I saw the Pope in 1979, when he came to visit the Catholics in Chicago.
From the top of my newsstand at Randolph and Michigan, right in front of the old Chicago Library.
It was really an amazing site, looking down over the heads of at least a hundred thousand Catholics, waiting for the Pope-mobile to pass by.
Considering the terrors of my earlier life in a small Jewish community on the south side of Chicago, completely surrounded by sometimes hostile Irish Catholics, I felt totally at ease. I might not have been the only Jew in that sea of the faithful that cold Saturday, but I sure didn’t see any others pass by my newsstand.
But there wasn’t going to be any trouble that day. Everybody there was on their best behavior, waiting to be blessed by the Pope. I don’t think anybody was going to take a chance on burning in Hell in Eternal Damnation by picking on the solitary Jew near their vast outdoor Mass that day, considering that their Savior had a Bar Mitzvah, too, just like me, and He might not like it.
It sure was an exciting and historic day for the city, and I was really happy to just be there and be part of it.
But I almost missed it.
Because I almost lost that fabulous newsstand.
It’s really quite a story, with my own personal savior, although, not Jesus in this case.
No…not exactly like…Jesus Christ…at all.
Still…
Maybe…I better go back to the beginning, before I bought that stand, two years earlier.
*** (Read on …)