The Yarn Spinner

  DIBS –It’s a Chicago Thing                                                                                                                                                    "Dibs on that last slice of pizza!" "Dibs on the front seat. I called it." It is more than likely; you have heard expressions like these during your lifetime. Calling dibs means you have staked your claim and professed your right to something ahead of anyone else.( It is said the name is derived from an old children’s game, and you can Google it you like.) Dibs, however, becomes especially meaningful to Chicago residents in the winter months.   If lived in Chicago   and your vehicle, parked in the front of your home, was buried   by fallen snow, perhaps augmented by the passing of a beefy plow-equipped MAC truck, the dibs system came into play. Ever since His Honor the late Mayor Richard J. Daley urged citizens to help shovel the streets during the Great Storm of 1967 (and we did), Ch

                     Where is Ms. Francis When You Need Her?   A friend and former co-worker, Ron Collin, would occasionally spout this question when a grammatical error or some social misstep presented itself during our conversations. There were three of us (Ron’s) on the payroll and we liked to get together occasionally over coffee in the bank’s canteen – a space that left no room to swing a cat. We worked in a small bank in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood. The question itself was rhetorical and had no significance unless you were a “Baby-Boomer.” We all were. I attended a parochial elementary school on Chicago’s west side and Ron’s remarks would always conjure images in my mind of a young girl running through the school halls or the adjacent playground swinging a large brass school bell announcing classes were about to begin in the morning, cease at the end of the school day or resume after recess or lunch. An 8 th Grade girl was always selected for this duty. Girls went to c

  It’s In The Cards   Playing cards on the frontline  has always been part of a soldier’s life. It was the simplest way to pass the time and to get your mind off the stressful everyday life in the war zone. In WW I, the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC) realized this, and started producing card decks, affordable to soldiers who were going overseas to Europe, to fight on the Western Front. Since then, the U.S. Army cooperation with the United States Playing Card Company has gone a long way, but it was the company’s brand Bicycle that took this cooperation to a whole new level. During WW II, Allied intelligence officers contacted USPCC’s Bicycle brand  in order to produce the most clandestine deck of cards in history. What the British and American intelligence agencies had in mind was to produce a deck of cards that included a hidden map, showing escape routes, directions, and valuable tips and other information which might help an escapee reach friendly lines or cross  into a n

  A Box of Cards   A deck of playing cards is not just a box filled with fifty-two pieces of cardboard. These playing cards can become your friends in a card game, your accomplices in a magic trick, remind you of your travels, represent a prized addition to your card deck collection – and even represent something much bigger.   “Museum Room,”   is a misnomer used by our children to refer to the place in our home we call a parlor (“Frunch Room” in Chicagoease) because inside you can find assorted antiques, militaria from three wars,   an operating 1928 Candlestick Telephone, a restored 1936 Philo console radio, and other memorabilia. Some rearranging was needed recently in the parlor to find a place for Christmas decorations and it was then that I picked up my deck of vintage   Chicago and Northwestern Railway playing cards.( The card deck was a gift from my father-in-law, “ Dad. ”) At one time, railroads provided playing cards to riders as a complimentary item to entertain the