Chapter One

My Story

Chicago, 1984

The borrowed moving truck pulled up to a small rented house in Romeoville, IL, located twenty-six miles southwest of Chicago. Our new house on Kingston Street was a small white ranch-style, not particularly well-built, with a family room added to the back as an afterthought. That family room was never even close to the right temperature, as the thin windows and insulation were inadequate to ward off the piercing Chicago winter winds, while in the summer, the air conditioner had no chance of keeping up.

At the time, Romeoville was a somewhat dingy working-class neighborhood, but it was the only place we could afford. The town is framed by a sprawling prison complex on the south side of town called Statesville (the site of the 1948 Jimmy Stewart movie,Call Northside 777) and a smoke-spewing oil refinery on the east. Not long after we arrived, the refinery had an accident and exploded in a huge fireball. The reverberations ripped through the small town, breaking windows and rippling the sidewalks under our kids’ feet as they played outside. I heard the explosion at work. Although ten miles away, it sounded like it was right next door.

President Reagan kept talking about theShining City on a Hill. The Bears were dancing to theSuper Bowl Shuffle. Kathy and I drove into town searching for a new start, hopeful that the big-city karma Reagan was talking about would rub off on us. We prayed that we could find some new life.

At age thirty, we came with heavy hearts and empty pockets. The insurance company I worked for had been sold, and my job would not survive the change. Although Springfield, Illinois had been a great place to grow up, the past few years had been difficult. There was an energy crisis, interest rates had spiked to over 20 per cent and job opportunities were limited. This was an enormous disappointment for me because I had always assumed Springfield would be the place Kathy and I would raise our children, cultivate successful careers, and find happiness. Instead it felt like the opposite was happening.

I found work in Chicago with a family-owned retailer that sold tools, furniture, and knick-knacks. My job was to help run one of their retail stores and do some outside marketing for the business. It was a disaster. The goods were cheap and customer returns were piling up. The husband and wife owners fought often. I was miserable, and the personal and professional pride I so desperately craved was rapidly draining away. I was unhappy with all of it… the products, the work environment, the neighborhood, and my own work.

One day Kathy came to meet me for lunch at a local Arby’s. That’s all we could afford. I just unloaded. “How in the world did we get here? Why are things not going right? What was I doing wrong?”

I asked but there were few answers. In that moment, we both recognized that the move to Chicago—which we hoped would bring a better future for our family—was not going as planned.

I was unhappy and depressed, and my work reflected both. Finally, things came to a head. After just over one year on the job, I was terminated with three weeks’ severance pay. That w