Summer 2024: Day 25

I'm starting the recap of this day with details from decades before.

My father's group of childhood friends in Chicago have remained friends since the 1960s (maybe earlier with some of them). Other friends joined the group, too, and were the core of Dad's softball teams in the '70s and '80s. Dad was mostly the oldest one in the group, and I've always gotten a sense my friends kind of looked up to him. Back in the early and mid '70s, he was already married to a pretty wife, had kids, was a police officer -- he mostly had it together before most of them did. 

I loved going to my dad's softball games, and though he played with other teams (either the police league or with other officers), the ones with his friends created the most memories. The smell of dusty evenings, Clincher 16-inch softballs and Old Style feel like summer as much as my other summer nostalgia hoards. Dad's teams -- he was the pitcher and was tough to hit -- always were really good; they seemingly would come away each summer with at least one championship and the resulting windbreakers that were given to the league-winning teams. I volunteered myself as batboy for a couple years when I was perhaps 7 or 8, and there exists a picture of one title-winning team with me sitting in the front.

The unique thing about this group of friends was they had their own, for lack of a better term, private bar. Referred to just as "the club," it was I think a former business of some sort they rented out, installed a bar, created a lounge area with couches and chairs the guys could watch a game or play cards at, and added a foosball table and pool table. The windows had kind of a blue film so as to let light in but not anyone see in. It was part of a larger row of commercial property and just blended in.

Inevitably, because I went to many of dad's softball games, he would take me to the club afterward. It wasn't a big deal, as he'd taken me into bars with him, too, but an education nonetheless. I probably learned many inventive ways to apply the F word to every part of speech. Dad would get me a soda and a bag Yo-Ho potato chips, and I either watched the game or played foosball on my own. I'm fairly certain I learned how to play pool at the club. 

Fast forward 40-50 years ... and the club still exists. Not as many members as there once were, and it moved out of it's original location to further down Elston Avenue. My dad and his friends generally still meet on Monday nights, watch sports, and play cards. 

Tonight, he brought me back to visit the club again for the first time in a, geez, almost four decades? It's now just an apartment over another commercial block, no bar, but multiple large TV screens and a kitchen, Not as impressively looming as it once was, but fitting their needs as the group got smaller and the remaining members got older.

Seeing the remaining friends who were there tonight was nice. I sense I'm still little Joey to some of them even though I'm 53. I got pulled into playing cards and surprisingly did well -- I half-joked I should be in their fantasy football league. And the original foosball table was in a side room -- that made my jaw drop, the realization I stood next to that same table all those years ago. As we drove home, I shared some memories from softball and the club from decades ago. 

Now for the rest of the day: June in Chicago shouldn't be this hot. July and August, yes, but not mid-June. I woke up late and lounged for a while, then walked up to Barnes and Noble and a coffee shop in Village Crossing on Touhy and Central. (Fun fact about Village Crossing: It's on the grounds of the former Teletype company building my grandmother worked at.) I bought two magazines and reviewed the novel in progress for an hour or so. The coffee shop wasn't terribly air-conditioned, so I went to Noodles for lunch, then to Half-Price Books, then back to my dad's house through the heat.