Moose Cholak’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s
By Pat Hickey
January 15, 2025
Some names have been changed for the hell of it.
Man, I took a beating in April of 1965. That was not my best year by far. The Nun I had for the tail-end of Sixth Grade at Little Flower told my folks that I was ‘retarded, obstinate, disorganized and destined for bad end.’ To say that I was a miscreant little jerk is not a stretch, and I remain less than anal retentive in my assault upon tasks. However, bad end? I think not. I have been saved by great folks.
Immediately following one of my numerous extracurricular Pre-May Crowning beat-downs by Sister Beautificus, RSM, I accompanied two pals Tom Scanlon and Bernie Weber eastward in the alley between 80th & 79th Street.
In their company, I took my first cigarette, actually my second, my first I got from Uncle Mike. This was my first time outside of the tribal circle. My companions were considered a bad lot in the common room of the school’s convent, whose families lived in the apartments along Ashland Avenue on the Little Flower side.
One guy, Tom, is now a retired school psychologist and the other, Bernie, became a much-decorated Chicago fireman, also retired.
All three of us had written satirical essays on the upcoming May Crowning, which offended Sister Beautificus, who asked me, ‘What would your Father say if he saw this?’ I waited a second, timing is everything, ” Who you think wrote most of it, S’ter?” Flesh and bone was now open for business. Messy desks, slipshod arithmetic no SRA work done in weeks built the hooded Black and White into a Torrent of Spring Fury!
I took it on the cheeks, the ears, the snot-locker and even the gums, as did my boon chums. We celebrated this blood-bond with a pack of Chesterfields snitched from Tom’s Mom’s purse.
Upon the celebratory light-up, Bernie’s Dad’s car came bouncing through the unpaved alley at a great clip. Old Man Weber had seen us in the act,
“Bernie, get your rump home now! Immediately, if not sooner. Hickey – I’ll see your old man, when he gets off work and stops at Billy Ellis’s. Hi Tom! How’s your Mom?”
Mrs. Scanlon was a widow who worked for the Phone Company over on Stewart and was considered by every pater familias to be easy on the eyes.
“Fine, Mr. Weber, “Scanlon, obviously off the hook, spirited the rumpled pack of Chesterfield’s in my jacket pocket and tore ass south at the intersection of Marshfield and the alley. Mr. Weber glared at me, ” You’re as big a smart-ass as your Uncle Bart. I told Bernie to stay the Hell away from you. Bernie, beat it! You, Mr. Hickey, make yourself scarce.”
Swell. A brace of great communications concerning the fruit of his loins to candy Dad’s ears, prior to his twenty minutes at home before he had to go his other job at the Beverly Theatre.
Nun Battery followed by the manly art of snitching a nail. “I am well and truly screwed,” I determined with no prodding from the audience, whatsoever. Smart Lad!
I fired up another smoke and walked across Ashland Ave. to the Highland Theater – home of the Hercules versus Viet Cong and other B Movies. There were always sexy and salacious movie posters to heighten a lad’s trip to the Saturday Confessional. Always, a grand idea to tempt oneself.
I stood in the ticket bay of Highland Theatre on Ashland and smoked another Chesterfield with the existential fatalism of Sartre, jilted by some swell French Dame in tight sweater and tighter black slit skirt. I looked at ads of upcoming movies that I would never see.
A gruff but familiar voice assaulted my pornographic musings, ” Spit out that butt, Kid.” Jesus!!!!!!!
Cop? Uncle? No. Ignatius the school janitor? Nope. I turned to see furrowed brows and dashing sideburns, bushy eyebrows and Goliath-like terror of none other than Yukon Moose Cholak – The Wrestling Foe of Man and Beast!.
The man eclipsed the waning western sun beaming on the tar roof of Billy Ellis’ Wooden House, where the Old Man stopped for a Hamm’s and a Vinegar and Oil (Seagram’s VO Canadian). The Star of Saturday afternoon pre-Confessional Wrestling, brought to me by Ben’s Auto Sales on south Western Ave., snapped, ” Weed’s for sissies, bookworms and sob-sisters, kid.”
Uh, uh stammered I , ” I just tried ‘cuz the guys and me . . .”
Moose Cholak glared at me, ” Hey, save it for Aunt Gertie! You wanna end up being some pencil neck, no good for anybody, salad eater, Boy?”
Given my proclivities of the tongue, I was more than familiar with the rhetorical question at this tender age and checked my natural tendency go all Noel Coward with Yukon Moose Cholak.
Rather, I penitently answered properly, “No sir.”
With folded arms and a broad smile of avuncular approval, Yukon Moose Cholak ordered me to pick up the cast away cylinder of sin and put it in the cement ashtray near the curb like a good boy and then waxed poetic, ” Breakfast at Tiffany’s, kid. That’s what smoking will do for you and our whole county. You know that they made it a movie a couple of years back with that skinny broad from My Fair Lady.? Now, pay attention!
The guy who wrote the story about that skirt that he liked to shop and hang around with fairies and rich creeps, started smoking at your age. I saw him on Suskind’s TV show, when I couldn’t go back to sleep last week, and it stuck with me.
This tiny little bald guy with a pixie voice said his mom was some hillbilly hooker and that he started smoking as a little guy and it stunted his growth, made his hair fall out and talk like a girl. That’s no way, Kid. Now, where’s that saloon called The Wooden House?”
I pointed to the northwest corner of 79th & Ashland and corrected the wrestler, ” We call it Billy Ellis’s around here.”
With a smile, Moose offered this valediction, ” You got some lip on you kid. A lip on you that’ would trip a pig.”
How could one come to a bad end in this urban Arcadia?
I have not had a cigarette since breakfast.
-30-
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.
Comments 31
terrific tale! local landmarks too! love that “uh oh” moment when any adult called me by my last name…. thanks, Hickey!
hansen
Great tale, Pat!!! Gone are the days when the whole neighborhood had its individual and collective nose in the business of the young ones. Sigh.
Sister Beautificus would give you an A+ for this.
Love the story. I’ll laugh at parts of this all day. The nuns brought out some great memories.
Thanks for the early belly laugh.
Well done – is that an Augsburger being hoisted in the photo?
Moose was a man of great taste and wholesome sensibilities!!!!!!!! They make neither man nor beer like them anymore.
“Stories from the old South Side”. Mr Hickey and Mr. Kass should collaborate on a book. All the characters, history, the sense of place, and nostalgic memories would be good reading.
I’d also love to hear some first-person accounts of how life changed when all,those great neighborhoods did.
Moose Cholak was the guest speaker at a Bessemer Park Little League banquet back in the middle 60’s. Us boys were in awe. Our fathers, even moreso. My brother got a Moose Cholak signed baseball. We still have it.
Good story and good memories of the south side. Last movie I saw at the Beverly theater was Shenandoah, 1965. Nuns as black and whites, love it. I took many a beating from the sisters at St. Bernadette. Stealing L&M cigarettes from my fathers stash. I got caught by my Dad, threatened with a beating but instead I was told, “those things will stunt your growth.” Never smoked again. I shot up to a staggering 5′ 4″. Who knew. Thank you Mr. Hickey.
Memories of the Beverly Theatre…Giant Polar Bear out front with the sign, “It’s Cool inside”
Great photo of Moose. Thank you for this story.
Great story. Gives me flashbacks of watching wrestling at Amphitheatre with the likes of the Crusher and Baron Von Raschke the claw. Also, in 3rd grade at Visitation grammer school when the nun was chasing a kid named Cranston around the room beating him in the back with a yardstick. Cranston grabbed the yarstick and started beating her. We were awestruck. Stories of Southside can go on for days.
Sometime back around 1980, I was invited on a cold Sunday afternoon, by a few Groundsmen, to Moose Cholak’s bar, to have a beer and watch some entertainment (not football)! I was in awe of Moose when I met him and he was very friendly. As the bar filled up with characters, he locked the door to the bar, put a blanket on the pool table, and the entertainment began. Oh what a Sunday it was. Great memories of one my idols!
Moose Cholak, now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long while. Beverly and Highland Theatres. Throw in the Coral for good measure. Beverly was the home of the “Single Feature” no multiple films to kill a whole afternoon or evening. (TV? 2-5-7-9 Period. Sign on at 5 or 6 am and national anthem at midnight when you were supposed to be in bed. ) On the far side of Western I believe the pronunciation was S’tir. Great memories. In ‘65 I was part of the cohort that opened up Q South, now housing St Rita. (They fancied up their name after moving from 63rd! )Every time there is a LODD from a Catholic Cop the funeral occurs there ( or Queen’s in Sauganash. ) Worked more than a few events at the Amp as a Frain Usher, Comiskey, Wrigley and numerous others. A source of many stories funny and serious. Thanks for the great trip back to the sout side.
Excellent. Those times were what made Chicago great. We had similar experiences on near Northwest side (Chicago and Ashland).
No more. And we’re worse for it.
Luckies were better.
I worked at the Jewel in East Chicago. Moose Cholak shopped there, he was a huge man. The kids loved him. He would pick them up and put them on his shoulder. He was very gentle with the little kids that were attracted to him. A really kind man.
The Jewels.
Great column! Brought back memories of Sunday Wrestling, Ben’s Auto Sales, The Crusher and Dick The Bruiser. But I remember him as Yukon Moose Cholak.
You beat me to it Mr. V. Yukon Moose Cholak it was.
Thanks Gents! My memory skewed – it’s good but not great,
Re: “along Ashland Avenue on the Little Flower side”: funny how the South Side geography was (is still?) defined by Catholic parishes.
To this day, when I meet a native Chicagoan and advise of my Southwest suburban roots, the first question from many is, “which parish?” A while back, I was talking to a colleague who had transfered to our Los Angeles office from Chicago. He was from a Western suburb, and the third degree began:
Q:Which suburb am I from?
A: Oak Lawn.
Q: Which parish?
A: St Linus
Q: Do you know Joe {family name}?
A: Yes, we were in the same grade at Linus.
Q: He’s my cousin. North or South of 103rd?
A: North
Q: So you know the {different family name}?
A: They lived 3 doors down from me.
We spent a while standing in the parking garage sharing intelligence. It was great.
PS to Pat Hickey: My grandfather lived on Wood near 76th back in the 60s and early 70s. When you write about your youthful experiences, I often wonder if you and your family knew him.
No Terry, I am sorry to say that I did not have the pleasure, I lived at 75th Place & Wood. My guess is that your gramps live on Maury Lanigan’s block.
If I recall correctly, John Kass wrote a column in the past how Moose was a local precinct captain who would stand near the voting booths during an election, and who could not see who the voter was voting for because of the closed drapes but who would tell the voter from outside the poll to “quit dancing” if the voter was shuffling his feet in indecision instead of punching the straight Dem ticket, those were the days.
A truly fun read, Pat! From Oak Lawn (St Gerald) but I remember Chicago through visiting the relatives and friends.
Great article and fun hearing all those old landmarks that I remember!!
My husband shares nun stories from his youth and they never cease to make me laugh. He went to St. Adalbert Church School on Ashland and 17th St and the sprinkling of churches along Ashland Ave in those years is notable. My folks deviated from the Catholic norm and enrolled me in Cooper Elementary School and I was one of those kids who went to catechism on Wednesday afternoon. Ah, yes, the Catholic school kids happily relinquished their seats to play outside. By the way, Cooper was bordered by Marshfield and it struck me as a kid that the alley that had a name. Your wonderfully written piece brought on a lot of memories. As a child, 80th & Ashland was unknown territory to me. Yet I have a sense of shared experiences of an old Chicago neighborhood where neighbors looked out for each other and their children, kids experimenting with smoking, childhood antics and neighborhood characters who spiced up our young lives. Thanks for taking me back . . .
That is as beautiful a compliment as could be, Inez. I am humbled by your words. God Bless!
Grew up on the Eastside, was at the Jools on 106 near stateline with my dad about 75 my dad taps my shoulder and point to giant of a man in front of us and says “Thats Moose Cholak!” I was shocked that a famous man that I watched on television Sunday mornings was at our local Jools…. Lol I said “Hi!” And he patted me on the head! Highlight of a 9 yr olds life! Years later my but to high school passed Moose’s bar every day… great memeories
Great article Pat Hickey. I remember watching Wrestling with Yukon Moose, the great Bob Luce, Ben’s Auto Sales and the Crusher & Bruiser shouting out to the tv viewers about going down Halsted St and throwing the bums out the taverns. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
I went to St.Stanislaus in East Chicago in the 60’s and can’t forget the time Sister Lucidia cracked her pointer over the kids back across the aisle from me for talking in class, she looked at the broken pointer and said to the kid “you’re going to have to pay for that kid”. Hilarious.