed to be introduced to John Nash.

“Haven’t any of you seen A Beautiful Mind?” I pleaded.

Silence.

Typical, they made time to see every Transformer flick, but God forbid they watch Ron Howard’s best picture masterpiece. It would be up to me to save the campers from disaster like Gary Sinise saving the crew of Apollo 13 in Ron Howard’s other best picture nominated classic.

If they had seen the film about the life of mathematician John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, they would have witnessed a scene that took place at a bar that was reminiscent of their current situation. In this crucial scene where John Nash dunks on Adam Smith, he posits that the optimal outcome will come from individuals doing what’s best for themselves and the group.

This illuminating scene helped to secure Oscar glory for the screenwriters, but go on any Reddit message board and you’ll find economic enthusiasts nominating the film for a Razzie award. Whether or not the film did a terrible job of showcasing what a Nash Equilibrium actually entails is far from the point. The scene did perfectly predict exactly what would happen to the boys if they did not listen to my advice.

“You will fail,” I gravely warned, “If you all ask out the same girl, you’ll block each other. She’ll say no to all of you because you were rude to her friends. Then you’ll have no chance with the other girls because they will be mad at you for your earlier diss. You will be left dancing with each other.”

I handed them blank papers and told them to write a note to their second choice. They rewrote their letters while I congratulated myself for utilizing my economics degree for good. I collected the revised letters and went out to deliver them, but first I made a pit-stop at the mess hall. There I met up with a counselor from the girl’s cabin. We raided the fridge then read through the letters.

Before you complain about invasion of privacy and first amendment rights, let me ask you this – would you trust a group of pent up thirteen-year-old boys not to write something out of pocket? There was no way us counselors were going to be culpable in helping a little skeeve. Screening the letters was a matter of protecting the camp from being held liable.

As we munched on reheated quesadillas, we read through the letters and found them all to be acceptably PG rated. However, I had to grade them an F. Not a single boy had paid heed to my advice as every letter was still addressed to Miss Sandra Dee. They all would rather assure mutual destruction rather than let a fellow camper “win”.

“These boys are idiots,” my co-counselor laughed, “Should we burn these letters?”

“No, they must learn their lesson.”

The next day before the morning flagpole salute, the boys got a special surprise visit from the girls.

“Thanks for the letters,” the girls, including Sandra Dee, chanted, “we have a message for you…”

They then proceeded to sing the Katy Perry hit “I Kissed a Girl”. It was a show of girl power and unity from all the campers except the one girl who had a boyfriend back home and felt singing the song would be a form of cheating as well as the super religious girl who believed singing the song was a sin. Ultimately, the girls delivered the boys the outcome John Nash had predicted, minus the Katy Perry tune.

That night’s dance was about as awkward as you would expect. Boys and girls stuck to their separate sides with the counselors making fools of ourselves in the middle trying to bridge the gap. Honestly, even if the boys had heeded my advice, I doubt the dance would have been any less awkward - these were preteens after all.

That one week wound up being the last time I was placed in the older boy’s cabin. It wasn’t their lack of appreciation for my free economic lessons that soured me . It was an incident that occurred one night when I awoke to a ruckus game of hot potato, only they were not throwing a potato. They were throwing a dildo. Not an actual sex toy, thank God, but the foam part of a kids crutch that they were calling a dildo.

After I yelled at them and placed the foam back on top of the crutch, one camper asked, “What’s a dildo anyway?”

A free econ lesson was one thing, but I was not getting paid enough to teach sex ed 101.

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I requested a cabin transfer, and the following week was placed on the other end of the spectrum. The campers in the youngest cabin only had one girl on their mind, their mommy. Sadly, as the week wore on and the temperatures skyrocketed, the only thing on some of their minds was their mommy . Instead of writing letters, they whined and fought until I reached my breaking point. Another counselor had to tag me out before I yelled back at one incessant crier – “Join the club buddy, I miss my mommy and air conditioning too!”

Although I did not request the second transfer, the camp director made the executive decision to move me to the middle grade cabin. Third time was the charm. They were thankfully old enough to not miss home but young enough to not need gallons of AXE body spray. It helped that they were the same age as my youngest brother John so I had practice speaking their language. Most importantly though, I had learned a lesson from the prior weeks on how to get into their good graces.

“Do you play football?” they asked once they found out I went to Notre Dame.

“No,” I replied, “But I’m good friends with the football players.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah, I hang out with them all the time.”

Was that true? Well, I was friends with a walk-on fifth-string.

“Do you go to the games?”

“Of course, I go to all the games. In fact, I get to watch from the sidelines instead of the stands.”

It was true that I did go to all the home games, and it was true I didn’t watch from the stands because I was usually passed out in the drunk tank.

I regaled the campers with imagined stories of playing video games and eating meals with the guys starring in ESPN highlights. I even threw in some fake stories about being besties with Taylor Swift’s brother who would take me to the concerts of their favorite musicians like LMFAO (this was 2012). Again, not a complete lie - Austin Swift did drink a beer in my dorm room one time.

I ended up not being the counselor who could build the best campfire, but I was the counselor who had the best stories to tell around the campfire. So what if the stories were fake? What can you expect from someone majoring in a fake science?

If you were to ask me - when were you happiest? - I would easily answer the day I came out. Though I was only twelve, I knew it was time to come out. I mean, the closet was made of glass thanks to two disastrous football seasons. Those pathetic attempts to cosplay as a jock, propelled me to finally don my authentic self. There’s no sweeter relief than to be free from the trappings of a false persona. When you finally walk in your truth, it feels more like floating. I was no longer ashamed to shout from the rooftops up to the heavens - I am Danny and I am…

a Thespian.

Sure, it wasn’t exactly the same thing as calling myself gay, but thespian is basically gay in a different font.

As a newly proud member of the thespian alliance, I vowed to never go back to the football field. Come the fall of my seventh grade year, I planned to take my rightful place on the stage by joining ECT, Elmhurst Children’s Theater. The prince who was promised would finally arrive.

Luckily, I didn’t have to wait that long to stretch my queer muscles as I was old enough to sign up for Immaculate Conception Grade School’s spring musical. Signing up was taking the first step in my providence-approved journey to becoming the greatest star of the stage and screen.

How could I be so sure of my success? Well, my ascent to stardom was a matter of divine scientific principles.

Sir Isaac Newton postulates in his third law of motion that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In essence, the world mandates balance. All those missed tackles, dropped passes, and warmed benches meant I was destined for top billing, endless awards, and lucrative first-dollar gross contracts. My worldview at the time was strictly binary - you were either a jock or a thespian. So if I was the world’s worst jock then I had to be the world's best actor. Step aside Humphrey Bogart.

Jocks and thespians were two parallel lines that were never to cross. This separation might seem small-minded, but you have to remember this was the early 2000’s. It was a time before High School Musical and Glee showed us that the popular jock could land the leading role. Due to this ignorance, I was madly drunk with happiness in those early spring days. It had been two years of endless winters, but spring had sprung and everything would be coming up roses for Danny.

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The ICGS volunteer musical department selected the perfect show for my debut. It was the classic Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man. Leading up to tryouts, my dad rented the 1962 film. I was totally engrossed by the performance, not by Robert Preston or Shirley Jones, but by Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard. He played lisp-stricken Winthrop to perfection. I knew I would make Ronnie proud.

Practical as always, I understood that the lead role of Professor Harold Hill would be out of reach to a lowly sixth grader like myself. Every Christine Daaé must put her time in the chorus before she can be the prima donna. Besides, puberty was still a year away so I was perfectly content at playing the scene-stealing child. I could save those leading man sex symbol roles for seventh or eighth grade, depending on when my voice dropped an octave.

I was well aware that auditions were nothing but a formality. The role was mine by divine right. Still I gave it my all and put on quite the show. Not since Debbie Reynolds made her debut in Singing in the Rain had a young stalwart come onto the scene as such a triple threat.

My one gripe about the audition process was the missed opportunity to not have me read with any of the girls. I would have liked to have screen tested the prospective Marians, or at least my future love interest, Amaryllis. No matter, I knew my skills could make up for any pitchy diva they selected.

The following morning I was busy diagramming a sentence when a classmate announced that the cast list had been posted. All the girls and a handful of boys rushed out of the room as if the Wells Fargo Wagon had just rolled into town. The seventh and eighth graders were already there. My fellow sixth graders struggled to fight through the sea of pre-teens to reach the cast list. I saw no reason to rush so I bided my time pitying the broken-hearted, talentless junior high kids who could not conceal their disappointment at getting cast as townspeople.

Eventually, I overheard a seventh grader celebrate getting Amaryllis.

“I look forward to working with you,” I said extending my hand, but the girl brushed me aside. That was no way for Amaryllis to treat her Winthrop, I thought. I’m supposed to be the object of her affection. Wasn’t I?

Sensing there was trouble with a capital T which rhymes with C that stood for casting, I pushed a horde of girls out of my way to reach the front. I scanned the list till I found Winthrop -

- Michael Jank.

I stood there rereading Michael’s name hoping it would spontaneously turn into mine. I was too confused to be angry. I then realized that production must have needed me in a more important role than Winthrop. It hit me - they want me as the lead. Here I had thought I was not ready, but clearly I had doubted my own talents. Yes, I must be Harold Hill -

Nope. I wasn’t Harold Hill. That role went to the obvious eighth grade boy who was pretty much the sole reason we were even doing The Music Man to begin with.

Ok, so I wasn’t the lead. That’s fine. There were still plenty of good roles. They must have wanted me as bad boy Tommy Djilas. Play against type, it was an inspiring casting choice -

Nope. I wasn’t Tommy.

Nor was I the hapless mayor.

I wasn’t even a Goddamn Buffalo Bill quartet member.

Who was I? I was Boy #24601. Ok, I was Boy #3. But it didn’t matter, #3 or #24601. I was still a nobody.

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It took all the acting ability, which according to Immaculate Conception was minimal, to act normal the rest of the day. I was angrier than an Iowan mother when her son re-buckles his knickerbockers below the knee. The role of Winthrop was supposed to be mine. How could I have been passed over by anyone, let alone Michael Jank? He was the worst person I could lose out to because he was my best friend. Nothing in the entire world is more painful, not even attending a grade school production of The Music Man, than having to fake excitement for a friend’s achievement at your expense.

Michael should have never even been considered for the role. Do you know how many roles on Broadway there are for kids with speech impediments? Oh Danny, it was 2004, it was a different time. Bullshit. Production should have known better than to cast a non-lisp actor in a lisp role. And yes, I technically have rhotacism rather than Winthrop’s classic lisp, but a speech impediment is a speech impediment. Last time I checked, Filipinos were still starring in Miss Saigon, not Miss Manila. It’s totally kosher for me to play a lisp-stricken boy. But smooth talking Michael Jank? Absolutely not.

Plus, Winthrop is heavily coded as gay. I mean slutty Amaryllis spends the whole show throwing herself at the kid who is only interested in having his sister’s hot suitor teach him how to blow a horn. Ultimately, Michael is a Fiyero, and Fiyeros should not play roles that are meant for Boqs. Only people who fully appreciate this reference should get to play Winthrop.

Besides it being wildly inappropriate for Michael to take on this role, it didn’t make scientific sense. Michael was a starter on the football team, a goalie on travel soccer, and a guard on the A basketball team. Guess who never would have been cast on the A basketball team - Winthrop Paroo and Danny Milling. What the hell had Newton been talking about with his mambo-jumbo-bullshit. Getting denied the role of Winthrop was like John Locke being denied his walkabout. Winthrop was my destiny.

My parents tried cheering me up by retelling that old myth about Michael Jordan getting cut from his high school basketball team. It’s a BS story. Jordan got cut from varsity as a sophomore, but he still made the JV team. The role of Winthrop was my JV team. Boy #3 was the equivalent of the waterboy.

Never in any of my string of athletic failures had I ever come close to shedding a tear. That night after the cast list was posted, I cried my eyes out with my face buried in the pillow to avoid waking my brothers who shared my room.

Had the casting decisions been an act of injustice then anger would have been the dominant emotion. If there was a case to be made that Michael and the other leads had bribed their ways to named roles then I would have been steady in my pursuit of revenge. But the casting choices were both valid and sound. So I cried.

I reassessed my audition free from the filter of my own delusion. Replaying the scenes back I could not deny the fact that I was no Debbie Reynolds, but rather the talentless sucker in Singing in the Rain who needs Debbie Reynolds’ character to dub over all her singing. I wasn’t a triple threat, only a threat to the audiences’ eardrums.

If I couldn’t land the role of the closeted, midwestern, speech impaired kid - then what in the hell kind of role could I land? Imagine if Tom Cruise was to ever lose out on being cast as a plane-jumping scientologist. It would be his sign to try a new profession.

Over the years, acquaintances and therapists alike have asked me why it took me so long to accept my sexuality?

Was it the endless games of schmear the queer at recess? Was it the oppressive nature of a Catholic education? Was it the inescapable ramblings of Fox News echoed through the household?

No, the single biggest setback in my coming out journey was brought on by the volunteer musical theater department of Immaculate Conception Grade School. Thanks to the 2004 ICGS production of The Music Man, I spent years questioning how I was born this way and who made me this way.

Afterall, how could I be gay but not a thespian? I thought the whole deal was that if you have to be gay you also got to be a famous out Broadway star or a famous closeted Hollywood star.

If I was to accept that I was gay then what kind of God existed? I was prepared to accept an almighty Creator who cursed me with the affliction of homosexuality, but I could not, I would not accept a Lord who would thrice curse me - once with a limp wrist, twice with two left feet and thrice with tone-deaf ears.

What type of lesser God would send to earth a talentless queer? This was the question that would haunt me for years. However in 2004, there was another more immediate question that needed answering - what the heck was I gonna do come the fall?

Not only did God ruin my dreams, but He also ruined my fall plans too. After my humiliation in the IC musical, there was no way I was joining ECT. I was not about to trade in being a third string tight end just so I could be a third string Nazi in ECT’s production of Sound of Music. But what else was there for me to do? Where does one turn to when flopping is all one knows how to do?

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished. And on the seventh day God finished the work that He had done, and He rested. But then God became bored as there was nothing to watch on Sunday so the Lord God Almighty plucked a pig out from Eden, skinned it and created the game of football, the American version, not the other one. [Genesis - 2.1-2.25, King Ditka Bible]

Scholars and zealots may tussle over the original location of the Garden of Eden, but there is no room for debate when mapping the birthplace of God’s sport. Football was not founded in some ancient city where the great Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet, but rather a place 60 miles west of the University of Notre Dame where the great Eisenhower expressway meets the Reagan memorial tollway. A place called Elmhurst, Illinois.

Long before Elmhurst had its first Italian beef or deep dish pizza joint, Elmhurst had football. Since the founding of the sport, football has consumed all aspects of the provincial town. There are more football fields held within the town’s border than the entire state of Texas.

Not only was football our way of life in Elmhurst, it was the only way out. Unlike our cake-eating neighbors in the north shore suburbs used as backdrops for John Hughes films, boys in Elmhurst knew better than to waste dreams on fancy jobs in downtown skyscrapers. You either got drafted to the NFL or you got drafted into the union at the local limestone quarry.

And unlike our Hebrew neighbors up in Glenview who became men at thirteen, we Elmhurst gentiles transitioned to manhood upon entering fifth grade, the year organized sports began in the Catholic parochial school league. Football was a mandatory calling from God encouraged by the nuns at Immaculate Conception Grade School. The sisters had us memorize the names of IC football legends ahead of the saints and apostles.

In Elmhurst musical performances had a way of never making it past dress rehearsals. One time a traveling music man rolled into town and tried to start a boys band. After polite but stern no’s, he took the next train out of town to try his luck in more forgiving lands like Iowa. At least that is what city hall told the FBI weeks later when the man was still missing. Once the Feds were gone, I and the other boys were taken on an unofficial field trip to the local quarry so we could see for ourselves what happens to those who dare to hum do-re-mi instead of grunting hut-hut-hike!

Football was my destiny. Pope John Paul II could have forbidden me from playing, and my parents would have just switched to the neighboring Immanuel Lutheran parish. No pontiff pardon could break the family’s legacy of seven generations of Jr. IC Knights. The only time Father ever seemed happy was when he spoke of his days on IC’s Plunkett field. Now instead of taking hits on the field, Fathers took hits against scabs who dared to cross the quarry’s strike line. Back home, the only x’s and o’s he handed out were those in the playbooks he had me study each night before bedtime prayer.

Mother’s Father was holding back the clutches of death solely so he could witness me donning the Knights jersey. Years on the football field followed by years in the quarry had ravaged his body and mind. At night, I would read to him switching between the sacred texts - Parseghian and Notre Dame Football and In Life, First You Kick Ass: Reflections on the ‘85 Bears and Da Coach. Every so often Grandfather’s mind would go somewhere else, and he’d be in a trance-like state repeating platitudes: “Football is our way…I am football…you are football…we are football… ”

I’m sorry…I cannot continue this lie.

Everything I have laid before you is a complete and utter farce. I promise, this deception was not done out of malice. This rewriting of history was done as a final act of kindness in much the same way as what Vanessa Redgrave’s character did in Atonement. There she invented a happy ending for star-crossed lovers. I attempted to give my ten-year-old self, not a happy ending but a happy beginning. I crave an origin story that strips away all agency and therefore all guilt. I want to believe that I was not the harbinger of my own doom.

You see, Elmhurst is not the birthplace of American football nor does it have the most football fields per capita. It does on the other hand have the most porn searches per capita*. I’m sure Elmhurst also competing for most churches per capita is a completely unrelated achievement.

*City officials contend that the results were skewed by a nearby cell tower.

Yes, we Elmhurstians have venerated Mike Ditka to sainthood, but he’s just one of many patron saints of Chicago sports along with the likes of St. Jordan and St. Santo.

Immaculate Conception Grade School didn’t force boys into football although you’d be forgiven for assuming they forced the girls into Irish dance given how the annual talent show was 95% Irish dance troupes.

My grandpa never sustained a football injury nor did he ever play. My grandma would have loved to have donned a jersey as her dual passions in life were the Chicago Bears and the Fighting Irish. Grandpa much preferred tailgating, a trait I would go on to inherit.

And as for my dad, the only organized sports he ever forced me into was the chess club at the local library. The Bobby Fischer groupie somehow lucked into marrying my mom, the former cheerleader. When it was time for me to pick up my football gear, he sent the former cheerleader to accompany me so he could avoid having to run into all the other dads who would be reliving their former glory days.

Oh, and while we did live a football throw away from the local limestone quarry, my dad worked as an actuary downtown in one of those skyscrapers. Plus, based on his voting record, he would likely be rooting against the strikers while writing Thatcher-Reagan fan-fic.

So you see, no blame can be laid onto my lineage nor birthplace. I was not a casualty of a pig-skin black hole consuming the innocence of every boy in its path. The blame for my future suffering is all on me. It was I who coveted those shiny jerseys. It was I who had watched Remember the Titans one too many times. It was I, out of my own free will and fruition, who walked into the gates of Hell, known as parochial football.

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I had played enough recess touch football to shed any delusions of making All-American. My only aspiration was to be half-way decent. It took all of half a practice to realize I had zero innate ability for the game. I could have gotten stuck in a groundhog day situation where I spent years and years reliving that first practice, and I would still be the worst player.

I memorized the playbook like my life depended on it. It was all in vain. Memorizing every play was as useful as memorizing every spell cast by Harry Potter. I would never levitate a football, much less throw one.

Now I was far from the only unskilled player on the field. In fact, pee-wee football teams can win on the backs of their unskilled labor. Kids the size of mice become successful running backs squeezing through the cracks in defensive lines. Those on the other end of the BMI scale had secure spots on the O-line. Taking up space was pretty much 99% of their job.

But what to do with an untalented kid like me? Too tall for running back, but too skinny for the line. Instead of being the bed that’s just right, I’m the bed infested with bed bugs. That’s how I became the third-string tight end. And no, we didn’t have second-strings.

I quickly learned to despise every aspect of the football complex. I despised practices that brought about pain bordering on torture. I’m not talking about the tackling where I held my ground as well as an inflatable tube guy outside a dealership. I’m talking about the end of practice when I would need the help of multiple coaches to pull off my helmet. It was a horrible catch-22. I prayed for practice’s end so I could be freed, but I also feared the end as it would mean another attempt at ripping my head from my neck.

I despised the game day pageantry , which is saying a lot because gay kids love pomps and circumstances of all kinds, but not when it comes in the form of 7am Sunday team masses dressed in suits. Eventually, the coaches changed mass to 5:15pm on Saturday to combat our sluggish performance.

I despised having to stand the entire game on the sidelines. My qualm was not with being a benchwarmer as that was a perfectly logical role for me. However, if I’m going to be a benchwarmer then give me a bench to warm instead of a patch of grass to brown.

I despised not getting to flee to the sanctuary of my house the minute the clock struck zero. Instead I was forced to watch the older grades play so we could “learn”. I think we learned as much as engaged couples in Pre-Cana learn from a perpetual single priest.

Oh and I really despised the orange slices we received at halftime. I much preferred apple slices. I admit this grievance is a bit petty, but at that point those produce snacks felt like a targeted attack.

All my hatred for the game could be boiled down to the fact that I did not accept the fantasy. My teammates and coaches embraced the myth they were creating in real time. Any given pep talk was treated like a thrown out draft from Any Given Sunday. To them we weren’t just another fifth-grade suburban parochial team trying to accomplish the simplest of plays. We were the town’s last hope of pulling itself out of its depression caused by the closure of the local quarry.

I planned for the last game of the season to be my swan song. I picked a good one to finish out my career as we were playing our arch nemesis Visitation, aka the other catholic grade school in town. My dumb team treated the game as if we were off to fight some holy war.

The game was moving along unremarkably until the coach inexplicably had me stay on the field after kick-off. I assumed the extra playing time was thanks to threats my mom made to the coaches’ wives - either Danny sees favorable playing time or I’ll place you at an unfavorable table at the upcoming parish gala.

Viz snapped the ball while I aimlessly stood in the back-field. It was not till I saw the football hurtling towards me that I remembered I was in the game. The QB’s terrible throw hit me square in the chest. I caught the interception and ran for what seemed like a lifetime but it was like two maybe three yards. The crowds cheered, the announcers called my name, and the coaches gave me the game ball.

Finally I was starring in my own sports movie. Down on his luck player is ready to quit it all until he makes the game winning play catapulting him from zero to hero. It’s the type of movie based on a true story that you can’t believe is true. Despite living it, I can no longer believe it. I don’t want to join the ranks of flat-earthers or anti-vaxxers, but I can’t help but dabble in conspiracy theorizing.

Had both teams held secret practices in the weeks leading up to the game? Had magnets been placed inside my helmet and the football to ensure I could not miss the catch?

It may seem crazy - why would the football establishment in town go to such great lengths to make me happy? Who cares if I planned on quitting the sport? I was only one kid. Yet, if I dropped out, I would prove that there was life beyond football. Perhaps my act of defiance would propel someone else to drop off, and another, and another. It wouldn’t be surprising to find out that the coaches had read up on Kissinger’s domino theory.

Regardless if the play had been fixed or not, the outcome was the same. Those exhilarating twelve seconds made me forget about the embarrassing twelve weeks. Come a year later, I once again excitedly and stupidly signed up for football.

Hey, I thought, I’m on the rise. I had my fill of trials and tribulations in the Act 1 of my football career, but all had come to a happy end. Sadly, I was in for a ruder surprise than theatergoers coming back for Act 2 of Into the Woods.

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My second year of football was an exploration into gluttony - how much humiliation could I consume?

There was the epic ‘03 Mud Bowl that at first seemed like my rock bottom. Thanks to a Saturday night monsoon, Plunkett field had turned into a cereal bowl of Coco Rice Krispies. After each play, you needed a crane to lift the sixth grade players out of the mud pits. Post-game, the team relaxed on the stands and reveled in their mud stains treated as battle scars, proof of their manhood. Who needed armpit hair or being eye level with at least one girl in class when you were drenched in mud.

Then there was me. My jersey sparkled like the end of a laundry detergent commercial. Everyone already knew I didn’t get playing time, but now the proof was on the jersey, or lack thereof.

It was beyond embarrassing, and my teammates could sense my unease. Instead of hurling insults, they hurled their leftover mud at me. My jersey became their canvas for an experimental post-modern muddy art piece. Eventually, I was fully assimilated, and my unease was lifted. Sometimes junior high boys are assholes, but sometimes they are kind in their own messy way.

Being on mud welfare still bruised my ego, but then came the loss to St. Michaels. It was unsurprising as the boys of St. Michael’s were always two feet above us. There was something in their holy water. In this game, we were losing by so much that the coaches benched all the starters. Before I could put my mouth guard in, the coaches called on the fifth-graders to take the field. It was humiliating. I was no longer the worst sixth-grader but also the worst fifth-grader. The only thing that made my suffering bearable were my fellow sixth-graders bitching about the coaches. For once my misery had tons of company.

Rock bottom finally arrived in the last practice. Here the coaches divided us into four small teams for fun scrimmages. Players would try out new positions. Coaches would draw up wacky plays. What was meant to be a farce devolved into tragedy.

The catholic guilt must have gotten to my coach as he seemingly out of nowhere made it his mission to rectify my season long humiliation with a stunning touchdown. Play after play, Coach drew up the same routine - throw the ball to Milling. Positions shifted, routes were altered, but I remained the target. Sadly, a touchdown catch was just not in the cards. QB’s would get switched out, defensive players would get that look from the coach to “try a little less”, and all I gave back were incomplete passes.

“So close, let’s run that again.”

Again and again, we ran the plays. I had long stopped caring about getting a touchdown in a useless practice scrimmage. Besides, how was scoring a touchdown with unlimited chances during a half-hearted scrimmage supposed to build my self-esteem? Any touchdown I scored would be the ultimate participation trophy. Not to mention that my teammates were angry that their fun scrimmage had morphed into some twisted make-a-wish event.

After the 95th failed play, I was at my wits end. I desperately wanted to scream out -

“THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON’T THEY COACH!?”

- but I didn’t because I was a kid and kids don’t yell at adults. Plus, it would be a few more years till I was well acquainted with Ms. Jane Fonda’s filmography. So we continued with the useless charade until the whistle sounded.

Not long after that disastrous exercise in futility, I bumped into my football coach while in the post-9am mass donut line in the basement below church.

“Danny, sad to hear you won’t be joining us next year. Is there any way we can change your mind?”

I quickly stuffed my mouth with a strawberry frosted sprinkled donut. It was the only way to stop myself from cursing in the presence of the pastor.

Are you really gonna do this song and dance? I thought You don’t want me on the team. I don’t want to be on the team. Cut the shit and eat your donut.

I gulped down the sugary treat and then sweetly replied, “No, thank you.” I then grabbed a second donut and walked away. Technically it was a sin to grab two donuts, but I knew God would forgive me.

Let me be clear: I hold no ill will against my coach. He was merely a vessel for the Holy Spirit to guide me back to my true destiny. It was I who had mistakenly taken the wrong turn that led me to Plunkett field. God was left with no choice but to humiliate me until I finally pursued what I was put on this Earth to do. God had given me gifts that I was wasting on that field. It was time for me to answer my true calling - Musical Theater.

Saying my final goodbyes took longer than I anticipated. There were just so many farewells to deliver. The Beanie Babies in my vast collection each deserved solo send-offs from Hissy the snake to Inky the octopus. I figured my menagerie would be divided amongst my siblings. Many of my belongings had first been owned by my sister Katherine. My possessions would return back to their former owner once I returned back to dust.

I figured not every item would be saved. No doubt my Rugrats lunchbox, the catalyst for my impending doom, would need to be burned. And of course, I could not bear the thought of Lucky, my favorite stuffed animal, being re-homed. That 101 Dalmatian missing half of its stuffing meant the world to me. Lucky would need to accompany me as I made my journey through the gray rain curtain of this world and headed into the west where the white shores were calling.

It’s tragic for a six-year-old to prepare for death, but tragedies are the inevitably of wars. Although to be fair, my death would signal the start of the war. I was to be the modern day Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Yet this conflict would not take place across waning European empires, but rather, be concentrated within a one block radius of Elmhurst, IL. And unlike the Great War, this war would be a holy one fought by us Catholics.

Throughout the history of Roman Catholicism, the Pope’s flock have had to defend ourselves against various wolves. Depending on the time and region, the antagonists have changed - be it Muslims during the Crusades or Protestants during the Troubles. For me and my fellow north-side Elmhurst Catholics, we were up against a far worse enemy than ever before. It was an enemy who paid heed to no religion. They were without a god, without a moral code, and without a school uniform.

In the middle of Elmhurst on Church Street off York Avenue, sits two schools far alike in dignity. On one side is Immaculate Conception Grade School, a beacon of respectability. The other, a cesspool for degenerates, known as Hawthorne Elementary School. Although us ICGS Knights did our best to love thy neighbor as ourselves, the Hawthorne Hawks tested our limits.

First and foremost, Hawthorne students were thieves who infiltrated ICGS every other Sunday under the guise of “Sunday School”. These monsters would rummage through our desks snatching every last gel pen and decorative eraser. Clearly, they were too busy reenacting the Grinch pilfering all the Whos down in Whoville to listen to any of the Ten Commandments, specifically the eighth one.

Although Jesus taught us not to hold tight to material goods, it was still hard to forgive the looters given how they already were want of nothing. Unlike IC, Hawthorne had a beautiful jungle gym along with soccer goals and designated wall-ball space. What did IC kids have for recess? Chained basketball hoops reserved only for the upper grades, a blocked off street that was used half the time for funeral parking, and deflated balls. Whenever those useless toys flew over the fence, the public school kids would make us beg for our scraps. We spent more time playing hostage negotiations than playing 500.

Why then did public school kids hate us so when all we had ever done was show them love and compassion? I suppose deep down they were jealous of us. While they would be matriculating onward to Sandburg middle school, we would ultimately matriculate onward to everlasting salvation. Five years with a jungle gym won’t make up for an eternity in Hell.

Besides our salvation, Hawthorne students were also likely jealous at the lack of actual schooling done at IC. Before the state stepped in and reminded the parish of minimum school day laws, IC would be closed for every Holy Day no matter if it was the feast of Tom, Dick, or Harry. IC also ended the school day earlier with bells ringing at 2:35 while Hawthorne waited till the top of the hour. No doubt those extra twenty-five minutes of staring out the window at IC kids enjoying their freedom fueled so much of the publics’ prejudices.

It would be that early dismissal that would ultimately lead to my tragic fate. That and my mother’s refusal to interrupt my younger brother’s nap time to pick us up from school.

Although IC offered its students a direct route to heaven, it did not offer a route home. The only bus available was the Hawthorne bus. Each school day a ragtag group of bus kids, who had working parents or mothers who wanted to let sleeping babies lie, would hang out in the Kindergarten room from 2:35-2:55 then walk over to Hawthorne. We would always be the first in line for the buses, which meant we got the best seats.

Every kid would agree that the back of the bus was the prime real estate. For one thing, you were far out of sight from the bus driver. Not that we were cracking open roadies. It was the idea that we could get away with trouble that made it so tantalizing. Then there was the bump. When going over train tracks and ever present potholes, the folks in the back would fly off their seats reaching heights only seen during the Winter Olympics ski jumping events.

No doubt Hawthorne kids viewed us as the true thieves for stealing away seats they felt belonged to them. During all those bus rides home up in the boring front, the publics dreamt of the day when they would rise up and displace us Catholics. All they needed was a small spark, or a lunchbox.

Normally, I would join my sister as part of the bus kids and together make the journey across the street. However, once a week, I would head out alone behind enemy lines. IC was years away from employing a speech therapist so I would leave IC ten minutes early to attend speech sessions at Hawthorne from 2:30-3. My thoughtful speech teacher would typically end class a few minutes early so I could avoid walking the crowded halls. Dressed in my embarrassing school uniform, I would have been better off walking the halls in my birthday suit. However, on that fateful day, our session ran late. I probably got held up trying to pronounce a very hard word - like very, or hard, or word.

By the time I exited Hawthorne, kids were already filing into the bus so I had to take my place in the back of the line. No worries, a seat would be saved for me. Not by my sister. Absolutely not. She would be sitting next to her best friend Catherine. Luckily the other Catherine had brothers who would save me a spot.

The doors to the bus closed behind me. I made my way down the aisle passing the glares of public school kids until I reached my people in the back. Just as I plopped down in my seat, the front of the bus erupted -

“WHO DID IT?!”

A massive fifth-grade boy stood up. The mad child was foaming at the mouth.

“WHO HIT ME WITH THAT RUGRATS LUNCHBOX?!”

Before I had a chance to react, the boy clocked the branded Nickelodeon merch dangling from my hand in the aisle. The boy took a step towards me, ready to attack, but then the bus lurched forward and we were on the move. The boy could not risk getting in trouble with the driver so he reluctantly took his seat, but not before looking me square in the eyes, slicing his neck with his finger, and mouthing “You’re dead.”

I tried not to panic. If my Rugrats lunchbox did hit him as I made my way past, it would have been a total accident. Surely, this boy could forgive an accident. Maybe he already knew it was an accident. Maybe what he really mouthed was “No worries, all good, we chill.” Who was to say, I wasn’t fluent in lip-reading.

My delusion faded when my friend turned to me and in the kindest manner stated, “That kid is gonna kill you.”

My junior assassin would go on to exit the bus a few stops before mine. He left with a parting note - “See ya tomorrow, Rugrats lunchbox.”

That evening instead of practicing my spelling and flashcards, I strategized a way out of my execution.

I first planned on skipping the bus and hitchhiking for the rest of my days. However, that wouldn’t work as eventually my mom would find out. Then she would yell at my sister for not getting her brother on the bus, and then Katherine would kill me for getting her into trouble. Same ending, different executioner.

I next thought of just disposing of my lunchbox and changing my identity all together. I could be a blonde who watched Cartoon Network. But no matter what I did to my outer appearance, there was no changing my distinctive accent even if I went to speech therapy from 8am to 3pm five days a week.

I then turned to bribery. Trade him some Hot Wheels for a new lease on life. What was the going rate? I wondered if I would have to hand over my entire collection. That seemed like a steep price. I really hadn’t done anything all that bad. It was a plastic lunchbox not an Acme anvil. I likely barely grazed his face when walking by him.

Since I was only six, it took me longer than it should have to come to the logical conclusion that even the keys to an entire Toys R Us would not have been enough. It was never about the Rugrats lunchbox. The publics had been thirsty for Catholic blood. All they needed was the tiniest of paper cuts to swarm.

Once I accepted my fate, I said my goodbyes and scribbled a note asking for Lucky to be placed in my coffin. Then I tried to finish reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone but I drifted off to sleep.

I entered school the next day saddled with melancholy, not due to my own fate but for the fate of my fellow classmates. In one sense I was lucky to go first. I would not have to suffer through the eventual war that would ensue. Although I was far from Mr. Popular, I was still a Knight and the others would never allow the publics to murder one of their own without a counter-attack. The violence would eventually spill outside of Church street. It would be neighbor versus neighbor, AYSO teammate versus teammate. The only thing that gave me peace was my belief that God’s warriors would win out. Plus, I figured my martyrdom would earn me a nice St. Daniel of Myrtle Avenue title.

On my final trip from IC to Hawthorne with my fellow bus kids, I realized that while I had made sure to say farewell to the likes of Squealer the pig, I had not said farewell to my own sister. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in the family about the Rugrats lunchbox incident as I did not want them to worry. Standing in the bus line, I figured that brother and sister should have one final moment.

“Katherine,” I politely said, trying to interrupt her conversation with her friends.“Katherine, I just need…Katherine I just wanted to…I mean I -”

“Leave me alone, Doofus,” she said, shoving me aside. That would have to do.

The bus doors opened. I walked as steady as Anne Boleyn did on her way to the gallows. I sat in my seat accompanied by my ladies in waiting and waited for the ax to strike my neck.

Soon enough I heard the pounding steps and the battle cry ringing out through the bus: “Fee-fi-fo-fum I smell the blood of a Catholic young!”

The fifth-grader was stalking every row to ensure I wasn’t hiding from him.

“Where is he? Where’s that kid with the Rugrats lunchbox!”

He caught sight of me and clenched his fists. Suddenly all those feelings of saintly tranquility flew out the window. Jesus might have had the strength to accept his death, but I would have given anything in that moment to snap my fingers and come down from the cross.

There was so much I still needed to live for. I had yet to know the taste of a communion wafer. I had yet to shoot a ball into those chain-linked basketball hoops reserved for the upper grades. And I had yet to find out how Harry Potter would thwart Professor Snape’s attempts to steal the Sorcerer's Stone for Lord Voldemort.

The boy snatched the Rugrats lunchbox that I had turned into a makeshift shield and threw it to the ground. Then he raised his fist. In that moment I saw all of it - my life, my death, and the bloody turmoil that was to follow.

“Hey, sit down.”

The voice sounded like it had come from Athena ascending down from Mount Olympus to save the Greek hero when all hope was lost. But better than a deus ex machina was a soror ex machina.

My sister glared at the boy with all the anger and annoyance only a woman with multiple maddening younger brothers could muster. She was a year younger than my tormenter, but she stood several grades higher.

The boy was shocked that someone, no less a girl, would oppose him. He stood there with his fist still raised ready to strike.

“I. Said. Sit. Down.” Unlike me, Katherine did not ever need speech class. One could never mistake her words, nor her stubbornness. It was a lesson that my would-be assassin learned on that day, and a lesson future school children would go on to learn - don’t mess with Miss Katherine.

The little boy took one big gulp then one bigger leap back to his seat where he prayed to whatever false deity they pray to over at Hawthorne that he made it back to his mommy in one piece.

I was at a loss for words. How do I properly thank my sister for not only saving my life, but countless others in the war she had ended before it ever started.

Katherine picked up the infamous lunchbox that was lying on the ground, and shoved it in my chest.

“Next time put your lunchbox in your backpack, you doofus.”

Thanks to my sister, I would go on to enjoy many more bus rides making sure to keep my lunchbox tucked away in my backpack. I would go on to enjoy many more happy years with Lucky before his untimely disappearance, an unsolved mystery for another day. And I would go on to read that it was in fact Professor Quirrel who was in cahoots with Voldemort, not Snape.

Looking back at the whole affair, I have to wonder that over the course of human history, how many conflicts, how many battles, how many gallons of needlessly spilled blood could have been avoided if only there was a big sister around to tell them all to knock it off.