Chicago Street Kid: On My Own
An Autobiography: 1964-1969By Robert M. Katzman350 Pages
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“I was on my own...until
a one-legged, one-armed
wraith of a man, born in 1896, became my mentor.”
Inventing a life where words mattered; I’d been accepted to the prestigious University of Chicago Laboratory High School – but only if I could pay my own way. As I currently had nothing at all, I asked to meet with the Lab School Director. I requested of this the tall serious man in his three-piece suit, (me, a kid of 14 in jeans and a T-shirt) if he would agree to let me go to his school and pay the first year's tuition back before I graduated? I told him I had to find a job first.
He stared down at me, evidently sizing up the boy. Then he said, "So, you promise, young man?" I said I did, and the 60-something man and the 14-year-old boy shook hands. It was life changing. He trusted me when I had nothing and it gave me hope.
It was the last place I graduated from, and yes, the University of Chicago Bursar's Office got their money in May, 1968. Seven months later, at 18, I was found to have cancer in my face. That would end my brief year in college. I began reading, never stopping for 55 years and have educated myself completely with what matters to me. No degree to prove it, but now, it really doesn't matter.
Also, though I was very much part of Mayor Richard J. Daley's infamous "Chicago Machine", nevertheless, on the day before my 18th birthday, two plainclothes cops mistook me for a thief they badly wanted and beat the living hell out of me. The story is in book 2, but I can't read it even today 55+years later. If ever there was a bizarre Kafkaesque situation, it was on April 29, 1968.
He stared down at me, evidently sizing up the boy. Then he said, "So, you promise, young man?" I said I did, and the 60-something man and the 14-year-old boy shook hands. It was life changing. He trusted me when I had nothing and it gave me hope.
It was the last place I graduated from, and yes, the University of Chicago Bursar's Office got their money in May, 1968. Seven months later, at 18, I was found to have cancer in my face. That would end my brief year in college. I began reading, never stopping for 55 years and have educated myself completely with what matters to me. No degree to prove it, but now, it really doesn't matter.
Also, though I was very much part of Mayor Richard J. Daley's infamous "Chicago Machine", nevertheless, on the day before my 18th birthday, two plainclothes cops mistook me for a thief they badly wanted and beat the living hell out of me. The story is in book 2, but I can't read it even today 55+years later. If ever there was a bizarre Kafkaesque situation, it was on April 29, 1968.
