By Pat Hickey

April 1^st, 2026

My life has been like a historical novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, like Henry Esmond or The Virginians. Using the arcana of literature, these books were grouped and termed Waverly novels after Sir Walter Scott’s novel of the same name. In these fictions an average person by dint of fortune finds himself (notably male, mind you) walking among the great and infamous during a momentous historical epoch.

Me, I just ran into a lot of famous people.

In seventy plus years, Steve Allen, The Young Rascals, Danny Kaye, Richard Tucker, Sir George Solti, Muhammad Ali, Tony Bennett, Cleo Laine, Oscar Peterson, Brian Dennehy, Gordon Lightfoot, and Barack Obama shared oxygen with yours truly. Ita hoc explicet!

Two of my favorite encounters were with the LaPorte, Indiana hero and baseball legend, the magnificent hustler, Charles Oscar Finley – Charlie O. The man really stomped on the terra. Finley attempted to shakedown the youthful Beatles, hired the adolescent MC Hammer as a batboy and executive, invented Orange baseballs and footballs for night games to save on lights, sold the very first group medical insurance packages in America, won American League pennants and World Series, ate off my wife Mary’s plate at the old Blacksmith restaurant in Rolling Prairie, Indiana and tipped wildly and generously a lovely black waitress by the name of Florence at the California Grill in the Santa Fe building in Chicago on every encounter: that was my first brush with Charlie O. Finley in 1969.

To pay for my wonderful education at Loyola University (1970-1974), Orchestra Hall (now Symphony Center) provided wages toward that end, but also my college housing. I basically lived at 220 South Michigan Ave., as a janitor and a rent-free boarder. I worked the second shift, after classes at Loyola’s Lewis Tower and sacked out while my cousins Willie & John, along with Tony Gac and Kevin McPolin worked the third shift. It was a wonderful experience, as this was the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s (CSO) Golden Age: Sir George Solti and the triumphant CSO European Tour-1971.

Orchestra Hall, for all practical purposes, was my college campus. We bought food at Hillman’s in the Sears Building and cooked it on a hot plate in the janitor’s locker-room, or ready-made at California Grill in Santa Fe building just south of Orchestra Hall. One summer, I worked days with engineer Bill Nybo while Chief Engineer Jim Brennan was on vacation. It was great; Bill was a young married guy right out of the navy and had quite a bit to teach us young striplings about time management and teamwork. Bill sent me and Cousin John to California Grill for a fried egg sandwich and a Boston Coffee (heavy on the cream). While we waited for the order in walked, a tall blond man with a magnificent tan. He was Charlie O, owner of the A’s! Finley was a handsome man, who could have been drawn right from a poem by Edward Arlington Robinson – ‘Imperially thin!’ Charlie and Florence joked up a storm, and the woman handed him a small sandwich bag. Finley handed Florence a twenty-dollar bill and when she handed him his change, he folded a ten-spot and handed that right back to her. That was in 1970. A ten-dollar bill back then is said to be worth the equivalent of $ 84.00 in 2026. We were gob-smacked, but Florence said, “Charlie dukes me a Hamilton every time, if he gets a steak, liver and onions or a cup of coffee, I get $10 American. I love that man!”

That was the last time I saw Mr. Finley, until he had made baseball history in Oakland and discovered MC Hammer. I graduated from Loyola in June of 1974, took additional classes at University of Illinois at Chicago, and took a teaching job at Bishop McNamara High School in May 1975. It was there and then that I met the beautiful Mary Elizabeth Cleary who honored me with her hand in marriage in 1983. Four years later, we were living on the campus of La Lumiere School in LaPorte, Indiana – about six miles north of Charlie O. Finley’s massive estate on Route 35 and along Interstate 80.

I remember first seeing Finley’s Farm from a rented bus that took the vast tribe of Hickey spawn to watch Cousin Eddie Burke (the family Patriarch) play in the Notre Dame Old Timers games in the early 1960s. Our uncles pointed out that property and remarked, “That’s Charlie Finley’s farm! He owns the Kansas City Athletics.” We wowed accordingly at this white fenced farm with a barn festooned with crossed baseball bats and wondered about the power of wealth. Cousin Ed Burke went on to play with the Houston Oilers and other pro teams, becoming a successful attorney in Houston and the owner of vineyards in California. Pecunia Non Olet.

My fortunes improved at La Lumiere School, where Mary and I ran a dorm full of lads, raised two of our children and loved northwest Indiana. Mary taught Art at Le Mans Academy in Rolling Prairie east of La Lumiere. LeMans was run by the Brothers of the Holy Cross as a boarding school for boys (grades 5-8). Jesse Jackson had his boys educated at LeMans. Like La Lumiere, it was a boarding school built on a beautiful lake. It had a lovely working farm tended by the Brothers of the Holy Cross with dairy and vegetables to market. During WWII, this school had been a prisoner of war camp for Italian POWs.

I taught English and coached football and wrestling and after a few years was asked to be Director of Development, as well. One of the first people that I contacted was Charles O. Finley. He graciously met with me but turned down my request for a donation of any kind. I reminded him that I had witnessed his generous nature with Florence at the California Grill, but it seems that he and my Headmaster had history. Bad history. Charlie walked me to my car and said, “You made a good case, but so long as you work for that guy, save your breath.”

After Sunday Mass in LaPorte, or on the campus of La Lumiere, we would often go to the Blacksmith Restaurant in Rolling Prairie. This was great eatery with heart-busting biscuits and gravy and the best American fries this side of paradise. Our children would color and spill food and beverages, and we would eat between disasters. One day, in walked Charlie Finley.

He knew everyone and walked among tables giving a little ‘touch of Charlie’ to all and sundry. He did not take-to table but wandered about the place and then he recognized me, “Hey, La Lumiere Man!” I introduced the mogul to my bride and Finley was charm itself and asked about my work with genuine interest and, at one point, he reached down and picked up an American fry from Mary’s plate.

Like Mr. Finley, Mary was exquisitely thin and possessive of her rations. Mary ate like she was going to the chair. My blood went cold, when Charlie reached for a second tater only to take Mary’s fork in his mitt. “Get your own,” said my Titian-haired love, and Charles O. Finley retreated.

Charlie O. Finley did not apologize but bade us ‘good day.’

That summer MC Hammer came out with “Can’t Touch This!’ There must be something to that.

Like Henry Esmond in Thackeray’s novel, I find, “A good conscience is the best looking -glass of heaven.”

Me and Charlie. Damn.

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Born November 8, 1952 in Englewood Hospital, Chicago Illinois, Pat Hickey attended Chicago Catholic grammar and high schools, received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Loyola University in 1974, began teaching English and coaching sports at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, IL in 1975, married Mary Cleary in 1983, received a Master of Arts in English Literature from Loyola in 1987, taught at La Lumiere School in Indiana from 1988-1994, took a position as Director of Development with Bishop Noll

 Institute in Hammond, IN and then Leo High School in Chicago in 1996.  His wife Mary died in 1998 and Hickey returned with his three children to Chicago’s south side. From 1998 until 2019, it became obvious that Illinois and Chicago turned like Stilton cheese on a humid countertop. In that time, he wrote a couple of books and many columns for Irish American News. When the kids became independent and vital adults, he moved to Michigan City, Indiana, Hickey substitute teaches K-12 for Westville, Indiana schools and works as a tour guide/deckhand on the Emita II tour boat. He walks to the Michigan City Lighthouse every chance he gets.