A palaverous endeavor that was shrouded in lore since its inception, “The Wide Lawn” column started in the Chicagoland Daily Harbinger in 1977 and continued until its authors ‘death’ a few years ago.
When it comes to ‘The Wide Lawn’ it is ill-advised to put too confident a point on factual data such as ‘author’ and ‘death’, considering that it is widely believed to have been the combined product of several sorcerers. These may have included Teddy Roland, Molly Idle, Patrick Fitzgerald, and Walter Blum among many others. Indeed it has been said that the column that never really had a single parent could never really die.
Alas, it has not taken up an inch of space in the Harbinger’s layouts since at least 2019.
Diligent archivist I am not, but during some recent diggings amongst my dear old grandad’s papers, I found this slim pip of a piece from that old jovial drunkboat. I share it with you now. Slainte.
I have received by the mail, just this morning, a dreadful bit of news. In another daily (I won’t deign to say which) I have read an article claiming that my beloved St. Destitute’s will have to merge with the hated, neighboring St. Prosperitous of the Unimaginative. Pardon me, your holiness, but HWHAT…in seven hells?!
How quick are you to forget that Destitute’s has been the community that raised not one but three of the city’s best flautists, the terrifying yet sublime Michael O’Flatley, and more bunco artists of international quality than any milieu save Gutfreund’s 1 New York Plaza and the Rialto Bridge.
I was brought in, after much angry dispute, to talk some sense to you, your sweet precious eminence.
What is it, you think the diocese can gain by cutting off one of its truest founts of culture, no matter how gilt, how ramshackle, how expensive, how, to be honest, rickety, it may be, just to save a season’s worth of the coins left or unleft by its patrons?
Your request to correct ‘patrons’ to ‘parishioners’ being heard in advance, what can your judgements of the sturdy ole congregation be that have guided you to such Neronic edicts?
While we wait for your no doubt considerable and considered reasons, your worship, allow me to share the most salient bit of wisdom from the unscientific poll of pew fillers we conducted before printing: My Lord, don’t you dare forsake me.