Moving away from the only people and places I had ever known was difficult. The summer of 1958, just before entering 8th grade and a classroom filled with strangers, marked a personal time line for me. The time line began with meeting a skinny, olive skinned neighbor. "Hi, I'm Randy Mercein," he said, his dark brown eyes immediately revealing an enthusiastic curiosity for whatever comes next.

"T. J. Dunn," I said. "I just moved to Hubbard Woods from New York state." And just as if we had always known each other, off we went on a trip of our own. Our friendship took us to places real and imagined. Our time together lasted a mere five fast years... eighth grade through high school.  But Randy's zest for living life to the fullest, for filling his time with activities and humor and fun was always present.  His imagination filled up otherwise spare time. Before it was a confirmed disposition, we both probably exhibited signs of ADHD... attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He found in me an eager partner in creating comedic skits and pranks.   I am prompted to write a few recollections here... for myself and for anyone interested in knowing Randy a little better.  He passed away in 2007.

On occasion we would sneak on to local golf courses early in the morning and play until we got discovered and kicked off.  The caretaker would always ask us our names and I'd always answer T. J. Dunn; Randy Mercein would answer Melvin Kosnofsky.   During high school at New Trier in Winnetka, Illinois, trips downtown to Chicago were always an adventure.  Taking advantage of our universal excuse for any odd or illegal behavior (that we were "juveniles" and not adults yet), we would bravely enter buildings and wander around just to see whatever would present itself.  Forays into the subterranean pressrooms of the Chicago Tribune building were our favorite excursions.  We would walk around as the newspapers were rolling along the conveyors and we'd talk to the workers in the noisy, inky-dark press setting rooms.  Once in a while someone would ask "How'd you fellas get in here?"  We knew a back door in the alley that led downstairs to the basement, a door the average person would have no interest in even trying to open.

Once a year we would take the elevator up to the Top Of The Rock restaurant in then Chicago's tallest building... the Prudential Building overlooking Grant Park.  Then we'd descend the forty flights of stairs via the door marked FIRE ESCAPE.  It was good exercise and after the first time we did it became much more fun because as we descended we knew we were setting off all kinds of alarms and that a sizeable party of uniformed men would be waiting for us.  Melvin Kosnofsky had a knack for pleading innocent to any knowledge that our trespassing was a bother to anyone.

O'Hare airport was a treasure of entertainment and was a target for many excursions in search for adolescent escapades and even to watch planes come in from the observation deck.  It was a simpler time, back in the Sixties, when we would walk into parked airplanes well before any passengers were scheduled to board.  We would talk to the pilots and generally make ourselves at home.  On one memorable late night occasion I had the pleasure of following Randy down a few flights of stairs clearly marked No Admittance and out onto the asphalt tarmac.  We had discovered a new entertainment... walking right out into the area reserved for ground crew and planes only.  As we wandered about in the darkness an aircraft landed and began to taxiing in.  It headed slowly but surely right at us.  The floodlights from the aircraft lit us and the tarmac up, plain as day.  "Time to scram!" I yelled at Randy.  When I looked back over my shoulder he was all by himself, a gyrating black human silhouette surrounded by the brilliant light from the plane, dancing the Twist just as if he was at a sock hop.

We lived across the street from each other, close enough that each other's brain waves often synchronized.  Innumerable times over the years we would happen to call each other at the same time; one would pick up the phone and the other would be on the line, intercepted before any dialing was done.
"Hello".
"Hello?!"
"Randy?"
"T. J.?!"
Then we'd laugh, again, and forget why we called.  We made up reasons why the other person was already on the line such as "I'm still on from last night's call, just haven't hung up yet" or "You answered too fast!  Now hand up and let it ring before you answer it."

After graduation from New Trier High School in 1963 life's paths led us separate ways.  The summer of 1963 I took off on a solitary odyssey in my '47 Ford that Randy baptized "The Blue Pig" and ended up washing dishes in Jackson, WY for 90 cents an hour... my last stand before entering the adult population at the University of Illinois.  Randy headed east in preparation for college football at the University of Pennsylvania.

I'll share a few of the memories I play in my mind of our time together; for each there are dozens of others that remain too dim to bring to words...

Missing the class trip...
Sacred Heart school in Hubbard Woods planned a yearly field trip for the eighth graders and our year the trip was to Wisconsin for the day.  Randy and I spent some time planning our own strategies for the trip; we were really looking forward to this event.  So were the nuns that ruled over us.  The only thing that would prevent anyone from going was to accumulate 10 demerits during the semester.  Only three guys failed to make the trip... Jeff Markey, T J Dunn and Randy Mercein.  We felt there must have been a conspiracy among the nuns to make sure we had at least ten demerits each just so that the class trip would be a success.  We made our own fun that day cleaning the school gym and shooting baskets all day.

Spending money...
Every now and then Randy would tell me he was supposed to get a haircut and asked when I could do it. We thought we had a little scam going because he would take the six bucks his parents would give him for the barber, come across the street to my basement whereupon I'd drape a towel around his neck and shoulders, get out my dad's "home barber kit" and proceed to give him a professional haircut. Three bucks stayed in his pocket for entertainment (eggs at midnight at The Toddle House) and three bucks for me, the basement barber.

Reflecting on this subterfuge I strongly suspect that Randy's patient and understanding parents suspected that someone other than a licensed barber was involved.  The most important people in our lives, our parents, gave us a long leash. Randy's parents, Mary and Tom, shared with my parents, Tom and Honee, a basic trust in us that any misbehavior was always done with some degree of judgment.  They had confidence that whatever trouble we got into or Tom Sawyer-Huckleberry Finn shenanigans we conjured up, our escapades would be performed at a level consistent with harmless, youthful pranks. We broke no significant laws and never intentionally harmed people or property.

A new chef at the Toddle House...
One night about 10:00 p.m. we stopped in at the Hubbard Woods Toddle House, a tiny eatery with no tables, just a row of swivel stools up against a low, narrow counter. Seating a maximum of 12 people the Toddle House often had a staff of one... same person took your order, quickly put it together, served it and then disappeared into the backroom to do dishes or smoke a Chesterfield.  This particular evening Randy and I thought a plate of greasy bacon and eggs would be good. Four or five patrons were seated, two of whom were grumbling about the slower than usual service. We found two adjoining stools, sat down and waited. Nothing happened. More grumbles and a few shouts to the back room drew no attention to the annoyed patrons.

Randy got up, walked back to the Employees Only area and started laughing. He peeked back at us, camped like dummies on our stools, and announced, "Nobody's here!"

He paused, eyes widening, and casually said, "I'll cook" and walked behind the counter and started taking orders. He actually got some eggs and toast started for us. I couldn't have laughed harder as stupefied, normal, would-be patrons, dulled by disbelief at what they just witnessed, filed out the door.  We never found out what happened to the cook but at least the eggs were done just right!

Home room entertainment...
Poor Mr. Paumer.  He was our unfortunate home room faculty advisor for four painful years.  Paumer's Playboys were unmerciful to this kind, soft spoken and meek man.  He really was challenged emotionally one day when Randy and a few other classmates lifted up his desk and positioned it half way out the window of the third floor home room.  On several occasions through the years Randy announced that he was taking over the home room for the fifteen minutes before classes started. Randy would rally us 32 guys to a high level of energy from laughing so hard... we were now thoroughly awake for first period class.  Poor Mr. Paumer. 

Breaking in...
We used to devise ways to "break in" to schools or gyms so that if we got bored over the weekend we had some place to work out, shoot some baskets, or play handball. We'd set things upon Friday afternoons, late in the school day, and unlock strategic windows and leave them opened just a crack. At our leisure under the cover of darkness we would enter the building and, also in darkness play basketball, lift weights, run, or partake of whatever athletic enterprise that availed itself.

The most fun entailed some climbing at New Trier High School. Squeezing through the ground level windows (our favorite entry point) we spent hours in the field house.  When a little handball was on the menu, we would sneak our way into the main building, exit a window onto a small back roof, climb up to a second roof, open the moveable cover that was directly over the walkway above the small handball courts. We'd drop through, walk down to the courts and play handball with old tennis balls we kept in our cars at all times. When it was time to go we'd simply exit the main door, just as if New Trier was our own private athletic club.

Sacred Heart grade school was easiest to get into but we needed to be vigilant for car lights in the alley because the cops routinely prowled the neighborhood looking for anything suspicious.

"Cops!" Someone would shout in full dribble down the darkened court, and all participants would dive for cover low against the wall below the windows that would brighten as the officer's light swept the building....just to be sure nothing was amiss.  Randy always found a way to make us all crack up with laughter just when we needed most to be quiet and under control.

Pool hopping on summer nights...
There were a number of nice swimming pools nestled behind some rather impressive homes in our neighborhood. Randy and I were often joined in some late night dips by other classmates, including girlfriends if we could convince them that absolute silence and self-control were imperative during a late night dip in someone else' backyard pool.   Invariably, we'd start out quiet as cats sneaking up on the prey; we would stash our jeans, shoes and shirts along our exit path to be grabbed on the run during an emergency escape.  Then, to the soft background chirping of crickets we would cautiously slip into the chlorinated water.  Floating around silently quickly lost its challenge, and the sound of our suppressed giggles and shhhing each other to be quiet grew in intensity.  It seemed only natural that Randy would slip out of the water, step on the diving board and launch a brilliant cannonball among the grinning group in the water. Absolute teenage mayhem would ensue!  A chorus of shut ups, loud shhhhs, let's get outta heres, shattered the tranquil summer night. The splashing akin to a swim team practice would accompany the now extra loud shouts of the participants. Inevitably, before the last of us escaped the pool, lights all over the adjacent house would sequentially flash on, which only hastened our run to the clothes. Led by Randy we'd mimic our real heroes and go into a Three Stooges mode.  We surely sounded like a pack of coyotes as we sang out "whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop,... ooh, wise guy, huh"!   We all ran off into the night, breathless from laughter and full of the mirth and joy that only teenagers get to experience.

which brings up the Three Stooges...
Curly, Larry and Moe were our heroes. Randy and I and a few other close pals learned the trio's moves, favorite sayings and voice inflections.  We practiced and perfected their antics, including the blocked-double-finger-poke to the eyes, the dead-chicken-circular-side-body-ground-scoot and the triple-face-slap-both-ways. With the wink of an eye or subtle voice inflection Randy could set off a series of Three Stooges antics among us stooge wannabes.

On a number of occasions through our years at New Trier Randy would instigate a hallway Three Stooges Show just outside the open door of a study hall full of students silently engaged in their academic pursuits. Once we got the attention of a few students we would launch into a routine of eye gouging, face slapping, head twisting shenanigans. Eventually, we got so many students laughing and pointing at us that we'd hear the determined footsteps of the study hall faculty monitor tracking toward the door. That was our cue to scram, which we did skipping and stumbling down the hallway yipping, "whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop" just like the Three Stooges running from the cops.

The onset of Randy's diabetes and the fire on Bareass Hill...
Our family had a cottage on Lake Wisconsin a few miles north of Lodi, WI and it was only a 2 ½ hour ride from Winnetka. Just after the ice left the lake in April of 1962 and before any summer cabins were occupied Randy and I decided to camp near the base of "Bareass Hill", an area by the lake at the base of the big hill that was devoid of homes or cottages. After Friday's classes we packed up our camping gear and headed north and eventually stopped at the General Store near the lake to buy a few provisions for our weekend. Randy kept asking me about doughnuts, candy bars and soda pop; I was interested in hot dogs, bacon, eggs, lunch meat for sandwiches. "We need lots of pop and doughnuts," he repeated.

Sitting by the campfire that night Randy asked me how many times I'd get up at night to urinate.
"None, why?" I answered.
"Geeze, I've gotta get up at least twice a night to go, sometimes three. Pass the freekin' doughnuts."
That night I could hear him outside the tent in the dark puking like a sick dog. Must have been all the pop and doughnuts I mused, and fully expected we would have to cancel our fishing in the morning.

As it turned out Randy felt fine in the morning but we caught no fish, due in part to the 40 mph wind. About noon we motored over to the Okee Snack Bar. We heard the sirens just as we were about to step inside.  We watched a few fire trucks scream by at full speed followed by several volunteer fire trucks with their sirens blasting followed by county police with their sirens going and rescue vehicles in hot pursuit with sirens screaming followed by numerous support vehicles.  An unhappy local old timer was standing at the door of the snack bar peering off over the water and as we passed him to enter the restaurant Randy asked, "What's that all about,"?

"Some damn campers again... never put their fires out" he mumbled, obviously annoyed.
"Oh" Randy said and walked in, sat at the bar and grabbed a menu. I got an uneasy feeling upon hearing sirens heading our way that they had to have something to do with us.  I stood next to the old timer and followed his gaze straight to Bareass Hill. Sure enough, it was ablaze!  This is not good, I thought, we might even miss lunch.
"Hey, Mer, come out here, quick"!
"Whaat? I'm hungry" he shouted back.
"I'm serious, get out here right away." 
I pointed at the growing cloud of smoke with flickering specks of orange at its base far off over the lake.
"See that fire over there?" I asked.
"What's that got to do with us?"
"That IS us!" I said, looking him squarely in the eyes. We discussed our options and debated our next move. Randy suggested a double cheese burger, fries, soda and pie for dessert.  I suggested we forego lunch, fess up and help the 25 fire fighters trying to put out our breakfast campfire. Later that day we called off our weekend fishing/camping trip and scurried home. On the drive we tried to outdo each other with various modified toned-down versions of the trip. We were back in Winnetka less than 24 hours after we left. Our dirty faces revealed tear tracks from laughing so hard at yet another memorable escapade.

We spoke briefly on Sunday about our crime and its consequences and traded see ya at school's. But Mer was absent from school Monday. I called Monday night and Randy's mom told me he got very sick Sunday so they took him to the hospital and found out he was severely diabetic... could've died.  No wonder he was preoccupied with loading up on sweets and was vomiting and urinating during the night.  Diabetes was to impact Randy the rest of his life but he seldom complained about all the injections, blood sugar fluctuations, and constraints it put on his athletic endeavors.

The hospital visit...
Randy was allowed visitors on Wednesday so I drove to Chicago's Columbus Hospital, a huge multistory building on the city's north side near Lake Michigan. I especially enjoyed the panoramic view from the rooftop. No, there was no observation deck and no designated lookout platform.  About two minutes after I greeted him in his hospital room he impressed upon me how bored out of his mind he was.  Randy begged me to sneak him out of there and take him home.  I said I would if he wasn't out by the weekend.  In the mean time he said he wanted to show me something, it was really cool, he said.  We took the elevator as high up as it would go. Then, still cloaked in a white hospital robe, pajamas and slippers he led me up a narrow stairway behind a nondescript wooden door.  It led to a push out hatch on the northern slope of the roof of Columbus Hospital.
"Cool!  How'd ya find this?" I asked in a congratulatory manner.
"The boredom is killing me so I've been exploring" said the diabetic patient.
I will forever vividly recall the vision of Randy Mercein, pajama pants hiding his hospital slippers and clad in his white hospital robe, walking around on the rooftop of Columbus Hospital, jabbering about getting back to school and working out and all the while the surreal background of Lake Michigan stretching off to the horizon to my left, innumerable buildings rising up to our level and miniature streets, cars and people down below. And this incredible guy who nearly died two days before was pacing about in a white robe cracking jokes and planning his next move.
 
I thought then, and I still think today..."Thanks for bringing me up here, Mer."

The cop and the street sign...
Late one warm and humid summer night we were walking home from town and were talking about the common custom among young boys to present their girlfriends with a street sign "customized" with her name. The Village of Hubbard Woods probably had a special tax fund set aside for replacing missing street signs that displayed, Carol Street, Sherry Street, Lynn Lane, etc.

I was happily spending time with Lynn Pirie and just knew she would be honored by hanging an official Lynn Street sign on the wall of her bedroom; and being somewhat naive I gave little thought to what her parents might think of "that nice boy T. J." for stealing civic property and converting it to a gift for their daughter. In fact, I did have quite strong pangs of conscience about removing our target atop the street post at the corner of Lynn Street and Vernon Avenue. It was, in fact, the only time I ever recall Randy and I doing anything truly unlawful or destructive. He, too, may have felt a bit uncomfortable about absconding with it, but our determination to being fully committed to living our fleeting youthful years permitted this small transgression.

So in the hazy, humid shadow-casting street light he climbed up on my shoulders, held the street post with his left hand to steady himself and with his right hand began to unscrew the decorative top bracket holding the signs in place. We struggled a bit and suppressed our laughter at what we must have looked like if anyone was watching. Suddenly, car lights flicked on just a block away and a spotlight cut a path through the haze highlighting Randy Mercein atop the shoulders of T. J. Dunn in the process of doing something to the street sign at 11:30 at night on the corner of Lynn Street and Vernon Avenue.

"Sheesh, it's a cop, Mer!  We're caught!  Where the heck did he come from?" And we knew there was no chance of escape through the numerous backyards and hedgerows that always provided safe concealment whenever we needed to disappear in a hurry. The patrolman coasted to a stop on the quiet, secluded street and to our surprised good fortune it turned out to be Officer Desmond, with whom, for several innocent reasons, we were on a first name basis.  There we stood, busted, in the dark of night with Randy atop my shoulders holding Lynn Street at his side, both of us sweaty and agitated from our work on the sign.
"Ok, guys, you know you're breaking the law stealing street signs and..."
Just as I was about to apologize and beg for mercy Randy broke in.
"What? Stealing it?" Randy queried as if he was shocked at what the officer assumed. "Officer Des, we were putting it back!  We fawned it (Randy always pronounced "found" as "fawned") on the ground here and we were putting it back up when you came by."  Incredible.  It was simply brilliant how fast Randy came up with that alibi. Instead of falling on my knees begging the officer for leniency all I had to do was merely nod affirmation of Randy's explanation for what we were doing.
"Uh huh," I mumbled and under the skeptical eyes of Officer Desmond we replace Lynn Street atop the post.  Randy and I had yet another notable event to log into our developing mind banks. Officer Desmond had another You won't believe this story about suburban kids; my conscience was now clear of any guilt for having stolen public property, and Lynn Pirie would have no personalized street sign adorning her bedroom wall.

The cop and the wrong name...
A few months after getting his driver's license Randy was driving the family car, a long white convertible fashionable for the early 60's, along Hibbard Road.  It was a long and narrow two lane strip that cut through several suburban neighborhoods. In front of us was a police car. Somehow Randy did not recognize it as such, due partly to poor vision but mostly because we were carrying on our usual non-stop banter about something important only to sixteen year old boys.  We were about 2 feet behind the squad car when Randy hit the gas, pulled out and passed the cop. As we sped by, the officer's eyes met mine and we both shared a shocked expression that clearly expressed "What the heck is he doing?!"

As Randy returned to the right-hand lane going about 55 in a 25 I calmly looked over to him and nonchalantly said, "Ya know, ya just passed a cop."
"Are you serious?" he asked in stark amazement.  Red flashing reflections from the rear view mirror painted his face as we pulled over. The astonished office asked the usual questions but couldn't read Randy's driver's license it was so worn out and dirty after only a few months of use.
"Randolph T. Mercein" Randy said when asked his name.  Scribbling the information onto a pad the officer queried "Is that Racine... R A C I N E", queried the officer.
"Yes, sir" Randy Mercein replied.
 It took all my strength not to bust out laughing; this guy has no fear, I thought. Randy stuffed the warning ticket in the glove compartment trash and we returned to the road. His response to me when I reminded him he let the officer misspell his name was, "Yea, so what?"  About two weeks later he had his eyes examined and discovered he nearly qualified as legally blind, which began a long career of misplacing his contacts.

Spit on a window...
"T. J., you're not going to believe what I did!  I've never been so embarrassed in my life!" Randy described being picked up by the mother of a very popular and desirable female classmate with whom he was on a first date. He was very ill at ease and uncomfortable as he made attempts at conversation. Sitting in the back seat next to this fabulous young lady Randy was trying to keep a conversation going... 
"I needed to spit really bad so I cranked the window down, leaned toward it a bit and let it fly. The only problem was I was so damn nervous I didn't realize the window was open and I actually cranked it up so when I spit this big gob splats onto the inside of the window and starts to run down it in long streaks!"  After congratulating him on making such a fine first impression I asked "So then what did you do?"
He replied "The only thing I could do; I wiped it off with my shirt sleeve."

The 50 yard line, Dyche Stadium...
Senior year in high school we decided we wanted to grab our sleeping bags and find some unusual and memorable place to sleep out. We had several times spent the night at the beach or in the Skokie Lagoons - a creepy public reserve with ponds and good fishing for stunted bullheads and ugly carp. We spent the night on Taylor's pier, a monstrous iron girder structure with a forty foot high sheet metal boat house that jutted about 500 feet out into Lake Michigan. It was a dangerous place even in the daytime where numbers of us teenagers would gather to climb, sun bathe and jump from a girder to the water forty feet below.  We tossed around several potential sleeping spots when Randy said, "How about the 50 yard line over at Northwester's football stadium?"
"Perfect", I said.

Climbing the fence in the dark was no problem, but doing it quietly was a challenge. We scouted the inner confines of the stadium and were satisfied we had it all to ourselves. "This is so cool" we kept repeating to each other. Surrounded by the concrete stands rising above us, the grassy field's expanse was exaggerated in the dim moonlight.  An eerie, empty silence surrounded us as we smoothed out our sleeping bags... dead center of the 50 yard line, Dyche Stadium, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.

We talked in a subdued tone because we didn't want to be discovered. Randy and I agreed that what we were doing was important - to us - to do now, before the dreaded time that we became adults.  Being an adult, we knew, would require certain structured responsibilities and behaviors and we were not looking forward to it.

"If we were adults we'd probably get jail time for trespassing if we get caught, T". Randy whispered. "We can get away with this kind of stuff now and they'll just say we're immature high school kids and then just kick us out."  We analyzed why we were here.  Our conclusion was so that someday, far off in the future when youth would be but a memory, we could tell people that one night we slept out on the 50 yard line of Dyche stadium.  For us, that was reason enough.

We talked most of the night, interrupted on several occasions by mysterious sounds that we thought for sure were the cops.  Laying there on our backs, looking up at the black, star speckled sky framed by the high walls of the stadium, we chatted about our future, college, girls, friends, girls, studies, careers, moving away from the North Shore, girls, having kids some day, playing college football, staying athletic and in good health, and girls...

We simultaneously awoke at dawn to the sight and sound of someone walking toward us; he was uniformed, had a gun on one hip, a club on the other and a German Shepard on a leash.  Although drowsy we clearly agreed we better not run this time. There is no place to hide in the middle of a football field.  As it turned out the security officer simply told us to leave and please don't do this again. It was a small price to pay for an experience that we could, for the rest of our lives, tell people we slept on the 50 yard line of Northwestern's Dyche Stadium.  Whether or not anyone would care was immaterial. We cared. We had a symbol of a single short event during the time of our youth that no matter how far into the future we'd go, we could point to it as a tangible, physical place and say, "years ago we were there."