Mom Letters by Jack Brackitt - HTML preview

Banks
Banks advertise that they’ll make loans to cab drivers to get their medallions.
These make the cabbies independents who can start their own operations.

Late one night, I was at a bank’s ATM – inside the little room assessable by swiping my card. This guy knocked on the door, waved that he couldn’t get inside, and I stupidly let him in.
Guy: You’ll be sorry you did that.
Me, jumping out of my skin: Yeah?
Guy, without showing gun or knife: I just need a few dollars.
Me, relieved and walking out: Oh jeeze, forget it.
Guy: Now wait – could you just –
Me, yelling: Get away from me man, that’s it!
Guy, turning away: Oh come on man!

I needed to make a drop-box deposit at this bank, but they had no envelopes for me. So, I took a page from one of the free newspapers, folded my check into it, scribbled a little deposit message, and dropped it into the box. Two days later, my transaction hadn’t gone through, and I called the bank in a panic. Me: Yes...my check was the one wrapped in newspaper.
Bank person: Oh, OK. We didn’t know what you wanted with that.

All right – I deserve the blame for depositing the check that way. But what else did they think that was?

 

Residences
High-rises

Close as possible to the water, there are these 60-story condos with views of either the lake, the city or the wall of another building. The people who reside in the high-rises near the lake are different from the ones who live in three-story structures only a few blocks in.
Many of the high-risers are quiet, ordinary, wealthy and keep-tothemselves types. Many of the no-risers are fun, offbeat, unwealthy and ready-to-drink-coffee types.

SRO

There’s a Single Resident Occupancy (SRO) apartment building/hotel. Often, these places have a sign out in front: “Transients Welcome.” Older, single people like them. An SRO has...

~ a lot of one room, 12’x12’ efficiency apartments
~ bathrooms down the hall
~ a little kitchenette with a curtain to wall it off
In the old days, there was a Murphy bed retracted to the wall. Friend

Marco has a Murphy bed in his multi-room apartment, but he hasn’t murphed it up in years. ...

The SRO near us looks inviting now – it’s a high quality rehab. But four years ago, it was a real fleabag operation. One night we threw Al out of our house, so he got a room at that hotel.
Al: In the middle of the night this guy banged on my door and was screaming for Ricky. I think Ricky was off writing his doctoral thesis.

Rehabs
There’s an apartment complex that used to be a brewery, and it’s a
landmark. The company did well in the 1950s/60s, because they had the idea
of putting supermarket names on beers and selling them in those stores. If
there was a Glymfz Supermarket, this brewery made Glymfz Beer for them.

There’s a big old manufacturing plant. Some years back, they planned to convert this factory into condos. We went in their sales office and saw that the homes were about 40% sold – shown by the red dots on their wall diagram. This turned out to be a curious mystery, because the development never got going. Then someone wise informed me: They just put up red dots to lure in unsuspecting prospects.

While shopping for a space, I was shown a building euphemistically described as “artists’ lofts.”
Building owner, thinking: This space is so dilapidated – it’s a giant mess. How about this – I’ll divide it up and talk artists into renting there. They’ll take anything.

Some aspects of this place:
1. The rooms were way too big, unless we were parking airplanes.
2. Plywood separated the units.
3. The air whistling through caused microclimates.
4. The ceilings were 16 feet high, so for heat we’d have to walk on stilts.

Development

North Chicago is indeed on the rise. Once in a blue moon, a developer will offer to tear down our house and put up condos. I always say to them, “Not unless you pay us.”

Construction is one the biggest issues in North Chicago. You would’ve liked seeing a developer’s presentation I watched. He was a grandfatherly type – wore a rumpled sport-coat and a warm demeanor. He had rights to 10 acres close by, and he wanted to put up…950 condos. The audience gasped – 950 units on just 10 acres? Luckily, grandpy didn’t succeed.

Chicago has new homes with ambitious designs, but by the time the homeowners pay the architects, they’re down to using cinder blocks everywhere.

Retail
About once a year, I’ll be in a store and some crazy guy will be yelling for no
reason. If a year passes and nobody screams, I’ll start yelling – just to end the
drought.

Chicago is better for the independent retailer, because the town is so overcrowded there are enough people to frequent the smaller stores. For example, on a diagonal city street there will be a 1940s-era neon sign for a shoe store, and gracious: A shoe store is still going strong in there. It’s appealing in a way that nothing new can be.

A huge home repair place operates 24 hours. It’s the highest volume store in their national chain. Friend Lou Morgan – the home remodeler – arrives there at 6:00 am with his crew, and they pick up everything they’ll need for the day.

Enrichment

There’s a place that sells these kitchy little plastic toys – the ones I wanted to own as a child but I didn’t have the money. Now, since these items are priced six times more than their original cost, I still can’t afford them.

There’s a florist who sells roses for $8.99, and around Valentine’s Day, they raise the price to $14.99.

 

There’s a knitting store. You love macraneedlecross, so I’m sure you’d enjoy taking a class here. In junior high, I made a potholder that became a scarf.

 

There’s a “make all your pottery here” place. They have the wheel, clay, paint, ovens, etc. And they clean up the mess.

There are “Happily Celebrating Frivolity” shops. They sell handmade cards, wooden toys, nibbly candies, and little knick-knackies...and they burn aroma candles. One store sells everything of one color – pink. Another store sells things from a particular country. They have their magazines, chocolate bars, clothing accessories and snack crackers.

There’s an antique row. These stores bring a calm to an area, because gangs won’t hang in front of a Depression glassware display. Here are two mildly related notes:

~ Gram was always surprised “that cheap green Depression glass” became a favorite for collectors.
~ I’m taken aback when items from my youth are presented as antiques.

There’s a store that’s so mysterious, I can’t figure out what they sell, and I wonder if they know.

There’s a big athletic club. Outside, they have one of those fake mountain sides climbers go up and down on. In the middle of January, city mountain climbers can pretend they’re on Mount Everest, but nobody is ever out there.

~ An old-time bowling alley that still has a human who sets up the pins.

 

Another sign of the times in our neighborhood: The big computer retail store shut down, and in went a flower-power organic juice bar. True!

Essentials
There’s a service station that displays all the services they don’t provide: No checks
No restrooms
No change given
No large bills

There are three futon stores close to each other, and they fiercely competed. I’d have thought futon store owners would be into peace and love, but not so here – it’s war for them.

There’s a big, old Catholic church. A Pope has been there.

There’s a custom-carved furniture place. The beds look like those in the fairy tales – curvy, ornate and one-of-a-kind. They’re built by Chicago’s elf immigrants.

There’s a car dealership. They park new cars illegally on the street, and they don’t care if the cars get tickets. Reason: These unsold vehicles aren’t yet registered with the state, so the citations are meaningless.

Dozens of stores serve the non-English-speaking-population. Their signs are written in the native language and lettering, and only some of them show the English translation.

Chicago has the world’s largest public library building.

This sign-making store put up a huge sign in their window – they don’t like their long distance provider. The moral is: Never mess with a sign place, because they’ll really get the last word.

Two veterinary clinics specialize in treating cats.

Regarding haircuts, Chicago has a...
~ place that specializes in braiding.
~ barber who only gives military haircuts, and he’s not near a base. ~ lot of unisex hair salons. Chicago has many unisex people.

Video
There’s an independent video store. Once I rented a film from them, took it
home, and discovered it was the wrong movie.
Me, returning it: This is the wrong film. Could I get my money back?
Clerk: It’s a good movie, and you’ve had it more than two hours. You might’ve
watched the whole thing.
Me: Well, I didn’t.
Clerk: It’s a funny movie.

A few years ago, somebody put in a video rental store close to us, and that was cause for celebration. Unfortunately, the owner took all his worst movies from his other store and displayed them at our place. I couldn’t go in there and keep my self-respect. They closed five months later.

There are international video rental stores. They display posters of big global movie stars – none of whom I recognize.

One store has a weird policy: They make renters pay when they return the movie. It’s a total hassle – I can’t just put movies in the drop box. Nobody in the store had a logical reason for this policy.

There are plenty of giant stuffed animals (sometimes gorillas) in front of video stores and car washes.

We get to rent movies from the most famous independent video store in the Midwest – it’s the favorite of film critics. They have a large mail order business. If an Idaho film professor wants to rent an obscure international film he goes through a big procedure, and we just walk down the street. It’s a cinematic perk.

Wrigley Field

When I was a kid, Dad told me about this major league baseball park that was really old – it was right in the middle of a neighborhood. I was shocked, because modern was in. Now, Wrigley is in and I’m out.

Here are some non-baseball reasons Wrigley is great:
~ It was completed in 1914, and it was a huge stadium for its time. ~ Fans can sit close to the field. Those are life-size players out there, not

microcosms. Microcosms do make up the players, however.
~ Age. There are some new old style parks, but this is an old old park. ~ Wrigley sneaks up on you. It’s in the middle of typical city streets and

houses.
~ As everyone knows, there are condos with rooftop seating. Fans watch the
games without paying admission, and they have a fun time unless they fall off. ~ Non-commercialism. They didn’t pull down the ivy on the outfield walls in
order to put up billboards.
~ The retail shops cater to tourists, sports fans and partiers. Someone who’s
all three might spontaneously combust.

Health places
There’s a spa. Before, I didn’t quite understand what happened in spas. But
then a bunch of highly introspective women’s drama shows came on TV, and I
learned.

There’s an unassuming looking doctor’s office. It seems these doctors and dentists can go into a storefront, cover their windows, hardly promote themselves at all, and do well enough to stick around forever.

There’s a chiropractor’s office. They have a night deposit for blood and urine samples, but I haven’t left any.

There’s a new large drugstore. They got permission from the city to use the alley as a second exit. Everyone cooperated, because if the drugstore pulled out, a super-sized 24-hour quick shop would have gone in, and that meant people buying whiskey at 2:00 am.

11.1 Timeline

 

11. November
11.1 Timeline

Jimmy and Ryan helped me rake leaves, and I flipped a coin to see who could leap into the leaf pile first. Ryan won, but then a frustrated Jimmy immediately ran, jumped into the pile and sent leaves everywhere.
Ryan: Ahhh! I was first!
Me: OK, Ryan – Jimmy didn’t start from one end of the yard, so his wasn’t the official first jump. Go ahead.
Jimmy: Ahhh! I want the first jump!

So, there were some problems. However, later I got a photo of them covered with leaves – just their heads were sticking out – so it went fine overall.

 

Today, there was an election. When I don’t know any of the candidates, I always vote for the one with a nickname. He or she would have to be a better person.

This morning at 3:55 am, the doorbell rang furiously, and someone was banging repeatedly on the downstairs door. I thought Karen must have been outside for some reason and got locked out. I scrambled downstairs, and it turned out to be a highly panicked woman.
Woman: My son’s having seizures! I’ve got to get something!
Me: You want me to call 911?
Woman: No! He needs a prescription! My husband, he told me to go and ask people! I need twelve dollars!
Karen, from upstairs: Jack, what is it?
Me: Hang on!

The woman’s story was a fake. Over the years, at least six people have rushed up to me with a hyper-dramatic stories that ended with them needing money. I defend these artists, because at least they’re working to earn a living. Taking the street dramatists one-by-one, there was the...

~ Very poorly dressed man in the park who said his car was stalled on the highway, and he needed money.
~ Nicely dressed lady who said her car was stalled on the highway, and she needed money.
~ Electrician-looking guy who said his truck was stalled on the other street, and he needed money. He even showed me a frayed wire that came from the vehicle.
~ Lady who said her purse was stolen and she couldn’t believe she was out front of the train station asking for money.
~ Man who rang our door, said his car was stalled nearby, and he needed money.
~ Yuppie-looking guy who interrupted his cell phone “conversation” to tell me about the weird predicament he was in.

11.2 Andy at 16 months

11.2 Andy at 16 months
Karen put Andy into his room in order to take his nap, and then Karen left. Poor
Andy kept crying, so I picked him up, sat with him in the family room, gave him his
bottle and watched him start nodding off.
Karen, entering the room: Jack, you should let the baby sleep.

I was standing in the closet and the baby kept wanting to walk in. So, I blocked him.
Me: No, baby, no. You’re not coming in here.

He shut the door and put me in the closet.

 

11.3 Circle update

 

11.3 Circle update

Friend Nikos is coming into town. He’s a computer whiz, so I’ll ask him to check over my machine. Here are samples of what he’ll say:
“What did you do to this thing?”
“I’m amazed it’s still working.”
“Oh, the dust.”
“Get a new one, my friend.”
“A new hard drive would cost $129.98, and you can get a $25 rebate through the 31st of this month, but you need a form. I happen to have one with me.”
“I suggest you finally do what we in the civilized world are doing.”

Years ago, Nikos showed me his online forum for computer experts. He stepped away for a moment and left me in control. Using Nikos’ name, I sent out this question: “What’s a modem?”
Nikos, angry: You have me asking all those computer people a stupid question like that?!

11.4 Sam Brackitt profile

 

Here’s the story of my Brother Sam. Following are some regardings.

Regarding physical profile, Sam is...
~ as old as a person born around 1960.
~ the tallest Brackitt, and single.
~ usually holding a cup of coffee.
~ questionable with facial hair. When I next see him, he might have a goatee. ~ a lifelong St. Louisan.

Regarding personality, Sam is...
~ an unusual intellectual.
~ the most composed of the four brothers.
~ the most individualistic person I know who doesn’t live in Montana. ~ on his own schedule. I don’t know when he’ll be asleep or awake.

Regarding capabilities, Sam is...
~ an expert on what’s funny.
~ a cook. He argues with Mom over how to make gravy. ~ a creative thinker with few recognizable boundaries.

Regarding likes, Sam is...
~ always surrounded by newspapers and magazines.
~ a scandal lover. Give him a sensational news story and he’s fueled for

months.
~ immersed in creative projects. He paints, and writes country music songs. ~ most intrigued when reading celebrity court documents.

Recall
Of everyone I know, Sam comes the closest to having total recall.
Me: What happened to that electronic football game Al had?
Sam: That was a Christmas present in ‘73. Drew chewed up three pieces of it.
The rest went to a garage sale we had with the Como family in June of ‘75, and it
sold for two dollars to a lady in her mid-40s. She wasn’t from the subdivision.

Photography
Sam is a photographer, but he doesn’t take those overly serious/artistic B&W
photos of old women sitting on their porches immersed in shadows and light.
This is better: Sam takes one 35 mm photo of his life once an hour on average.
It’s true! We’ll be sitting in a restaurant, and Sam will quietly snap a picture of
us. We don’t even notice anymore. I haven’t seen Sam’s pictorial history, but
Mom says it’s comprehensive. He has over 11,000 photographs.

Exploration
Sam drives and walks everywhere in the late hours, and he has countless
conversations with night people. He forms a quick bond with security guards, the
homeless, and convenience store clerks. ...

This night owl network tells Sam what’s going on in the area. When an event occurs in St. Louis, I’ll sometimes hear Sam say, “Yeah, I went out there, and I talked with their security guard. He gave me the whole story.”

Timeline
1960s

Sam was brought into the world in a curious fashion. It wasn’t an emergency, but the hospital still drugged Mom to unconsciousness. Mom: I remember waking up and they handed Sam to me. That’s how they did things then.

1965s

 

Sam dropped two eggs on the floor to show me that live chicks were in there.

 

After bath time, Sam was best at combing his hair so it looked like TV star Jack Lord’s flip-up coif.

The drug store sold amazingly cheap grooming lotion, and Sam applied lots of it. Mom was a teacher at Sam’s school.
Mom: I’d be up the hall from Sam’s classroom and I could smell his hair oil.

1970s

Mom made a bundt cake. Sam didn’t like the icing, so he tunneled halfway into the inside part, then carefully reshaped everything to cover up his work.
Mom, yelling an hour later: Who hollowed out my cake?!

Sam’s teacher brought a towel to class, and it had the name of a hotel chain on it. She said it was a gift.

We loved the most senior members of the family, and they took a particular liking to Sam. One reason: Sam listened to all their stories of the olden days. Thank goodness, someone with a superior memory heard their accounts, because now Sam passes them on.

Sam and I were riding our bikes to the store, and I fell and hit my chin badly. Sam looked back, saw my plight, and took me to a house that was close by. Nobody answered. Sam then took me to another house and a man appeared. The man put cotton on my chin, and Sam called home. Dad took me to the emergency room, and I got 13 stitches. Sam had Doug ride my bike home for me.

At age 11, Sam bought Cornish game hens from the store and roasted them.

Unique skill: Sam can put out his index finger like he’s pointing, and he can bend the first joint (the one with the fingernail on it) – without moving anything else.

Sam was a champion little league baseball player. He won a lot of trophies and, like many similar child athletes, can still recite all of his stats. ...

Dad would watch Sam play – in his own way. Dad never sat with other parents or got into the rah-rah. He’d stand by his car, bend a little stick, and stay for a few innings. You’d have to know Dad, but he showed a lot of love for Sam by doing this.

We went to a low-rent Lincoln museum near St. Louis, and they had a series of roped-off rooms showing Abe’s life at various stages. Sam snuck into one of the displays and crouched down. These pre-teen kids came in, stood behind the ropes and viewed the display, and Sam jumped out. Sam: Rahhh!
Kids: Ahhh!

The kids ran for their parents, and Sam fled.

 

The construction site

Near us, they were putting up a giant apartment complex, and that kept us kids busy for years. Sam and I pulled materials out of the construction dump and built a clubhouse. It had a fireplace with asbestos tile, a secret entrance, and fiberglass insulation.

When the apartments were built, Sam and I rooted through their garbage dumpsters and found lots of junk. Mom hated everything we brought home...until we showed her this brass lamp, and it went into the master bedroom.
Mom, recently: That’s still a nice lamp. I use it.

This bitter man started a pinball arcade near us. The owner didn’t like Sam, and they gave each other a lot of grief. One morning, Sam found a deer head in a dumpster, and he put it in front of the owner’s front door.

Vacations
Sam had a mild sleepwalking problem, and this was particularly
troublesome when we stayed in motels on vacations. Once, he woke up
outside our second floor room – out on the long outside walkway. He didn’t know which room was ours, so he banged on all the doors until it got resolved.
Sam, recently: Everyone opened their doors for me. That was definitely a different time.

We stayed at a high-rise hotel in the Loop, and Sam threw cups of urine out the window.

That hotel had an early version of pay TV, and Sam hot-wired the set so we kids could get all the movies without the parents knowing. One film had the father from a popular family TV show, and he was playing a foulmouthed cop. It was an awakening for us.

On one vacation, Sam went sock-less for a week. He was sitting in the backseat and took off a shoe.
Dad: What stinks!?!
Sam quietly put the shoe back on, and things returned to normal.

Since he was 10, Sam has read newspapers cover to cover. On vacations, he’d pick up the local paper and peruse it in the car. Sam: This town’s got some real problems.

We were staying in a cabin at Reelfoot Lake. Sam set off a fire extinguisher in a bedroom, and it shot this powder everywhere – all over the walls, bed, etc. What to do? We kids shut the door and never used the room.

1975s

Our neighborhood had a target shoot that awarded the winner a frozen turkey. All these hunter-looking hunters came out and took their best shots. Then, in stepped a 15-year-old with shoulder-length feathered back hair, bellbottoms, and a black concert shirt. He out-shot them all and won the turkey.

In the 1976 presidential election, Sam had a particular interest in the medical conditions of the candidates.
Sam, reading: He had a testicle removed – ouch.

Sam went a long time without a car, so he became adept at using our St. Louis bus system. This was notable, because nobody else rode those buses.

 

Sam only owned two albums, and he never listened to them.

Nancy Kelp, formerly on the hillbillies TV show, was performing at a dinner theater up the road from us. Sam happened to see her at the supermarket, and he watched her cash a personal check.

Sam, later: It went off without a hitch.

 

I used to stutter a lot, and Sam was the only one who never made fun of me.

Sam was always glad to join me on odd journeys. For example, St. Louis has a big local telethon every year – it includes a lot of celebrities. For three straight years, Sam and I went there and snuck into all the backstage/VIP areas. Sam had pleasant discussions with Sammy Davis Jr. and other stars.

1980s

We went to the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, TN, and they had this three-foot tall, rolling, talking ketchup bottle. It interacted with people, because a fellow was sitting somewhere with a remote control and a microphone. Sam had long conversations with this ketchup bottle.

Sam and Doug went to one concert. They were near the concession stand, and this large guy was harassing Doug.
Doug: Hey Sam!

Sam looked over and instantly hurled his 20-ounce cup of beer at the guy. It was very peculiar: Because Sam played baseball, he knew how to side-arm the beer in such a way that it stayed in the cup...until it hit that guy on the chest. Then the beer splurtched up into the guy’s face and doused him. This gave Doug and Sam enough time to leave the scene.

Sam bought a hatchback and, this being our neighborhood, someone threw a brick into his back window. This had an advantage during the winter, because pounds of snow fell into Sam’s car and put much-needed weight over the back tires. Sure the car was cold, but it got around.

In college, Sam and I took an English class together, and we got almost nothing out of it. I take that back: Sam still does a good impersonation of the teacher.

1985s

I went to the basement, and on the ping-pong table there were these cardboard pyramids, and underneath them were lottery tickets – a Brother Sam project. And wouldn’t you know but...he still didn’t win.

Sam had a complex audio/video system going. All the equipment was old, and he had three of everything: tape decks, main consoles, equalizers, TVs and VCRs. They were all connected by a snarl of wires.

My tape deck broke, and in a brotherly way, I stole one of Sam’s. Unfortunately, I didn’t take it all the way to my car – I put it on the kitchen table.
Sam: What’s my tape deck doing here?
Me, acting nonchalant: Hm.
Sam: I’d better put this back.

I learned my lesson, and six months later, I successfully re-stole the deck by taking it all the way to my car. He still doesn’t know I have it.

1990s
Sam owns property in Wisconsin and New York. Specifically, he keeps a
PO box in Milwaukee and a safety deposit box in M