As of today there are 60 days left in 2023. As it turns out, I have lived in 60 years from 1964 to 2023. I had one of those ideas that generally gives me more stress than it's worth when I try to implement them. The idea was simply this: Write one thing a day for the next sixty days about one of those years.
I decided today to write about 2016 to start things off. While it's true that the Cubs won their World Series that year on this day, that is not why I chose it. I chose it to write about a friend's father. My friend's father died 7 years ago on November 2, 2016. His obituary appears here.
I never met Dick Ciccone. I have only known his son Rich since the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year when I spent the fall semester as a long term sub at the same middle school Rich was starting at. Besides teaching the same type of classes, we found that we had some things in common like having fathers who went to Notre Dame at the same time. Also, Rich could relate to the struggles I was experiencing helping my parents with difficult health issues as he had been through that already with his parents.
This year I'm back at the school as a building sub and Rich and I have renewed our friendship. He requests me to teach his classes when he has compliance days or IEP meetings and I gladly do it as several of his 8th grade students were in my 7th grade class last year. He lets me use his classroom as kind of a home base when I am not subbing in other classes and I enjoy working with him and his students any chance I get.
Last month I watched a movie called Continental Divide. I hadn't seen it for a while. It features John Belushi playing a Chicago Newspaper columnist based on Mike Royko. Mike Royko was one of my heroes growing up. I started reading his columns in the Chicago Sun Times and then in the Chicago Tribune. After watching the film I decided to see if I could find a biography about Royko.
I was at school and the teacher I was subbing for had an off period, so I was researching Mike Royko biographies. I soon found out that one of the definitive biographies about Royko had been written by a F. Richard Ciccone who I recognized to be Rich's dad. I popped into Rich's room and he reminded me that his Dad had been the managing editor of the Tribune when Royko moved there from the Sun Times.
I got the book yesterday and it is amazing. In the introduction and the first two chapters, the elder Ciccone immerses us in the world of Royko, also sharing that Mike Royko wasn't the only Tribune employee who could craft mesmerizing prose. I attempted to tell that to Rich today and I immediately sensed the same expression I had noticed the day before.
That is when Rich told me that today was the 7th anniversary of his father's death. He shared how difficult it can be as so many people view today with such positive memories. I remember being at Rosati's around the corner from our old house 7 years ago and going crazy as the Cubs won the World Series.
This is why I chose 2016. It reminds me that one person's best memories can trigger another person's worst. When I was in college there was a restaurant called The Sports Page and true to their name they had several framed front pages on their walls celebrating great sports achievements of the time. One such front page celebrated the Bears winning the Super Bowl on January 26, 1986. In another spot of the front page there was an article about the upcoming space shuttle flight for teacher Christa McAuliffe. Two days after the Bears won their Super Bowl The Space Shuttle Challenge exploded less than 90 seconds into its flight.
Every year I have lived so far houses someone's most amazing achievement and someone else's biggest regret. This of course is an understatement. We can certainly say the same thing about each day I have lived. It is difficult to be on the lookout for both, but can so be beneficial. The book of Proverbs reminds us that, "A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for a time of adversity." (Proverbs 17:17 NIV). .With this in mind, we should always be on the lookout for opportunities to help our friends rejoice, grieve or even just remember over important moments in their past.
