Two weekends ago, I was stuck in traffic in a cab on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. All the stoplights were flashing red, and police wardens were waving crowds through the intersections and into Grant Park for the annual Polish parade.
The Lexis SUV in front of us was flying three flags: two Polish flags, one Stars and Stripes.
“My grandmother came here from Poland,” the cabbie said. “She made history. She went to work for the Bell System, as an operator.
“She was the first telephone Pole.”
I couldn’t read the name on his medallion, but he said his daughter lives in Littleton and is a true-blue Cubbies fan who named her kids Addison and Clark. So, if you’re reading this, your dad looks good and is still making groaner jokes.
Chicago nearly pegs the meter on the Polishness scale, with more Polish speakers than Krakow, Poland’s second-largest city. Only Warsaw has more Poles than Chicago.
A quarter-million people come out these days for the parade, which runs through Grant Park along Columbus Drive. The Polish Constitution Day Parade has been held for 115 years in Chicago, gradually moving from a neighborhood shindig in Humboldt Park on the near northwest side into a citywide celebration with pride of place along Lake Michigan.
An early democracy
The Polish Constitution was established May 3, 1791, only the second democratic constitution in the world, right behind the United States. That government lasted only four years, and the Polish people have had their share of being kicked around by superpowers. Every May 3 they wave the Orzel Bialy, the White Eagle, and proclaim that Polonia – the Polish Nation – is still here. Three years ago, we stumbled onto the parade entirely by accident.
Doug’s mother went to college and art school in Chicago, and frequent visits were a hallmark of his childhood. On our first trip together, the Art Institute was a required stop to show me the paintings he had grown up with.
We walked out the back door of the Institute right into the teeth of the parade: a beer truck festooned with flags and blaring Polish pop music, little girls in flowery costumes, boogeying high schoolers wearing Team Polska football scarves, the Holy Trinity Parish marching band, the Polish American Police Association, International Polish Nurses and Midwives Association and various Polish language schools where kids spend Saturdays learning their native tongue.
All around us were people in red and white waving red-and-
white flags, hoisting their little red-and-white clad grandkids onto their shoulders to wave at the guy driving the beer truck.
Doug turned to me with an enormous grin and said, “Is this a great country or what?”
In industrial southern Connecticut, most of my friends’ grandparents were first- or second-generation European immigrants who lived in “the neighborhood” in Waterbury or New Haven, where each ethnic group had its own church, school, eating places, stores and social clubs.
But to my German-surnamed father, whose World War II experience flying bombing runs over Karlsruhe was still relatively fresh, being German was a problem, not a heritage to brag about. So I had nothing more ethnic to share with my friends than grilled cheese sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies. D’Amato took pity on me one weekend and enlisted her mother to teach me how to make tomato gravy.
Because I participated only in the traffic jam and missed the actual parade this year, I checked it out later online and learned a lot from the commentary of Justine Jablonska, who said she had been part of the parade since age 6. Despite being afraid to go over the river bridges on State Street, she had marched with the Polish Scouts down one of the old parade routes in hand-embroidered traditional dress.
“When you wear them you just feel so beautiful and so special because you know it’s a part of your heritage,” she said of the elaborate costumes.
Chicago’s primary Polish neighborhood is Bucktown/
Wicker Park, now a happy stew of immigrant old and yuppie new, near the intersection of North, Milwaukee and Damen avenues. Here you can visit the Polish Museum at 984 N. Milwaukee Ave. to see Paderew-
ski’s piano, or wander the streets, listen to the voices and munch on poppyseed cake.
But who needs a museum when it’s a beautiful Saturday morning and the culture is alive and well near the Buckingham Fountain, eating a kielbasa and waving at the Channel 7 float, topped with anchorwoman Linda Yu, flying the red-and-white Polish colors?
Is this a great country, or what?
Lisa Everitt is a freelance writer who lives in Arvada.
The details
Watch an hour of the Polish Constitution Day Parade on WLS-TV- Channel 7’s website, with color commentary from Alan Krashesky and Justine Jablonska: abclocal.go
.com/wls/story?section=communi
ty&id=4122035
The Chicago Cultural Center (77 E. Randolph St., 312-744-6630) offers walking tours of the city’s many ethnic and historic neighborhoods, including the Chicago Office of Tourism Visitor Information Center. Open Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday 11 a.m.-5 p.m. egov.cityofchicago.org/city/webportal/portalEntityHomeAction.do?entityName=Cultural+Center&entityNameEnumValue=128.
The Polish Museum (pma.prcua.org, 773-384-3352) at 984 N. Milwaukee Ave. has been around since 1935 and offers a 60,000-volume library and a huge photo archive in addition to exhibits, workshops and a prime spot in the Bucktown neighborhood.
Hungry for a taste of Poland, or Chicago, or both? Visit bobak.com, the online home of Bobak’s Market, and order marinated mushrooms, beets with horseradish or sausage.
Three words: mail order pierogies: polana.com/product_details.aspx?id=123&cid=16
Can’t wait? Good Polish chow is available at two Arvada businesses, the White Eagle Polish Deli (6510 Wadsworth Blvd., 303-423-4870) and the Royal Bakery (9606 Ralston Road, 303-940-2065).
