footprints on the Polish Highway

Reading for November 8, 2009

It was, then, in the fall of 2008, that my brother Thad and I walked past the “portal postal” to find lunch on the “Polish Highway” as we shared memories of childhood. Our parents, we mused, were drawn by the strong socio-cultural pull of migration in the 1930's and 40's. With this force growing stronger and stronger, the influence of the Polish Highway, surely as anything, drew our parents, Edmund and Helen to the Avondale neighborhood and the parish of St Hyacinth. I border on inordinate pride with the sentiment of having created the term “Polish Highway” for Milwaukee Avenue.

I believe it sociologically sound.

Milwaukee Avenue runs diagonally on Chicago’s northwest side. One can see the Polish migration running along Milwaukee Avenue followed closely by the Hispanic populace, and that, later, by the Black and Korean Communities. Two Polish dynasties jump easily to mind as examples. With long standing family businesses that have moved up along the Polish highway from Bucktown, and operate today at the time of this writing, are the “Wojciechowski’s Colonial Funeral Home” and the “Przybylo's White Eagle Banquets and Restaurant Halls” {notably both on the “Milwaukee Avenue”}

At a church on the city's near south side with close proximity to the genesis of this cultural trail, in 1995, I had an unusually clear view of the Polish Hispanic movement on Chicago's northwest side. In addition to the opportunity to see evidence of this cultural phenomenon, the intriguing circumstances provided a lesson in humility.

It was on a hot and humid day; one that Chicago can produce, even in Spring, with its asphalted zigguart zones radiating enough heat to compromise the laws of physics, that I accompanied my dear mother to St Pius Church. Our quest ~|~ my brother Bob's Baptismal certificate, the one that had to have the Church's validating embossed canonical mark. St Pius Church, located at 19th and south Ashland Avenue, was the first of the two wellspring parishes for my parents. Well when my mother and I entered the church record room, I inwardly groaned with the expectation of a long frustrating wait in this, the lair of the Luddite.

Not a single computer in sight.

The room was pleasant enough with the glow from weathered but gorgeous aged oak counters and a picturesque set of beautiful oak cabinets. The cabinets held thin, yet wide and deep drawers set with polished brass handles, which dutifully held the books wherein handwritten notations bespoke the intimacies of family passages. So my mother pulls out this piece of scrap paper with her perfectly straight practiced notations as to my Brother Bob’s exact name with the date, month and year of his baptism. The clerk, glancing at the paper as she headed to the drawers behind her, located with ease the decade required as indicated on the large worn but graceful drawer faces. She effortlessly opened the drawer marked 1930 to 1940 and brought out a long book from its conforming container. She then, swung easily, much like a professional dancer, to the counter where in rapid succession the book was opened to the year, month and date. Finally, with precision in her pleasingly clean fingers, locates my brother’s name and the information my mother requested. All this happened, I came to realize, in less time than it takes for my computer to even boot up; and even when my computer is running, the time I would need to find and open a program then activate a specific function (such as locating information on a date and year of a person's event) would take much more time then what I had just witnessed. I decided to be thankful for the quality lesson in humility and the fine example of the "Galileo - Minsky Paradox".

The ethno-cultural insight was spectacular.

In the book, I had felt compelled to peruse, the pages spoke loudly and clearly with the cadence of the multi-syllabic Polish names they bore. One after another was written, all with the running of consonants, not unlike my cousin’s marriage name: Przybylo. It was also as familiar as my grammar school role call: Karwowski, Kwasnieski, Gorski, Grabski, and Raczybowzinski. Then, after a few years, the list started developing a new "music" with an occasional Hispanic name; a Santiago, or Domingo here and there. Over the years, the register transformed into more and more Hispanic names until by the current year, all the names were Hispanic.

Sure, some of the same deep rolling "R" sounds which peppered both the Polish and Spanish languages were still present; but there it was: eloquent in its simplicity, profound in its plainness: cultural footprints.

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Happy daze,

The Captain