What Would Mike Say?
Books play an important role in our house: each room except the kitchen and bathrooms accommodate crowded bookshelves — -there is no bookshelf or magazine rack next to the commode. Why sit on a cold, uncomfortable seat, pants dropped around your ankles, and read? I’d choose a nice easy chair, a cup of coffee nearby, thank you very much.
My wife is a voracious reader. Linda can read a book a day if she can find time between taking care of the animals — 2 dogs, 3 cats, and me — cooking, cleaning, gardening, shopping, and a host of other tasks that catches her interest (she calls them projects, and each have babies).
Even after a twelve hour day, she’ll sit on the couch — dogs snoring and twitching at her feet, me the same thing in bed — and read. 1AM and she’ll doze, head drooping and hands dropping; 1:15AM, eyes bounce open, hands lift, and she’s reading. She can devour a book like I can devour a carrot cake.
I bought my wife a book, One More Time, by Mike Royco for her birthday last year; she’s read it twice. More than once I’ve had to squeeze in ear-plugs to drown out her laughter from the living room at midnight (maybe it was 2AM; I was kinda groggy).
Mike Royco was a Chicago newspaper columnist from 1963 until 1997. He started out writing a column for the The Daily News, then other Chicago papers, and finally he was syndicated throughout the country.
I had never read his columns, or if I had, it was by accident and only a time or two. But I wanted to after hearing my wife having such a good time.
For Christmas I gave Linda Mike’s second book (also a collection of his columns), For The Love of Mike. I confiscated One More Time and started to read.
Mike Royko is funny, irreverent, crass, poignant, insightful (did I mention funny?), will lambast police chiefs and politicians — -Mayor Daley was a favorite — -and offend anybody and everybody at least once.
He’ll make you angry, he’ll make you chortle and even guffaw once in a while. His words are cutting, biting, as sharp as a butcher’s knife and as soft as butter in July.
He’ll poke fun at you, himself, your neighbor, your father and mother, and your sister. He’ll banter with the Irish about drinking beer, the Scots about their taste for Haggis, and anyone and anything that suited his fancy on a given day.
He’s from Chicago: he loves the Cubs, he hates the Cubs, and by-the-way, stop razing all the quaint old buildings downtown to put in high-rise “projects,” thank you very much.
He’s for the little guy, you and me, and against dishonest money-hungry big business and politicos with their right hand in your pocket while waving to PTA members with their left.
He aims at the perpetrators, and fires off witty and to-the-bone truths about hatred and injustice. He finds it everywhere, and not only in Chicago. His camera is our lens, and we are his target.
His topics are as crystallized and appropriate today as they were when originally written — -you see, his hand monitored the pulse of humanity, society, and not time.
He was just a regular guy, and funny. He’s worth reading for a study in style, humor, audacity, humility, and longevity. And just ’cause it’s fun.
In the current political and social climate, I wonder what Mike would say?
See you on the next page,
Rick
Writing Links: This week’s links are all about Mike
Mike Royko’s Books
Mike’s Quotes
Obit
If you enjoyed this article, Sign up to follow Knights of Writ — Fiction Musings, and receive all future posts in your email. SHARE with fellow writers, and as always, comments are encouraged and highly appreciated.
