How to talk right in Chicago

August 20, 2003 | from an e-mail

[lizma]

I got you green alligators and all my geese some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees

OMG!!!!!

When my children were infants, I used this song as one of their lullabies. (I thought it long necked geese) I didn't know where I learned it from until tonight! Too funny.

[carlo3b]

Who else remembers this GEM?

[MadelineZapeezda]

I had a frunchroom, How 'bout youz guys?

[MadelineZapeezda]

I had a frunchroom, How 'bout youz guys?

[Charles Henrickson]

I'm guessing Franklyn MacCormack.

[Charles Henrickson]

Another Franklyn MacCormack link.

[tiamat]

Sorry Hon,

(and thanks AGAIN for the recipe! )

All i'm getting is a a blank download!

But I AM a Mac girl!

Tia

[JustPiper]

Thanx for the ping -smiles- I was so offended when I lived on the coast and people told me I was from Chicago! What does that mean and how did they know? I ain't got no stinkin' accent!

[JustPiper]

Hey, dey forgot pissgetti and cimmanon!

[stylin19a]

Exacly right. There is no "East Side" in Chicago.
I'm Nor"t"(hard "t") side Irish. The women in my family never referred to neighborhoods. It was always parishes. Tho I lived in the Diversy/Damen/Clybourn projects, my aunt would say I lived in St.Boniventure's parish.

[mhking]

I ain't got no stinkin' accent!

Nope, you just asked for pop or something...[g]

[mhking]

Maurice Lanell Butter Cookies. HUdson-3-2700. Bert Weinman your TV Ford Man. "How do you do, Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm Fahey Flynn." Hizzoner. Mike Royko. The Sun-Times in the morning and the Daily News in the afternooon. "The new 24-hour a day, Chicago Tribune..." Litton's (the only place to buy a suit). Weiboldt's. Goldblatt's. Riding down State Street at Christmas time to see the windows. The BIG tree at Field's. The mine and the submarine at Science & Industry. Moo & Oink ("It's bahbaque time!"). Wally Phillips. Flynn, Daly, Frink, Coleman: Channel 7 Eyewitness News. Driving on the expressway through the Post Office. Ed Vrodoliak.

[MinuteGal]

Let's not forget the great amusement park, Riverview (long demolished and the land developed).

The Bobs, Flying Turns, the Bluebird, Caterpillar, Aladdin's Castle, Mill on the Floss, the Parachutes and Shoot the Chutes, Two-Cents Days and Free Days.

It cost a whole dime from the suburbs to get there on the El with a transfer to a bus. A gaggle of us giggling, naive schoolgirls would go there often in the hopes of attracting the attention of the many sailors from Great Lakes Naval Station roaming about.

We didn't go to beauty shops in those days and wore icky clothes made by our mothers or we were attired in hand-me-downs from fat cousins.

With our lank hair, forbidden lipstick smeared on and general gawkiness, the sailors never gave us a second look. Of course, these very young, pimply-faced gobs were no prizes themselves. If they had even given us a second-look, we would have run like deer.

Leni

[Charles Henrickson]

I lived in the Diversey/Damen/Clybourn projects. . . .

That was the Lathrop Housing Projects, right? When I was young, I was sweet on an Italian girl who lived in those projects.

[TheRightGuy]

I don't think you can find a good beef even in the Chicago suburbs,

Joe Caputo's market/deli in Des Plaines. Buy fresh sliced roast beef out of their deli case and ask'em for da 'talian beef juice. They'll give you more'n nuf to toss in da crockpot along wit da beef. Even if you don't "personalize" wit a few extra spices of your own, it beats Al's or Portillo's hands down.

[TheRightGuy]

Let's not forget the great amusement park, Riverview

... and the early TV ads for it, featuring Dick "Two-Ton" Baker.

[Charles Henrickson]

Bert Weinman Ford, with late-night commercials by Linn Burton.

[Non-Sequitur]

Don't forget that nobody lives in Chicago. They live in Lincoln Park, Bridgeport, the Gold Coast, Humbolt Bark, Belmont Park, etc. And, more often than not, a person will identify the place where they grew up by the parish they were in. So they didn't grow up in Chicago or in Belmont Park, they grew up in Immaculate Conception.

BTW, I was born and raised on the North Shore.

[Non-Sequitur]

...Ed Vrodoliak....

How can you mention 'Fast Eddie' Vrdoliak without mentioning 'Slow Eddie' Burke?

[Non-Sequitur]

How about 'Hardrock and Cocoa and Joe' on Garfield Goose and Friends?