Pizza with the "Devil"

When I first joined Facebook, one of the first people that I accepted as a friend was "Vet".  Vet and I go back thirty-two years or so; I met him at my brother's arcade business in 1982 on Washtenaw and 38th Street.  I worked there on weekends, mostly in the evenings.  I would say that most of the people that came to play the video games were friends from Burroughs, Kelly, SJSA, St. Agnes, De La Salle, and a few from Curie, too; they were young people from the neighborhood.

Brighton Park Elementary School: New building where Duckie's once stood.

Vet lived down the block from my brother's business, Duckie's Arcade (I still have no clue why my brother called his business Duckie's!)  Regardless of the name, the youth from the neighborhood came by the bucket loads to spend their quarters.  First day was a hit because it opened on a Friday, and the weekend of that first week was a great success.  However, during the week, business would get a little slow.  And that's when Vet first appeared.  He strolled in with a couple of quarters, wearing a green army coat, and walked over to the machine, put his quarter in, and he stayed there for some time playing.  The name of the arcade game- "Frontline".  Within a short time, Vet became a pro at that game.  At one point he held the high score on "Frontline" until Duckie's was no more.

Interestingly enough, that's how Vet and I met.  Since I worked at Duckie's part time, I occasionally would play a game or two.  Everyone would crowd around to see how players advanced to another level, what tricks they used, and if it was worth it to play against them on the next turn; I would do the same and observe the guy with the green army coat playing "Frontline".  I don't know how or why, but eventually we struck up a conversation about military history; I was an avid World War II student, and Vet was an avid student of the Vietnam War.  

The corner of 38th Street and Washtenaw.

I remember one of my first comments about the Vietnam War was that the U.S. really didn't lose the war.  Vet's comment was an absolute, "No, we lost the war."  Because of conversations we had on occasion about military history, I was motivated to read about the Vietnam War from the perspective of oral history.  I read, "Nam" by Mark Baker for the first time that year, one of the best books on the experience of Vietnam through the eyes of the veterans who fought in the battles.

Vet and I stayed in touch on and off for some time even after Duckie's closed.  I occasionally saw him on the Archer Avenue bus, riding home from Curie High School (I would catch the same bus heading home from Brother Rice High School).  We always talked and had a few laughs, until we both graduated from high school in the mid-80's.

Fast forward to 2002 when I was being interviewed by WGN for a piece on employment opportunities for people with disabilities.  When I returned to my office for the non-for-proift I worked for, I found an email from a very familiar person: it was Vet.

A wonderful surprise!  A blast from the 80's past!  We exchanged some emails a couple of times.  I was going through a difficult time in my life at the time and eventually lost contact with him.  But good friendships last through years, distances, and experiences, and our friendship stood the test of time!

So on to Facebook in 2008.  While searching for old friends from the neighborhood and school, either I found Vet or he found me.  It was great to add him to my new Facebook account.  Of course, sharing this experience with my wife and daughters was it's own experience.  When my oldest daughter saw a picture of Vet, she stated that he looked like the devil!!!

Thus when he and I got to together to have pizza at Falco's last week Tuesday, I was having pizza with the devil.  He's no devil, he's a friend from my teenage years in Brighton Park.  A friend that has his own views in the form of absolutes, but someone who is always willing to listen to someone else's opinion (sometimes).  Someone that loves the Beatles not Led Zeppelin, reads about the Vietnam War experience not the World War II experience, and someone who follows the sport of running more passionately than any other sport I know.

It's not unique to Brighton Park or unique to me, but friendships like that never fade and last through any chasm that our society can create.