Big Mike: Loving The Lakeshore

Perhaps the thing I miss most about Chicago is the lakefront. A river town like Louisville has a different take on things than does a seaport like Chicago. Here in the River City, people look upon the mighty Ohio as just another street to cross, albeit a deep, brown, mile-wide thoroughfare filled with driftwood, coal barges and a few odd animal carcasses.

If Kentuckians envision the Ohio River as an avenue out of town, it offers them only two directions - southeast toward Fort Knox or northeast toward Cincinnati. Somehow, I doubt many kids lull themselves to sleep with dreams of those two destinations.

Lake Michigan, though, presents a seeming infinity of options. When I was young, I'd look out over the lake and see nothing but horizon. Any time I pondered that distant line, I couldn't help but feel anything was possible.

I recall being seven or eight and sitting in the back seat of my father's sun-tanned copper 1960 Chevrolet Impala, the kind with the horizontal wings in the back and a white whoosh denoting a jet trail on either side. We'd be heading east toward the lake on a late Sunday afternoon, mainly because Ma wanted to get the hell out of the house.

To me, the lakeshore was a wild, exciting pace, picket-fenced by Gold Coast apartment towers and filled with odd things like countless silvery, staring bodies of washed-up perch and boat tie-down plugs that looked like so many Easter Island statues. Just south of Navy Pier, police marine cruisers and pleasure craft would pull up to the concrete landing as the sun began to set. Boaters would make the three-foot leap from their decks, the cops' keys and handcuffs jangling, and land with a strange mixture of awkwardness and grace. They'd go in to Rocky's, a fried fish shack, and buy a pound of fish and chips or clam strips. I looked at those men the way, I'm sure that some Portuguese kid looked upon explorers returning from the New World.

I had my own death-defying adventure some years later, in 1999, when I was a Coast Guard-licensed sea captain. I piloted a DUKW, more commonly known as a Duck, ferrying tourists along the lakeshore, regaling them with information about the lake and the city as well as the occasional funny story. I won't recount the stories here because they were only funny to visitors from Iowa or Kansas who, being on vacation, their pockets filled with pre-crash cash, already were in a giddy mood.

It was a warm and bright May Sunday afternoon. The Duck was filled with adults and kids. The city couldn't have been prettier. It was only a week and a half after a Duck had sunk in Lake Hamilton near Hot Springs, Arkansas, killing some 13 people, but no distant tragedy could dampen our good feelings. We splashed into the water at the Burnham Harbor ramp between Soldier Field and McCormick Place. The kids screamed in excitement and the adults grinned as broadly as people with pockets full of cash can.

I hadn't even begun my usual patter when suddenly what sounded like a thousand sirens began shrieking in my ears. Just as suddenly, a half-dozen roaring jets of water began gushing high out of the boat's emergency bilge pump outlets along the gunwhale. For the briefest of moments - a time that seemed to my adrenaline-amped senses to be endless minutes - I couldn't figure out what the hell was happening.

I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw some two dozens faces staring at me in terror. They wanted me, the captain, to make everything right. Gulp.

The craft seemed heavy. I tried to steer but the Duck hardly budged off the straight line. I eased off the gas but the engine still roared, automatically throttling up to run the emergency pumps. I wasn't confused any longer - we were sinking.

I floored the gas pedal and the Duck inched forward. The jets of water spewed even higher, 25 feet in the air. As long as I kept the pedal to the metal, the emergency pumps would work at full capacity. First one, then several women screamed. They were wearing flip-flops so they knew before anybody else that the floorboards were now flooded. My mind flashed to the horror in Hot Springs.

If the passengers were hoping I'd say something soothing, allay their fears or even make a joke, they would be sorely disappointed. All I could think of was how to get this half-century-old pile of shit back on land.

With the engine thundering, I swung the wheel to the left, virtually willing the tiny rudders to pitch us into a u-turn. A man reached up into the overhead compartment and pulled down a life jacket. I shouted out an order for the rest of the passengers to follow his lead. The Duck moved glacially, describing an excruciatingly broad circle in the harbor. Water began splashing over the gunwhales.

I glanced again in my rear-view and saw the entire assemblage looking at me, pleadingly. I'd never held an audience so rapt. By now, even strollers and fishermen on the shore gaped at us, knowing full well they might be witnessing something that would haunt them.

After what seemed hours, we circled around and hit the ramp hard. The Duck was so heavy with water that we got hung up on the lip of the ramp. No matter, we wouldn't go down now. I finally spoke into my microphone. "We did it," I announced, breathlessly. "We'll be okay now."

We waited for about 10 minutes so the emergency pumps could empty enough water from the hull to allow us to move again. Then we slowly climbed the ramp and pulled over next to the harbor master's house. My rapt audience cheered as if I'd just scored the winning touchdown for the Bears in nearby Soldier Field.

I jumped down from the pilot's seat, got on my hands and knees and looked under the Duck. I saw a gaping six-inch hole out of which spewed water. It took a good 45 minutes for the hull to empty out. Some of the male passengers hunkered down next to me to conduct their own examinations. They pounded me on the back and shook my hand again and again. Safely off the Duck, the moms rocked their mewling kids in the lawn.

I never loved the lakeshore so much as on that Sunday afternoon.

Letter from Milo: The Old Man Misses A Great Game

Most of the people I knew in Northwest Indiana were White Sox fans. It was a geographical thing. Comiskey Park was closer to Gary than Wrigley Field. You could jump in your car and be sitting in Comiskey Park's cheap seats in about half an hour.

One day in the summer of '66 I asked the Old Man if I could use the car.

"What for?"

"Yankees are in town. I wanna see the game."

"Fucking Yankees," the Old Man muttered.

Like any diehard Sox fan the Old Man despised the Bronx Bombers, and for good reason. They regularly beat his beloved Sox, relegating them to second place or worse throughout the '50s and '60s. Some of those Sox teams had records good enough to win pennants in most eras, but the Yankees were always just a few games better, sometimes a whole lot better.

"OK, just drive careful," he said, tossing me the keys to his 1964 Chevrolet Impala.

I was a few months short of my 17th birthday and had just gotten my driver's license. Until I could scrape together two or three hundred dollars for a beater, I had to rely on the family car for transportation. I stopped to pick up a couple of buddies, the Kaiser brothers, Dickie and Danny, and Sandy Bordeaux, who were also diehard Sox fans. We made a pit stop at Mr. Lucky's Tap, one of the places in town that catered to underage drinkers, to pick up some quarts of Schiltz and a couple of half pints of flavored vodka before heading to Chicago and the big game.

We were excited, brimming with nervous energy. The closer we got to Chicago the more excited we became. The beer went down easy and we were tipsy by the time we neared 35th Street. All of us cheered and waved and wished the Sox luck as we passed Comiskey Park and continued on toward the Loop.

Our true destination was South State Street - the Follies Theater to be exact, one of the last Burlesque Houses on what had once been a notorious stretch of strip joints. In the days before "Deep Throat" and "The Devil in Miss Jones," before VHS and internet porn, there were very few places where a horny young man could see naked women. Unless you were lucky enough to have an accommodating girlfriend - which I wasn't - you were restricted to magazines like Playboy which only showed bare tits. To see the real thing, honest-to-God live women, shimmying and shaking, baring luscious tits and fabulous asses to the beat of a four-piece house band, you had to go to a Burlesque House.

We found a parking spot and staggered up to the box office. The scabby old ticket-taker took one look at us and cackled.

"You boys 21?"

"Yes sir," we replied.

"I'd ask for some ID but as you can see I'm real busy right now. That'll be five dollars... each."

"Wait a minute," one of us protested. "The sign says three dollars."

"I know what the sign says. You boys are getting the special price."

We paid the five dollars... each.

Although the theater had a capacity of three or four hundred, I doubt if there were 30 people in the house. There was a noisy group of sailors from the Great Lakes naval base and maybe another dozen scattered men. We had our choice of seats and sat as close to the stage as we could. I believe we were in the second or third row. We had saved the half pints of flavored vodka (cherry and grape) and started passing the bottles. By the time the show started we were happily drunk and giddy with anticipation.

The show opened with a 20 minute movie of a volley ball game in a nudist colony. It was a grainy, soundless movie, and the participants were mainly flabby old men and overweight women with sagging tits and wrinkles in all the wrong places. Still, we were spellbound. It didn't matter how old and unappealing the women were, they were naked and that's all that mattered.

When the movie ended, Dickie Kaiser said, "Hey Sandy, that one woman looked like your Grandma."

"I don't think so," Sandy replied. "The movie was probably made in Sweden. Grandma lives Crown Point."

Then the band started to vamp and it was SHOWTIME.

There were eight strippers on the bill and they all had gimmicks. There was the Tiger Lady, who wore a tiger-striped gown and prowled around on her hands and knees as she disrobed. There was Simone, who wore a French maid's costume, followed by Nurse Nellie and Cowgirl Lil, Queen of the Rodeo.

Sad to say, a couple of the strippers had seen better days. Simone had to be at least 50 years old and Nurse Nellie wasn't much younger. The sailors in the audience were rough on the older women, booing, catcalling, yelling for them to get off the stage. The women were professionals, however, and ignored the abuse. They were troupers and carried on in the grand showbiz tradition of The Show Must Go On.

Although all of the women had gimmicks, their acts finished in the same way. They stripped down to pasties with hanging tassels and skimpy g-strings (none was ever totally nude.) They gave us ample views of their fronts and behinds, then strutted to the side of the stage and covered themselves coyly with a part of the curtain. As the house band hit a crescendo, the strippers took off their g-strings and tossed them onto the stage. The drummer hit a couple of rim shots, the stage lights went dark, and two minutes later the next stripper came on.

After the sixth stripper finished her act there was an intermission while the stage was set up for the comedy act. I remember the act very well because I laughed my ass off. The set was a hotel room and the comic, who the term baggypants was invented for, and his foil, who looked suspiciously like Nurse Nellie, were trying to pack a suitcase. The suitcase was hard to shut. It was overfilled and there was always a shirt sleeve or trouser leg popping out as they were trying to shut it. Here's some of the dialogue as I remember it:

"Oooh, it popped out again."

"OK, I'll stick it in again."

"Maybe if you push a little harder."

"Damn, I got it in the wrong end."

"Maybe we should grease it up."

"How about if you sit on it."

"Oooh, it popped out again."

"Try blowing on it."

"I know, I'll get on my hands and knees."

"Damn, that's a tight fit."

After the comic finished his bit, there was another unremarkable stripper and then the star of the show came on. Her name was Ineeda Mann and the reason she was the star was that she could swing her tits in such a way that her tassels rotated in opposite directions. As far as we were concerned, this was an amazing feat and we hooted and applauded in appreciation. She did the tassel swinging trick a couple of times before finishing her act with the ritual tossing of the g-string. A moment later the houselights came on and the evening's entertainment was over.

None of us realized, as we stumbled out onto State Street, that an era was passing. Burlesque was as dead as Vaudeville. Within a year the Follies Theater would be torn down to make way for condos and townhouses. By 1970 I doubt if there was a Burlesque House left in the City. I sometimes wonder what happened to the Tiger Lady or Nurse Nellie. I hope they weren't reduced to demeaning jobs or the welfare rolls. Although I'm sure that Ineeda Mann, with her unique skills, managed to thrive.

It was time to go back to Gary. There was a problem, however. When I got home the Old Man would ask me about the Sox game. I knew that he had watched the game on TV and would want to talk about it. The guys with me had the same problem. So, we drove to Bridgeport and found a few stragglers still hanging around Comiskey Park. We asked them about the game and they gave us enough information to get by.

The Old Man was snoozing on the couch when I got home. He woke up when he heard me come in.

"Hey, how about those Sox!" He was happy. The Sox had beaten those rotten, no-good Yankees 6-3.

"Tommy John looked real good," I said.

"Yeah, I was watching."

"Pete Ward hit a three-run homer."

"I saw it, barely cleared the fence."

"Smoky Burgess had a pinch hit."

"Shit, I wish I could have gone with you. Must have been a great game."

"Yeah, you would have loved it."

(Get Milo's book, "Schoolboy," now. - The Editors)