Chicago fortunate when it comes to coping with wrath of God-type acts

Those of us paying attention to weather reports in recent weeks have noticed the hurricanes that wrecked their wrath on Texas and now are taking aim on much of Florida. Those with a broader vision will see that those hurricanes also hit Cuba and Puerto Rico, along with the earthquake that has killed dozens in Mexico.

Many a Chicago schoolchild has seen this diorama depiction at the Chicago History Museum of the greatest disaster to impact our city -- the Great Fire of 1871. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

All of which makes me feel fortunate these days to be in Chicago.

A LAND WHERE we don’t get hurricanes and the possibility of being impacted by an earthquake would be a geological anomaly of historic proportions.

We in the Midwest, of course, always face the possibility of tornadoes causing death and destruction. Yet we in Chicago have only 13 tornadoes known to touchdown within the city limits during its not-quite-two-century history.

And only one of those, back on May 6, 1876, hit the area now considered our city’s downtown. Two died and 35 were injured in that incident that damaged the then-Cook County Hospital, along with the Palmer House Hotel.

Coming just five years after the incident that, to this date, is the most significant disaster to impact Chicago – the Great Fire of 1871 – maybe it seemed at that point in time that Chicago was a doomed site.

ONE COULD ARGUE, of course, that the Fire shouldn’t be counted. Is it really a disaster the equivalent of Mother Nature having a hissy fit to have much of the city destroyed by a fire caused by (depending on which account you want to believe) that damned cow kicking over a lamp or some guy named “Peg Leg.”

Besides, we’ve managed to go another 140 years without significant devastation to our city.

We haven’t had a significant tornado touchdown in Chicago since 1967, and that one did most of its damage (33 dead, more than 500 injured) in suburban Oak Lawn – with some damage managing to cross over into the Southwest Side near Midway Airport.

Maybe it's a sign of how fortunate Chicago has been to be spared natural disasters that we can name a shopping center for one of the few structures NOT damaged in the Great Fire

And no, I’m not trying to downplay the tornado that whacked suburban Plainfield back in 1990. That is one of the few disaster-type incidents that I had a hand in covering as a reporter-type person.

BUT THAT ONE lies on the fringe of what could be called the Chicago-area. My point being that we in the city truly have been fortunate. One of the screwiest-type “flood” incidents we had was in 1992 when the Chicago River sprung a leak into the sub-basements that exist beneath downtown buildings.

That one can’t be blamed on nature – that one was pure man-made technical error. Or carelessness, if you prefer to think of it that way.

My point is that in watching these news reports of recent days, I can’t help but feel fortunate about where I live. It’s almost as though I was fortunate enough to be born and raised in one of the safest places in existence – something to keep in mind the next time some political crackpot wants to go off on a rage about the homicide rate of Chicago and exaggerate it into us being the deadliest place on the planet.

It makes me wonder about actress Jennifer Lawrence, who recently made comments about “Mother Nature’s Rage and Wrath” against the people who backed Donald J. Trump for president and who question the legitimacy of “global warming.”

WHICH IS A blatantly absurd thought to have. Although my understanding of the context was that she was trying to mock the individuals who go around thinking of natural disasters as “God’s punishment” against society for tolerating homosexuality.

That is a blatantly ignorant thing to say or think, and is a thought worthy of being mocked.

So what does it say that Mother Nature doesn’t seem to get all that upset about Chicago? Does she love that we don’t try to fool her that often?

Because we all (or at least those of us old enough to remember) know that it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature – even if it’s by passing off Chiffon margarine as real butter!

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Conservatives still haven’t got over Ayers

Either the Illinois Senate has a member who does not understand the concept of innocent until proven guilty, or else he’s devoting his life to undermining the academic concept of tenure for long-time professors.

The only other possible explanation for the bill being introduced in the Illinois Senate is that there are still some Republicans who haven’t got over the fact that they were unable to make much of a campaign issue last year out of Bill Ayers, the one-time anti-war activist during the Vietnam era who has since become a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

THAT SEEMS TO be the case with Larry Bomke. He’s the state senator from Springfield proper (nobody would pay much attention to him if he came from anywhere else). And he has come up with a bill to be considered this spring that would prevent anyone who ever attacked a government in this country from being on a public university payroll.

Now I understand that among the ranks of people who back in the 1960s opposed U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, Ayers ranks as a tad extreme. His involvement with the Weathermen went so far as to mess with explosives and other acts that created vandalism as a symbolic way of attacking the establishment of this country as it existed some four decades ago.

If that sounds a bit hokey, that is because it is. Even most of the liberal activists of the era thought the “Weathermen” were a little nuts.

But the fact is that Ayers managed to come out of that era without any felony convictions on his record (largely because the FBI of that era – the tail-end of the J.Edgar Hoover years – was so overzealous that all their evidence against Ayers was illegally obtained).

SO BY THE letter of the law (which is what the conservatives usually try to argue is all important), Ayers is not guilty of anything. Do we really want a situation where illegally-obtained evidence is what is used to try to fire someone from his job?

For the fact is that in the past couple of decades, Ayers has become a respected educator who has tried coming up with methods to better teach troubled youth to read and write. One poll taken last year showed that commentator Rush Limbaugh had a lower approval rating among the U.S. electorate than Ayers.

This bill is pure bull. It reeks of partisanship from people who just can’t accept the fact that a majority of the country didn’t care last year about the fact that Ayers and President Barack Obama know each other. It makes me wonder if Obama left Springfield (the two served together for Obama’s nearly eight years in the Legislature) owing Bomke some money, and this bill is some sort of payback.

What else was notable about the news of the world, as perceived from the shores of Lake Michigan?

WHO WILL BE LEFT TO TURN THE LIGHTS OUT?: There’s a job opening in Chicago – one that includes a CEO title and the appearance of influence and prestige. But I’m curious to learn if anyone is going to be enthused about taking the job.

It involves being president and Chief Executive Officer of the parent company that operates the Chicago Sun-Times and various daily and weekly newspapers throughout the suburbs.

Cyrus Friedheim and his allies on the board were removed following a power dispute; a New York hedge fund was displeased with the company’s finances these days and pushed for a change.

But with the public perception that it is just a matter of time before newspapers start dying off altogether (without any appreciation for the significance of the product they produce on a daily basis), I can’t think of many people who would want the job. Friedheim will likely be remembered as a guy who gave it a shot during his just over two years, but was overcome by outside economic circumstances. The next CEO could literally be the one who presides over the death of the Sun-Times, if not the company as a whole.

HOLY NAME SUFFERS ITS SECOND FIRE: Holy Name Cathedral on the Near North Side always gets more than its share of attention because the church provides the home base, so to speak, for Cardinal Francis George – and all his predecessors who have led the Catholic Archdiocese for Chicago.

Yet the fire earlier this week that managed to destroy a significant chunk of the renovations that had been done to the building in the past year is not the first.

Holy Name Parish dates back to Chicago’s earliest years, and the original church located about one block from the current site was among the structures that perished in the Chicago Fire of 1871 (the Water Tower that miraculously survived the fire is located about three blocks to the east).

I have no doubt that the church will again be repaired, and the parish in one of Chicago’s wealthiest neighborhoods will resume its life as the church where the Cardinal performs mass – while also being the site where mobster Dion O’Bannion got shot to death near the cathedral steps.

CHICAGO PELOTEROS NOT INCLUDED DOWN MEXICO WAY: Just across the border from the town of Calimex, Calif. (pop. 13,757), some of the best baseball to be played this year is taking place.

So naturally, there aren’t any major leaguers with Chicago ties among the ranks. The closest we get is former White Sox outfielder Timo Perez, who played this winter for the Dominican champion Licey Tigers before moving on to play for the Detroit version of the Tigers this summer.

What’s at stake is the Caribbean Series, the annual week long tournament between the champions of the professional baseball leagues in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela – being held this year in Mexicali, Mexico. The winner gets bragging rights as champions of Latin American baseball.

What makes it intriguing is the fact that some U.S. major leaguers like to play in the Latin American leagues either to make some extra money or improve their skills. So it creates the potential that the guys playing in Chicago this summer are at work now in the weeks before spring training.

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It was 50 years ago Monday, that kids became statistics instead of lives

One summer when we were kids, my brother, Chris, and I spent about a week away from our parents and staying with our Uncle Sphinx and Aunt Connie, who lived in west suburban Lombard.

They had a pool in their backyard and allowed us to spend much of our time lounging around it, while also requiring some chores (such as cleaning out the basement where our aunt operated a makeshift beauty shop for neighborhood women).

BUT ONE OF the moments of that week that stands out in my mind (and the moment that my brother most remembers) is when Aunt Connie decided to take us with her on what she saw as an “educational” outing.

We took a drive to the Queen of Heaven Cemetery in nearby Hillside.

And the reason we went there on that day in 1978 was to see the “Shrine of the Holy Innocents” memorial that had been erected there to the children who died on this date 50 years ago at the Our Lady of the Angels School, 909 N. Avers Ave.

What would have become of these children? Illustration provided by http://www.olafire.com/.

Now I had heard of the school fire previously. Occasionally, we’d see snippets of footage of smoke coming from school windows and some bodies being moved about, whenever early December would come up.

WHILE MY MOTHER remembers being in a Catholic school on the South Side when she learned of the fire (nuns quickly led her entire class in a prayer for the children at Our Lady of the Angels), for me, it was little more than an “anniversary story.”

Until that particular weekend with my aunt.

I recall her laying some flowers at the memorial, while also reciting some details of that day’s events to my brother and I, then driving home the point that life is not only precious, it also is temperamental.

It can come, and go, at any time.

IT DOESN’T EVEN have to be anyone’s particular fault that they were in a certain place when something bad happened.

So if it sounds like I’m saying people ought to treasure every moment they have, because they don’t know for sure how much longer they will live (personally, I could die tomorrow, or I could last another 50 or so years – I honestly don’t know what to expect), then it is a worthwhile lesson.

Besides, how many other people can claim to have learned a life’s lesson while visiting a cemetery with their aunt (who, sadly enough, I cannot share moments with any longer – she died this year during the summer)? It definitely is one of those stories I can tell that few people can match.

It also is a memory that has come to my mind because we’re on one of the so-called “significant” anniversaries to justify an “anniversary story” about Our Lady of the Angels.

THE BIG 5-OH.

WTTW-TV last week dredged up the “Angels Too Soon” documentary film about the fire and its aftermath. And I would expect news outlets throughout the Chicago area will be running stories throughout the day – reminding us of the fact that 92 children and three nuns have now been dead for half-a-century.

In the case of the kids, they have been gone for about four to five times longer than they were alive.

But when presented in such a manner, they can become mere statistics.

THAT IS WHY I dredged up the old Chicago American newspaper front page from “the day after,” which literally gives us the pictures of all the deceased children. It is a physical reminder that we are talking about living human beings.

Instead, they’re names engraved on a memorial at a Hillside cemetery that my brother and I checked out some 30 years ago.

So when some people will try to push the angle that the fire started in a stairwell would never have spread so fast if modern-day fire codes were in place, I’d argue that such an angle is kind of trivial.

The fact is that even contemporary fire codes would have had an effect – but the building was exempt because it was so old that city officials thought requiring the Catholic Archdiocese to pay to bring it up to standards would have been an undue financial burden.

SOME MAY EVEN get worked up over the fact that no one was ever successfully prosecuted for having done something wrong to start the fire. Maybe they dream that modern forensics could come up with some evidence that could lead to a criminal conviction.

But when I think back to that day at the memorial, and also look at a newspaper page with pictures, I can’t help but wonder what would have become of these kids – who by now would be pushing into senior citizen status.

They’d be looking back on their lives, trying to figure out just what it was they accomplished and could be proud of.

The fact that they never got to do so is the true tragedy of that day at Iowa Street and Avers Avenue.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Memories of that day on the West Side will live on, so long as (http://www.olafire.com/Home.asp) the Internet remains in existence.

I’m not alone (http://www.bluejeansplace.com/OurLadyoftheAngelsFireMemorial.html) in having visited the memorial to the fire’s victims, although I did not document it to the degree that this website does. One can find help (http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8839) in locating the graves of specific people.