Who really needs to be first?

My parents these days are caring for a pair of dogs, Rocco and Carmelo, who have distinct personalities. But there is one significant difference I have noticed.

The Chicago-area's first-born baby is a girl who owes her name to this ballpark. It's a good thing the building at Clark and Addison doesn't still bear its original name -- or else she'd be going through life with the name "Weeghman"

Carmelo, the younger of the two (he was born back in May, but has grown quite quickly) wants to be assured he is first in everything. Just the other day when I tried opening a back door to let Rocco go outside for a bit, Carmelo ran up, shoved Rocco aside and insisted on being the first to enjoy some fresh air.

WHICH TO ME is what all of the incidents of having to be “first” make me think of. We’re behaving like animals.

So naturally, this is NOT the ideal time of year for me to be seeing various “firsts” that are now occurring. Because we’re now in a new year, we’re going to see a lot of happenings that otherwise would go unnoticed get significant public attention just because they’re first.

As it is, we already have the “first baby” of 2017 in Chicago – whom it seems was born early Sunday to a couple in the northwestern suburbs who are Chicago Cubs fans. They named their daughter “Wrigley.”

Which as far as I’m concerned means it would serve that couple right if the daughter winds up taking no interest in baseball, or worse yet, winds up developing enough sense to be a White Sox fan!

BUT BECAUSE THIS particular year began on a Sunday and government officials need to get their New Year’s holiday day off from work, they will have to have Monday free.

No mail delivery (including a pay check I’m expecting from freelance work I do) until Tuesday. In fact, all government entities will be closed on Monday.

Which is why the Cook County government will have to hold off yet another day. We won’t get their “firsts” until at least Jan. 3.

I remember back when I was a reporter-type person for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago when we’d make a big deal out of the first party permit issued by the Forest Preserve District.

LARGELY BECAUSE IT was always issued to the same man. “Moose” Murphy always wanted to have Permit Number One issued to his group, the Antler Dancers, who would have a big, alcohol-laced, bash in the forest preserves every year for several years.

Murphy would make the point of camping out at the Cook County Building at the end of each December to ensure he’d be first in line to get that permit number one. Heaven forbid anyone had the nerve to try to cut in line or usurp that top spot.

Or if anyone just showed up in mid-summer at the forest preserve where Murphy and his buddies were gathered for their annual bash.

Of course, the fact that we news media types are so desperate for fresh news copy right after the New Year’s holiday that we highlight the story no matter how trite means the county is eager to get all the positive publicity available.

AS IT IS, the Cook County clerk’s office already informed us about how on Tuesday Clerk David Orr will be ready to celebrate whichever couple happens to be first in line to apply for a marriage license.

Orr will actually perform the marriage ceremony on the spot (he, along with a ship’s captain, gets that perk) and several companies have already pledged gifts including a hotel suite and meal at a luxury restaurant for the couple who happen to be “first” in line Tuesday morning.

No wrath is more furious than that of Carmelo (left) if Rocco tries to do something ahead of him. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

I feel sorry for them if it turns out it was a couple that merely wanted to elope in secret, but will find their life’s partnership now blasted on every television station and newspaper in Chicago – all because we need to fill space or airtime.

It also makes me wonder if the process is reduced to the level of Carmelo feeling compelled to race outside and be the “first” to do his “business” in the backyard.

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2016 is here; everybody wants to be 1st

First baby: A girl named Jaylaine, born at 12:01 a.m. at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in suburban Park Ridge.

First murder: A 24-year-old man who was shot dead at about 2 a.m. in the Bronzeville neighborhood when he was arguing with another man who happened to be armed with a pistol.

NEW YEAR’S DAY is one of the quirky days of working in the newsgathering business. We get all obsessed with documenting the “first” of all sorts of things that typically wouldn’t get much mention, if any at all.

Particularly if they had happened just hours, or even minutes, earlier. Because they would then have been amongst the final activities of 2015. The old year, ancient history. Been there, done that! Let’s move along.

Yet you’d be amazed at the number of people who get all worked up over being acknowledged as a “first.” Take the ‘first baby’ saga, which is one I had my fill of way back in 1989.

Because on Jan. 1 of that year, I was a reporter-type person for the now-defunct City News Bureau, and I was on duty that overnight shift. I wound up having to make the call between dueling hospitals (one of which may have been Lutheran General, if I remember right) that were claiming to have had babies born just as the clock was ticking off the final seconds of the old year.

I ULTIMATELY MADE the judgment call of a tie, and other news organizations followed our lead. Which resulted in a third hospital that was just moments behind claiming I had somehow cheated them out of recognition.

The concept remains the same annually

I still recall the frantic phone call City News received at about 3 a.m. on 1/1/89, as a top hospital administrator felt compelled to give me a piece of his mind that we wouldn’t recognize his claim to have a “first.”

You’d think at that hour he’d have better things to obsess about. Apparently, he didn’t.

All I know is that for the past quarter-century, I have always associated the thought of the “first baby” with neurotic hospital administrators desperately trying to get themselves some press for actions that don’t involve allegations of medical malpractice on their parts.

THAT IS WHAT I suspect the desire to be a “first” is for many officials – a chance to get mentioned in the news publications and programs for something that doesn’t involve their screw-ups.

The site of many more firsts, come Monday

Such as the fact that on Monday, somebody is going to be awarded the first marriage license in Cook County. Clerk David Orr made sure we in the news media are aware of this fact – issuing a statement telling of the $800 in prizes to be given to the soon-to-be wed couple.

The Palmer House Hilton, Lettuce Entertain You restaurants, iO Improv Comedy Clubs, LaSalle Flowers and Bryan Docter photography all are kicking in to that prize package – which I’m sure means a whole slew of free advertising to be generated for those companies by whichever couple feels compelled to be at the clerk’s office in the Loop when it opens at 8:30 a.m. Monday.

Personally, I wonder what kind of people would feel compelled to get up early and force themselves to the head of the line, just to get themselves on the Monday evening television newscasts as the first newlywed couple.

ALTHOUGH I DON’T think anybody is as extreme as Jim “Moose” Murphy, the guy who for nearly 20 years in the 1980s and 1990s used to camp out on New Year’s to ensure he was the head of the line to get the first permit issued for the year by the Forest Preserve District.

Murphy, who died in 2009, was with the Antler Dancer’s Sportsmen’s Club, which used to like to have a huge-scale party (with liquor flowing freely) each summer in the forest preserves of southwestern Cook County near suburban Palos Park. For Murphy, it was absolutely essential he had permit Number 000001.

Although Murphy’s saga always reminded me of that episode of The Simpsons in which Lisa and other Springfield residents of some intellect got a permit to hold a Renaissance-type costume event in the town gazebo – only to find that the town thugs were already gathered there and refused to leave.

I would have feared for the physical well-being of anyone who had tried to cut in front of Murphy and his crew in that line. It would have become an ugly scene.

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Birth before death to start off 2013

We’re in a new year, yet the cycle of life continues as it always will.

St. Anthony gave us a birth ...

For in the early hours of Tuesday before the bulk of us had even woken up for the day, Chicago experienced its first birth.

AND JUST A few hours after completing a year in which the homicide total shot above 500 for the year, the body-count clock was reset and we’re already at 1 for ’13 (the year, that is).

I have ranted before on this weblog about how much I can’t stand the story about Chicago’s first-born baby.

Which ought to be a trivial note of little real significance. Is this child’s life really going to turn out any more important than that of someone born a few minutes earlier, or later, on the same day?

Besides, I also recall the first-born in Chicago for 1989 – when I was working for the now-defunct City News Bureau right at the new year and recall the politicking that the hospitals engaged in as they tried to convince us that “their” kid was the one who came first.

EVEN THOUGH THE reality is that they all came within seconds of each other and any rational human being would have acknowledged that. Some people take this particular “first-born” status way too seriously!

So for the record, Aydan Alvarado is Chicago’s first-born human being for 2013 – coming out of the womb at 12:08 a.m. at St. Anthony Hospital. As it turns out, he was due on Saturday – but wasn’t actually born until the first few minutes of Tuesday.

Just about 3 ½ hours after Aydan’s birth, Chicago experienced its first death due to homicide.

... while Northwestern started off a death tally

It was shortly before 4 a.m. that police received a call in the West Town neighborhood, and wound up finding a 20-year-old on the ground, bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound to his throat.

OCTAVIUS DONTRELL LAMB wound up being rushed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Police as of Tuesday morning didn’t have a suspect, or any idea what provoked this particular shooting death – which in all likelihood will only be noted because it was Number One for 2013.

If anything, it reinforces the attitude I expressed last week upon learning that Chicago Police Department officials were trying to keep the homicide total for 2012 under 500.

To the point that a previous killing was reclassified from “homicide” to “death investigation.”

IT DIDN’T WORK!

That killing eventually was shifted back to homicide, and there were five more slayings in Chicago during the final weekend of the year – including three on Sunday.

Although oddly enough, none on Monday.

So the death-by-homicide tally for 2012 tops out at 505 – unless someone who has been lingering in a hospital winds up dying in the next few days. In which case, the ’12 total will inch up all the more.

NOT THAT IT really matters that Chicago had more than 500 homicides for the first time since 2008. Death is more about the individuals than the raw numbers – which are an ongoing cycle.

Like I cited before, we’re already at “1” (and counting) for the current year. The “505” figure is now just a line in the record books – for those individuals who feel compelled to count such things.

So let’s hear it for Aydan. Here’s hoping the new resident of the Little Village neighborhood winds up having a lengthy and healthy life on this planet – and that his birth won’t be the only time his existence comes to the public’s attention.

Just as the real shame of Lamb’s death is that his life came to its end before he could accomplish much of note. What a waste!

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EXTRA: A three-way tie!?!

It must have been ugly in the early hour of Friday (also the beginning of a new decade in Chicago), as hospital officials eager to give their facilities a plug were hastily making calls to reporter-types to claim that they had helped to give birth to the first new Chicagoan of 2010.

The reports now turning up on the Internet seem to be proclaiming a three-way tie for Stroger and Northwestern Memorial hospitals, along with St. Joseph Hospital.

AS IT TURNS out, the latter hospital located in the Lakeview neighborhood was the only one willing to identify the new parents, so it’s their kid who will get the fleeting seconds of attention. So welcome to the world, Miya Tanni.

It never fails to amaze me the degree to which hospital officials take this baby “designation” so seriously. It’s not like there are serious cash and prizes on hand for the parents of the (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/01/cutesy-first-baby-stories-become-ugly.html) first newborn.

And I’m sure there will be little difference between baby Miya born at 12:00:10 a.m. and the kid who was born two minutes earlier.

But then again, it’s New Year’s Day, and there isn’t much other activity passing for “news” that can be reported. Learning that a baby boy was born 30 seconds after midnight at Northwestern Memorial Hospital is more pleasant to learn than to focus on the fact that Northwestern University’s football team got beat (http://www.chicagobreakingsports.com/2010/01/northwestern-outback-bowl-auburn.html) in overtime playing Auburn University in the Outback Bowl - or those Polar Bear types hanging out at North Avenue beach.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: For those who need to know, the “first baby” details were reported promptly by the websites (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/01/infants-battle-for-first-2010-baby-title.html) of our city’s (http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1969080,first-births-of-2010-chicago-010110.article) dueling newspapers.

EXTRA! EXTRA! It's a Girl

For those of you who just have to know, the first baby born in Chicago for 2008 is a girl, born to a couple at 12:12 a.m. Tuesday at Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center on Chicago's Northwest Side.

Both mother and daughter, who has not yet been named, are reportedly doing fine, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: Here are the details of newborns who came into this world on the first day of the Centennial of the last Chicago Cubs' World Series victory.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/721735,nybabies10108.article

The real question is to wonder whether the Cubs will ever win a World Series during their lifetimes?

Cutesy First Baby stories become ugly

Today is the worst day of the year for a news junkie such as myself because I could have told you months ago what Tuesday’s big local news story will be – a newborn child who came out of the mother’s womb at “one second after midnight” is the first-born baby of the new year.

The First Baby story bugs me every year. It is so artificial that it is the very definition of junk news – trying to attach significance to a meaningless fact.

I understand the story’s point is to allow television stations and newspapers to show pictures of a beaming mother, sighing with relief that the pain of childbirth is over while she is holding her newborn baby boy or girl, who is at that stage in life when – even if kind of ugly – the baby’s still cute.

But in the overall story of life, there’s little difference between the baby born at 11:57 p.m. on Dec. 31 and the one born at 12:01 p.m. on Jan. 1. There’s no Tens of Thousands of Dollars in Cash and Prizes awaiting the parents of the First Baby.

But hospitals take the story so seriously. Each of them wants the free publicity of being able to say their doctors delivered the First Baby.

Think I’m kidding?

I still remember 1989’s First Baby in Chicago story very well. Back then, I was a reporter for the now-defunct City News Bureau of Chicago, and that was the year of my life when I worked extensively on the overnight shift.

So when 1988 became 1989, I was working. Because senior editors all had holidays off, I was actually in charge that night in determining which stories were covered by the wire service.

So in the 20 or so minutes right after midnight, the City News Bureau got several telephone calls from area hospitals. Memory says seven hospitals had their public relations people call us to claim they had babies who were born in the minute or two after midnight.

One hospital official wanted to know how much she would have to adjust the official time to get their newborn baby into the running to be THE STORY as First Born Baby in Chicago for 1989.

In the end, we had two hospitals both claiming to have had babies born within 10 seconds after the stroke of midnight.

I went ahead and made a judgment call. It’s a tie!

That’s how the City News Bureau reported the story. That’s how news radio stations picked up the story in the morning. Later in the day, Chicago’s television stations sent news crews out to talk to both sets of parents, and the newspapers the next morning recognized our self-declared tie as the official result.

What is sad about all of this is that a third hospital called in after the initial outburst of telephone calls, and after we had made the call that the First Baby was a two-way tie. That hospital was claiming to also have had a baby born in the first minute after midnight, and they wanted to be included.

I ultimately took it on myself to say, “No Way!” They were late in notifying us, and who’s to say just when each of these babies was really born. Changing the story at that point just to massage the ego of another hospital seemed absurd.

What is even more absurd than that?

How about arguing with a hospital director at 3 a.m., who started using some pretty vile language to complain about what he perceived as my snub of his hospital’s public image. We quarreled. I refused to make any change. There was no three-way First Baby of Chicago tie in 1989.

Now some might say that I manipulated the story. But for real manipulation of a First Baby story, one has to look at what happened in Peoria, Ill., the following year.

The Journal Star newspaper reported a story of the first baby born in an area hospital, showing a nice, young couple with their child. Later, we learned the actual first child born in Peoria that year came to life in an ambulance en route to a hospital, a couple of hours before the official child. The reason officials ignored that baby is because the 16-year-old mother’s life story was deemed too depressing and irresponsible to put in the newspaper.

So I ruined a three-way tie for First Baby. Elsewhere, a mother was considered “too ghetto” to be in the newspaper with her baby.

I’d like to think my refusal to play along with a hospital administrator’s ego was more responsible than what happened in Peoria, particularly when one considers that, at heart, the First Baby is basically a fake news story.

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