What is and what would never be...thank God!

From first through sixth grades, I attended Maternity BVM, a grade school in Bourbonnais, Illinois, where I was living. Bourbonnais is a couple of miles north of Kankakee, the county seat of Kankakee County, the Armpit of Illinois; I knew I wanted to escape it someday. The school -- I never thought much of it because, well, it was a school, you go there because you have to, you go home, watch cartoons, do your homework, and that’s it. Sure, I had friends there. But I lost touch with them after sixth grade.

My father had been working in Joliet for a couple of years, and the 35-mile commute was taking a toll on him, so we moved to Joliet....aaaahhh, much better! An actual city! Civilization! Stuff to do! We could go to a mall without driving for half an hour -- nay, two malls! (There was no mall in the Kankakee area at the time; there is now.) And much to my mother’s delight, tuition at St. Pat’s was a lot cheaper than that of Maternity BVM.

Now, all these years, I’m thinking Joliet was a great move. It’s a good, growing town. It has an AmTrak stop. It’s fairly close to Chicago. And should I decide to get into legal trouble, I’d have four prisons where I could be incarcerated close to home. St. Pat’s, I thought, was a great school, and for the first time in my life I felt the teachers cared about my well-being. Joliet Catholic was a great high school. When it merged with St. Francis Academy, though, we lost a lot of our traditions, and my last two years of high school were filled with anger over it, although I’ve met some of my best friends as a result of that merge. In retrospect, going to college in Joliet at St. Francis sucked, but I didn’t realize at the time; however, my personal life outside of college was enjoyable.

So here I am now, married and in my 30s; no kids yet but a dog, and I’m really enjoying life on the north side of Chicago. I always wanted to live here. Ever since I was a li’l tyke I wanted to live in the exciting city, so my wife and I moved here after my eight-year life in New Jersey. I have a nice job that has a decent but not great salary. (If I didn’t have so much credit card debt, I would say the job has a great salary.) I’m always taking classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music, which is perhaps my favorite place in the city next to my apartment.

Suddenly it happened...it’s about 6:45 in the morning, I want more sleep, and my wife is showing me a TiVoed scene from a Second City musical based on ousted governor Rod Blagojevich. The musical is called Rod Blagojevich: Superstar, and the scene features a song called “Jogging.” The cast members introduce themselves, and three words suddenly wake me up:

“I’m Michael Bradecich.” (rhymes with “radish”)

WHA?!

Oh, yes...Michael Bradecich...one of my circle of friends from Maternity BVM! I had forgotten that he had become an improv actor...well, an actor period. Wow...temporary jealousy takes over! I remember Yahoo!ing him before (I prefer Yahoo! over Google -- nothing against Google, I just prefer Yahoo!) and seeing these details about Mike: He’s an actor. He was - possibly still is - a member of IO Chicago (formerly ImprovOlympic). He was even in an episode of E.R., for Christ’s sakes! And apparently he still hangs out with some of the ol’ Maternity gang: Chris Witt, one of the smartest people in our class with a unique sense of humor, who now has a really cool studio production career going, if I’m not mistaken. Greg Schaertl, a year ahead of us, whom I remember as kind of an outcast (hey, we were little kids at the time - but to be honest, I didn’t mind him), but who’s in a band now. I saw a mention of David Kasper, who I remember to be a really nice guy, but I don’t remember what he’s up to these days. (You might notice I didn’t mention any girls. Well, to be honest with you, my maturity took so long that I thought girls were icky until the summer before eighth grade.) And even though he wasn't in our circle of friends, Pat Sandusky, who was a year behind us, is now part of Chicago's Olympics planning team, and he even ends up on TV from time to time. If only I’d not lost touch with these guys.

Recently I attended a St. Pat’s class reunion. Our classmate Jason Harms and teacher/basketball coach Pat Paul sadly couldn’t be with us because they left this world much too young. But I was surprised at how many of my Class of 1988 classmates got to attend -- and thrilled to see every one of them. How we reminisced of old times -- Jeff Belom (who was among the shortest in the class -- now he’s easily at least six feet tall!) being locked in the coat closet until he finished his tuna sandwich because Mr. Paul (God rest his tragically young soul) couldn’t stand the smell of tuna; Jim O’Brien being the first person in St. Pat’s basketball history to not only attempt but also sink a three-pointer at a basketball game against St. Ray’s; Lisa Mariotto, who sadly was unable to make it, sent a lot of her old St. Pat’s stuff with some great reminiscences, including her notebook from Mr. Paul’s World War II lectures and Mr. Paul’s predictions about how we’d all end up in the future; Mrs. Harms, the sixth-grade teacher and who was our math and science teacher, showed up for what was supposed to be a quick drop-by to say hi and she ended up staying for pretty much the whole time, and it was great to see her again; damn, it was great to see everybody. I felt this amazing bond with everybody as we remembered the days when we had to look at each other every day for nine months out of the year. And after 21 years, it really feels that we all care about each other. I know I care about these people, at least, and I’m glad to see that every single person who showed up either had a good job or was (voluntarily, I hope) a stay-at-home mom. All of us alums have families of our own, or at least was or is currently married.

Most of my classmates from St. Pat’s are still in the Joliet area; there are a few who lived out of state (indeed, Sarah Kane flew all the way out from Colorado just to spend a few hours with everybody), but most of us are still around. In fact, except for the out-of-staters, I live the farthest from Joliet, at about 35 miles. They have families -- and at least in one case a child who currently attends St. Pat’s. And there’s a special bond that nobody outside of our class could possibly understand. I never had any of that at Maternity.

I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve said before how remarkable it is that I spent six years at Maternity BVM, only two at St. Pat’s -- yet I have far more memories about my two at St. Pat’s than I do about my six at Maternity. While I do regret losing touch with my Bourbonnais friends and do hope that someday I’ll reconnect, I just can’t imagine that I’d ever want to change that 6-to-2 ratio of memories. I’d much rather have what I ended up with over what I jokingly theorize I could have ended up with.