Mike Royko!!!

People send me emails:

Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 19:27:12 -0700
From: Bob Jones 
Organization: Milton-Freewater Public Library
Benjamin:

	I found your home page while searching for stuff on Mike Royko. 
 I remember when his column started in the Daily News--way back when I 
was in high school (Oak Park-River Forest).  At first it was published 
only 3 times a week, but it was so good people wanted to read it every 
day.  They eventually made it a Monday-through-Friday feature.

	I was very sad to hear about his death.  He was probably the 
best columnist of the last 50 years.  I am currently re-reading all of 
his books--at least I think it's all of them: 6 collections of his 
columns plus his bio. of Mayor Daley.

-Bob
    





Here's a story
``Dear God: Why?''

Chicago Sun-Times, May 5, 1981

To: God

Address: Somewhere in the Universe

Dear God:

I know how busy you must be with a whole universe to worry about. That's why
it occurred to me that you don't have time to read our papers and your TV
reception might not be good. So I thought I'd drop you a note about how
things are going here.

Well, things couldn't be going any better, at least as far as your
imagination is concerned. You wouldn't believe how well loved you are on this
planet today, and how much is being done in your name.

I hardly know where to start, there's so much going on. So I might as well
start in Northern Ireland where you've always been very big. Ah, what
religious fervor can be found there.

The Irish Protestants are so devoted to you that they do everything possible
to make life miserable for the Irish Catholics, because they don't think the
Irish Catholics have the right approach toward worshipping you.

And the Irish Catholics do what they can to make life miserable for the Irish
Protestants for essentially the same reasons.

In their great love for you, they shoot at one another, bomb one another, set
one another afire, kill little children, bystanders, cops, soldiers, old
ladies, and some are now committing suicide by starvation.

Then each side buries its dead, goes to church, and gives fervent thanks to
you for being on its side. It is very touching.

And one thing about these people: Their devotion to you is unshakable.
They've been doing this for about 400 years. So it's a good thing that you
have an entire universe at your disposal, because I don't know where else you
could find room to accommodate the souls of all the people who have died
there in your name.

You're also highly regarded in a country called Lebanon, where just about
everyone believes in you, although they don't agree on what you should be
called.

In that country, there are Moslems and Christians, and they've created
different sets of rules for worshipping you. Naturally, they say you have
sent the rules down to them. I don't know if that's true or not, but if I may
make a suggestion: if it's true that you gave them the word, it would really
simplify things if there were only one set of rules. It would cause less hard
feelings.

But such details aside, they are expressing their devotion to you by killing
each other by the hundreds. I guess they figure that if one side can wipe the
other side out, it will prove that their way of worshipping you is correct,
and you'll be pleased with them.

So every day, they lob shells at one another and blow up the usual men,
women, children, bystanders, old ladies, and stray dogs. And every day, they
take a few moments out to thank you for your support and to promise that
they'll continue their efforts in your behalf.

Now, not far from there are countries called Iraq and Iran. The Moslems in
those countries basically agree on what to call you, but they disagree on
some details concerning how best to worship you. So they're killing one
another, too.

It's more than a little confusing, though, because in Iran there are people
who call themselves Baha'i, and they, too, have their own way of showing
their respect for you. Unfortunately for the Baha'i, their way doesn't
include killing others who don't share their point of view. So that makes
them patsies, and the Moslems in Iran, in their love for you, have been
kicking the Baha'i around pretty good.

Just a short missile ride away, there's a lot of religious action going on
between a country called Israel and just about everyone else in that
neighborhood.

The people in Israel also have their own set of rules for worshipping you,
which they say you passed on to them. And they claim that you look more
favorably upon them than anyone else. This has always caused a lot of hard
feelings because a lot of other groups figure that they're your favorites.
(It must be hard being a father figure.) Israel's claim that they're Number
One has also made some people wonder this: If the Jews, after all they've
been through over the centuries, are really your chosen people, what do you
do to somebody you don't like?

Anyway the Jews and their Moslem neighbors--both of whom claim your complete
support--have been going at it for about 30 years. But I don't think they'll
ever equal Ireland's record because they'll all eventually have nuclear
bombs. Boy, when they start throwing those around, will you have a crowd
showing up.

Oh, and I can't forget to mention this final item. Somebody just shot the
pope. As you know, he's the leader of one of your largest group of followers
here. A very peaceful, non-violent man, by the way, although his followers
have been known to shed a few million gallons of blood when their tempers are
up.

Anyway, the man who shot him apparently did it because of his devotion to
you. It's not completely clear, but this fellow seems to think the pope was
in some way responsible for somebody invading the sacred holy mosque of his
religion in a place called Mecca. That, of course, was an insult to you, so
he got even in your behalf by shooting the pope.

Well, I know you're busy, so that's all for now.

P.S. I never believed any of those stories going around a few years ago that
``God is dead.'' How could you be? We don't have one weapon that can shoot
that far.

Copyright Chicago Tribune (c) 1997
 and another
Mary and Joe, Chicago style

Chicago Daily News, Dec. 19, 1967

Royko on this column: I remember one column I started in 1963 and didn't
finish for about four years. It was going to be a Christmas column. Each
year, I'd take it out, look at it and throw it back in the drawer. In 1966, I
finally decided to use it. I'd rewritten it about 10 times. Still didn't like
it.

That column wound up being used in school plays, church plays, sermons. It
was known as my Mary and Joe column. It became so popular that I think I
reran it every Christmas Eve for 25 years. I still don't like the column.

Mary and Joe were flat broke when they got off the bus in Chicago. They
didn't know anybody and she was expecting a baby.

They went to a cheap hotel. But the clerk jerked his thumb at the door when
they couldn't show a day's rent in advance.

They walked the streets until they saw a police station. The desk sergeant
said they couldn't sleep in a cell, but he told them how to get to a welfare
office.

A man there said they couldn't get regular assistance because they hadn't
 been Illinois residents long enough. But he gave them the address of the
 emergency welfare office on the West Side.

It was a two-mile walk up Madison Street. Someone gave them a card with a
 number on it and they sat down on a bench, stared at the peeling green paint
 and waited for their number to be called.

Two hours later, a caseworker motioned them forward, took out blank forms
 and asked questions: Any relatives? Any means of getting money? Any assets?
 

Joe said he owned a donkey. The caseworker told him not to get smart or he'd
be thrown out. Joe said he was sorry.

The caseworker finished the forms and said they were entitled to emergency
CTA fare to County Hospital because of Mary's condition. And he told Joe to
go to an Urban Progress Center for occupational guidance.

Joe thanked him and they took a bus to the hospital. A guard told them to
 wait on a bench. They waited two hours, and then Mary got pains and they
took her away. Someone told Joe to come back tomorrow.

He went outside and asked a stranger on the street for directions to an
 Urban Progress Center. The stranger hit Joe on the head and took his
overcoat. Joe was still lying there when a paddy wagon came along so they
pinched him for being drunk on the street.

Mary had a baby boy during the night. She didn't know it, but three
 foreign-looking men in strange, colorful robes came to the hospital asking
 about her and the baby. A guard took them for hippies and called the police.
 They found odd spices on the men so the narcotics detail took them downtown
 for further questioning.

The next day Mary awoke in a crowded ward. She asked for Joe. Instead, a
 representative of the Planned Parenthood Committee came by to give her a
lecture on birth control.

Next, a social worker came for her case history. She asked Mary who the
 father was. Mary answered and the social worker ran for the nurse. The nurse
 questioned her and Mary answered. The nurse stared at her and ran for the
 doctor. The doctor wrote ``Postpartum delusion'' on her chart.

An ambulance took Mary to the Cook County Mental Health Clinic the next
 morning. A psychiatrist asked her questions and pursed his lips at the
answers.

A hearing was held and a magistrate committed her to the Chicago State
Hospital.

Joe got out of the House of Corrections a couple of days later and went to
the County Hospital for Mary. They told him she was at Chicago State and the
baby had been placed in a foster home by the state Department of Children and
Family Services.

When Joe got to Chicago State, a doctor told him what Mary had said about the
baby's birth. Joe said Mary was telling the truth. They put Joe in a ward at
the other end of the hospital.

Meanwhile, the three strangely dressed foreign-looking men were released
 after the narcotics detail could find no laws prohibiting the possession of
myrrh and frankincense. They returned to the hospital and were taken for
civil rights demonstrators. They were held in the County Jail on $100,000
bond.

By luck, Joe and Mary met on the hospital grounds. They decided to tell the
doctors what they wanted to hear. The next day they were declared sane and
were released.  

When they applied for custody of Mary's baby, however, they were told it  was
necessary for them to first establish a proper residence, earn a proper
 income and create a suitable environment.

They applied at the Urban Progress Center for training under the Manpower
Development Program. Joe said he was good at working with wood. He was
 assigned to a computer data-processing class. Mary said she'd gladly do
domestic work. She was assigned to a course in key-punch operating. Both got
 $20-a-week stipends.

Several months later they finished the training. Joe got a job in a gas
 station and Mary went to work as a waitress.  

They saved their money and hired a lawyer. Another custody hearing was held
and several days later the baby was ordered returned to them.  

Reunited finally, they got back to their two-room flat and met the landlord
on the steps. He told them Urban Renewal had ordered the building torn down.
The City Relocation Bureau would get them another place.

They packed, dressed the baby and hurried to the Greyhound bus station.

Joe asked the ticket man when the next bus was leaving.

``Where to?'' the ticket man asked.

``Anywhere,'' Joe said, ``as long as it is right now.''

He gave Joe three tickets and in five minutes they were on a bus heading  for
southern Illinois--the area known as ``Little Egypt.''

Just as the bus pulled out, the three strangely dressed men ran into the
 station. But they were too late. The bus was gone.

So they started hiking down U.S. 66. But at last report they were pinched  on
suspicion of being foreigners in illegal possession of gold.

Copyright Chicago Tribune (c) 1997 

and another

Give Washington a break

Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 24,1983

So I told Uncle Chester: Don't worry, Harold Washington doesn't want to marry
your sister.

That might seem like a strange thing to have to tell somebody about the man
who will be the next mayor of Chicago. I never had to tell Uncle Chester that
Mayor Daley or Mayor Bilandic wouldn't marry his sister.

On the other hand, no other mayor, in the long and wild-eyed history of
Chicago, has had one attribute of Washington.

He's black. It appears to be a waste of space to bother pointing that out,
since every Chicagoan knows it.

But you can't write about Harold Washington's victory without taking note of
his skin color.

Yes, he is black. And that fact is going to create a deep psychological
depression in many of the white, ethnic, neighborhood people who read this
paper in the morning.

Eeek! The next mayor of Chicago is going to be a black man!

Let's all quiver and quake.

Oh, come on. Let's all act like sensible, adult human beings.

Let us take note of a few facts about Harold Washington.

First, Washington was born in an era when they still lynched people in some
parts of the United States. By ``lynched,'' I mean they took a black man out
of his home, put a rope around his neck and murdered him by hanging. Then
they went home to bed knowing they were untouchable because the sheriff
helped pull the rope.

Washington suffered through it. God knows how he did that. I think that most
of us--white, privileged, the success road wide open to us--might have turned
into haters.

Washington didn't turn into a hater. Instead, he developed a capacity for
living with his tormenters and understanding that in the flow of history
there are deep valleys and heady peaks.

He fought in World War II. Yes, blacks did that, although you don't see them
in many John Wayne movies. He went to college and got a degree. Then he went
to Northwestern University's law school, at a time when blacks were as common
as alligators there.

Had Washington been white, he would have tied in with a good law firm, sat
behind his desk, made a good buck and today would be playing golf at a
private country club.

But for a black man, even one as bright as Washington, an NU law degree meant
that he was just about smart enough to handle divorce cases for impoverished
blacks.

Being no dummy, he gravitated toward politics. And the Democratic Party. It
may have been pseudo-liberal, but the Democratic Party did offer a black
lawyer a chance, meager and piddling as it might be.

And he went somewhere. Come on, admit that, at least, even while you brood
about a black man becoming your next mayor.

He became a state legislator. Then a United States congressman.

I'm still enough of an idealist to think that most people who become members
of Congress are at least a cut or two above the rest of us.

And even his critics say that as a state legislator and as a U.S.
congressman, he was pretty good.

So I ask you: If Jane Byrne is qualified to be mayor of Chicago after holding
no higher office than city consumer affairs commissioner, what is the rap on
Harold Washington?

And I also ask you: If Richard M. Daley is qualified to be mayor after being
a state legislator and state's attorney of Cook County, what is so
unthinkable about a man holding the mayor's office after being a state
legislator and a U.S. congressman?

The fact is, Washington's credentials for this office exceed those of Byrne,
Bilandic, Richard J. Daley, Martin Kennelly, Ed Kelly, Anton Cermak and most
of those who have held the office of mayor of Chicago.

Byrne was a minor bureaucrat. Bilandic's highest office was alderman. Richard
J. Daley was the county clerk. Kennelly was a moving company executive. Kelly
was a Sanitary District payroller. Cermak was a barely literate but
street-smart, hustler.

All became mayor. And nobody was horrified.

But this morning, the majority of Chicagoans--since this city's majority is
white--are gape-jawed at the prospect of Representative Washington becoming
mayor.

Relax, please. At least for the moment. There is time to become tense and
angry when he fouls up as mayor--as anybody in that miserable job inevitably
will do.

Until he fouls up, though, give him a chance. The man is a United States
citizen, with roots deeper than most of us have in this country. He is a
60-year-old Chicagoan who has been in politics and government most of his
life.

He is a smart, witty, politically savvy old pro. He is far more understanding
of the fears and fantasies of Chicago whites than we are of the frustrations
of Chicago blacks.

The city isn't going to slide into the river. The sun will come up today and
tomorrow, and your real estate values won't collapse. History shows that real
estate values in a town like Chicago go up and up, over the long haul, no
matter who is mayor.

He'll fire a police superintendent, hire a new one, and the earth won't shake
under us.

He might hire some jerks. I haven't seen a mayor who hasn't. They don't
learn. Two days before Lady Jane was first elected, I wrote: ``How she does
will depend on the kind of people she surrounds herself with.''

She surrounded herself with Charlie Swibel and other bums and got what she
deserved.

If Washington is smart, which I think he is, he'll surround himself with the
very best talents and minds available. And they're available. If not, we'll
survive and we'll throw him out.

Meanwhile, don't get hysterical. As I wrote four years ago, if we survived
Bilandic, we can survive Jane Byrne.

And if we survived Jane, we easily can survive Harold Washington.

Who knows, we might even wind up liking him.

Copyright Chicago Tribune (c) 1997