40 years ago

How to condense a night’s work into 60 busy minutes: Follow police officers Jack Conklin and Howard Sawusch in this re-creation of a Sunday evening. It all began when they answered an attempted suicide call. A young lady had locked herself in her car. She must’ve meant business because she kept the pedal to the floorboard. Despite the roar of the engine, and threat from gas fumes, the men broke into her garage and locked car to safely remove the woman for turnover to E.M.T.’s.

Before they could fill out their report, a second call arrived telling them a fight had broken out at Miller Meadow. On arriving, they saw “20 or so” people engaged in a free-for-all. It was later determined that the fight erupted between members of two families. Conklin and Sawusch had just called for back-up when they received a third call informing them of a robbery at a grocery store in Maywood, and that the culprits’ car was heading their way. A short high-speed chase down Roosevelt Road led to the curbing of the vehicle. Finally, a low-speed delivery of the wrongdoers to the Maywood police station. The paperwork got tended to over the next hour or so.

From the May 20, 1970 Forest Park Review

30 years ago

Just to be different I used to tell people that I was not born, but harvested in a dirt lot in Yonkers, N.Y. Well, that just wasn’t so. I was gently delivered of a loving, nurturing, sweet-tempered mother, just like you.

It’s a different story with giraffes though. In July, of 1980 a giraffe named Dawn at Brookfield Zoo was ready to birth. For some insane reason, God – or the Great Giraffe in the Sky – deemed it proper for the leggy newborn to be dropped from a standing mama height. Poor planning, but a sight to see! (The mama’s gestation period is 14 ½ months – about what it must seem like for most women.) After a 7-foot drop the spindly joy bundle soon wobbled to a standing position in search of milk for its 72-inch self. It weighed in at about 2,000 ounces.

These bespotted leaf-eaters must surely be the mascot of many a Tall Peoples’ Social Club. Acrophobia isn’t a problem, since they conquered fear of height early on. Crash helmets had been suggested by animal lovers but, in truth, never caught on. Those long lashes and little forehead prongs always get in the way. Yet, aside from its lofty birth, our good friend the giraffe can make a swell pet. It hardly ever makes a noise, and helps keep your lawn trimmed. Can you say the same for your neighbor?

From the May 7, 1980 Forest Park Review

20 years ago

Has it been 20 years since Sammy Davis Jr. left us? The supercharged singer-actor-dancer left us in 1990. Besides family and personal friends, he also left a brotherhood of his professional peers. One of these was from Forest Park, Dominic “Mickey” Simonetta, 63, himself a worthy percussionist with a paper trail of backing performers like Billie Holiday, June Christy and Anita O’day. When not doing gigs at such Rush St. and Near North venues as the Blue Note, London House, Mister Kelly’s and the Black Orchid, he held a position at the J. Walter Thompson Advertising Agency.

From the May 30, 1990 Forest Park Review.

10 years ago

Yet another match-the-word-to-the-movie quiz.

Extra credit for the actor or character who spoke the line.

From the Private Files of a Movie Maven

  • “Who are those guys?” 
  • “If you build it, they will come.” 
  • “I’m in Pittsburgh and it’s rainin.” 
  • “I dunno … whada you wanna do tonight?”

  • Marty … Ernest Borgnine
  • Requiem For a Heavyweight … Anthony Quinn / Mountain Rivera
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid … Paul Newman to Robert Redford
  • Field of Dreams … (disembodied voice)