483 Fitch Road

After a morning of cruising through Wisconsin (gazing in awe at the breathtaking scenery--more of the color green than exists in all the state of Montana) and then a couple of (much) less enjoyable hours maneuvering along the Illinois Tollway (a less than memorable experience), I took a slight detour.

Getting off Interstate 80 east, the old Dixie Highway winds through the Village of Homewood, Illinois. An old Catholic church with its Parrish school and a row of old-fashioned shops are a reminder that this was once a small town quite separate from the Chicago metropolitan area which now endlessly wraps around the southern end of Lake Michigan, from the Wisconsin border to Indiana, sending its fingers of urban sprawl west and southward. This little oasis of the past is surrounded on three sides by country clubs and new housing developments. The adjacent Village of Flossmoor also has an old town center, but with a much newer, and quite large, fire station (or "fire temple" as RWO would call it). And then there are the Flossmoor homes, which equal in size the old gold rush mansions of Helena but far exceed them in ostentation and modern conveniences.

I'm describing all of this because it's what you have to drive through to get to a small post-WWII housing development off of Joe Orr Road in Chicago Heights that was the teenage home of none other than our own Randl Ockey. Now, some who are reading this (and their children) have been regaled over the years with Randl's tales of "growing up in the ghetto." However, I promise you, he won't be telling those tales anymore, because he's been found out. On a beautiful little tree-lined street in a neighborhood of moderate brick and frame homes with well-kept lawns and flowering hedges sits 483 Fitch Road. The small upper dormer window looks in on the bedroom Randl shared with his brother Gary and down around the corner, just a block away, is the red brick edifice where they walked to LDS Church meetings on Sunday mornings.

Just a couple of miles away from Fitch Road sits the venerable Homewood Flossmoor High School (the home of the Vikings), with its large auditorium where melodious strains sprung forth from the HF High orchestra (known for its cello section, of course) and sprawling green playing fields where it is easy to envision young women and men (one with wavy strawberry blond hair) in t-shirts and PE shorts playing soccer or running relays.

I know Randl would have enjoyed this stroll down memory lain even more than I did, but it was a very nice interlude in a very long day and I'm happy to now have a (true) mental picture of the place I've heard so much about in the past 37+ years.