By John Kass

November 9, 2023

When I was a stupid kid, I did a stupid thing and shamed my family, and especially my father.

I broke his heart.

I broke the law.

It might mean nothing to you, now. But it meant something to me. Americans scoff at suggestions that honor and shame are important. The modern American culture laughs at honor and shame.

But I was raised in a culture where honor and shame were critically important. These were what you lived by.

Oak Lawn police searched the car I was riding in to find boxes of whiskey and a quarter pound of pot. That was a felony beef, a charge of felony drug possession.

I mentioned it years later in a column for the paper I loved. I was by then a grown man with sons of my own. A few teen-age girls got into some minor trouble involving a girls-gone-wild controversy in Northbrook, rich kids, rich parents.

The column about the pot bust ran in 2003, titled “Teen stupidity brings a lesson never forgotten” I tried to find it online, but Google doesn’t have it. I did keep a copy, though.

It was about my father and the broken glass.

I didn’t want to mention it back then in 2003. But my father had passed, and by then. I was the City Hall writer for “the paper.” City Hall was all about conflict of interest and leverage and what I didn’t like was anyone having leverage on me.

So, I told the story. How about the cop smacking me in the face with a backhand–My parents didn’t mind that. And later, the officers sat me down, and told me something about government that I’ve never forgotten.

They said that a few phone calls to the IRS could make things difficult for my father. I was a kid and didn’t understand what they were talking about. I didn’t even know anything about shakedowns then. I played dumb because I was dumb.

I don’t think I mentioned the attempted shakedown while talking about Burke with Jeff Carlin on the Chicago Way Podcast.

And I don’t think I mentioned why I wrote that column in 2003. With my family begging me not to write it.

City Hall was a place of leverage. Every move meant possible attack from the shadows. That’s how it worked, for everyone, politicians, businessmen, even writers, especially if you came up in Chicago and knew people.

The first thing that I learned about Chicago politics was about leverage. Nobody threatened, or even hinted at such a thing. Burke certainly never did. He knew. I knew.

But I just couldn’t stand anyone holding even the slightest bit of leverage over me. Sunshine, as Justice Brandeis said, is the best disinfectant. Wisdom.

And so, I chose sunshine.

Perhaps I’ll find that old column and post it on some Father’s Day, assuming the Paper allows me “the rights” to my own story and my own name. We’ll see.

And what will happen to Ed Burke?

The story unfolds. Like I said in Wednesday’s column, he’s not a man who believes in fairy tales.

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