Not Your Average Joe

Not Your Average “Joe”

 

Back in the 1950s, television was beginning to shape kids’ minds in living rooms across America. (Front rooms if you lived in Chicago.) Educational programming was a mixed bag, but for many of us, it was our first taste of learning outside a physical classroom.

 We started our days with Ding Dong School, where Miss Frances gently welcomed us with teacherly kindness. (Yea- teacherly is a real word.) Then came Romper Room, with “Miss Nancy” or “Miss Mary Ann” calling out names in the Magic Mirror and reminding us to “Do Bee good” and “Don’t Bee naughty.”

Captain Kangaroo followed, mixing storytelling with science and good manners. The Mickey Mouse Club had its Mouseketeers, teaching us songs and wholesome values. And then there was Watch Mr. Wizard, where science experiments sparked wonder and were just doable enough to try at home (assuming you had a willing parent and a chemistry set).

The Pinky Lee Show brought comedy and energy but still snuck in lessons on right and wrong. And who could forget Kukla, Fran, and Ollie or Howdy Doody—shows full of puppets, clowning, and the occasional moral hidden in the fun?

Yes, I watched them all. Maybe you did too. But for me, “real“ learning didn’t happen in front of the TV.  It came from what I call Garage School.

 

I grew up in Chicago—the city with more nicknames than some cities have neighborhoods: the Windy City, Chi-Town, Hog Butcher, the City That Works... and though few know it, the Alley Capital of the U.S. With over 1,900 miles of alleys, each eighteen feet wide, these backstreet corridors were more than just places for garbage bins and utility poles—they were where we grew up.

 

I lived in the alley, in spirit if not address. So did every kid on the block. The alley was our playground, our clubhouse, and—when we built elaborate “forts” in empty lots, peered into open garages, other backyards or workshop sheds—our classroom.

We played kick-the-can, touch football, and hide-and-seek. That was our recess. The learning came when we poked our heads into someone’s garage and asked, “Hey Mister______ what are you doing?” More often than not, he’d show us. And if we looked eager enough, he’d even let us help.

By the time I was 12, I knew the 3-2-1 formula for mixing concrete and how to pour it, and how to side a garage. Mr. Narocki, who everyone called Joe, was the “Mister Rogers” of the block. He loaned us tools, showed us how to use them and taught us and his own children wood working: how to turn an apple crate, some 2x4s, and an old roller skate into a scooter or make bird houses. He helped us carve little toy boats and rigg them with rubber band propellers. And in a world unimaginable by today’s standards, Joe, a Korean War vet, even taught us respect for firearms. He kept a bolt-action Mauser from WWII in his shed—no ammo—and patiently explained gun safety, sighting, and how to disassemble and clean it. (To this day, I could strip and reassemble that rifle blindfolded.)

In the alley, I learned how to wax a car, re-pack wheel bearings, use jack stands, hold a timing light for tune-ups, change oil and remove a flat without tossing all the lug nuts into the snow like in Christmas Story. I helped ( a little)  a neighbor build a full wooden boat from scratch, right there in his garage. I learned what it meant to work with your hands, to take pride in what you built.

And yes, I learned to shoot—well, kind of. I traded for a Daisy pump-action BB rifle (cue the “You’ll shoot your eye out!” warning). My friends and I lined up discarded soda bottles on top of 55-gallon oil drums, adjusted the sights (thanks, Mauser training), and took turns “busting the bottles” from fifty feet. Smash the glass, flip the lid—it all dropped cleanly into the barrel below. Neat. Efficient. Almost like we knew what we were doing. Then someone found more bottles, and it was time to reload.

 

Garage School even took us on field trips. Joe packed a group of us into his station wagon and drove us to the forest preserve. We roasted hot dogs on sticks, tossed foil-wrapped potatoes into the fire, and  watched as he showed us how to make a whistle from a tree branch.

Joe was more than a neighbor. He was our teacher, mentor, and role model. He wasn’t just some guy tinkering in his shed—he was building ideas, dreams, and confidence in the minds of a few lucky kids.

In the summer, we’d wait for him to walk home from the bus stop, trailing behind the sound of him whistling a tune from Your Hit Parade. And when he turned the corner, everything felt just a little brighter.

Joe didn’t need a classroom or a chalkboard—just a shed, a few curious kids, and a heart big enough to make each of us feel like we mattered and worthy of learning how he did his magic tricks.

He may have looked like just an average Joe. But to us, he was anything but.

As a kid, watching the garbage men labor in the heat of the summer months  was a living tutorial. It taught me the importance of getting a good education. I learned another lesson as well: compassion  when my grandmother came up to me with  ice cold glasses of water.

Proszę dać im wodę  (Polish)

Give the water to them please.

She did this often.

No bottled water then. You got it from the kitchen tap, a public “bubbler” or if you were a kid, often from the end of a garden hose.

Meme:

Idealized role modeling is when we take bits and pieces—traits, values, and habits—from different people we admire and stitch them together into the kind of person we hope to become. I did that with Joe, my own father,  several uncles, and some standout teachers. Each of them gave me something—a lesson, an example, a way of carrying oneself. I took the best of what I saw and tried to shape myself into a father my children could be proud of.

Whether I succeeded or not… well, that’s for them to decide.

Today, I’m just grateful for the men who quietly showed me the way.

Happy Father’s Day.