Barney Borscht died just 11 minutes into his life, on the hospital bed, with his mother and Doctor looking on, in late April of 1940. Nobody around now who knew this family could remember the exact date of Barney's death. 
The church buried Barney in the cemetery annex of the Angel Guardian Orphanage, 6300 North Ridge. Today the orphanage is a Misercordia Home, and the cemetery still slopes down a hill onto a fairly quiet city street.
Barney's mother gave birth the following year to a healthy boy. She named him Bernie.
It wasn't until 1962, when Bernie, known then as Belmont Bernie, a famous pro Bowler and Billiard player, donated to the Angel Guardian Orphanage a baseball bat signed by Luke Appling of the Chicago White Sox. Bernie won it in a game of pool.
The idea was genuine enough, give back a little something to the Orphanage, something they could sell to help maintain the cemetery grounds. Yet, this was the one and only contact Bernie ever had to Barney. At that, the bat wasn't even worth that much. Sorry Luke.
So time passed, and Belmont Bernie could often be spotted at booth number two at the Pump Room. Further, Bernie, also a card shark, won the first color television ever to be plugged in to a Morton Grove home, in an all night game of stud poker. :grin-square:
Yet Belmont Bernie rarely held on to anything for long. He loved to barter, trade, and steal, because it's the rush of winning, the risk of losing it all that draws all those near do wells to the game. Bernie had a wife, but the wife wasn't important, not after he chased her and caught her. Of course what Bernie needed was the action, his only way in was all in, and this is not a 9 to 5 job, this is a 7 days a week, "Honey, I'll be home by eleven," career, so when Bernie gets home at 4am smelling of eggs and bourbon, well, that's Bernie.
This life, this life of chasing the next sure thing with the Ponies, another of Bernie's grand passions, this life of brushing sore elbows with Minnesota Fats, or dining with Bill Veeck, was all it was meant to be, never more. Definitely though, except a born loser, any half ass con man could play this game for decades without it being all or nothing.
That was Bernie's trick, he would win, and take two steps forward, and when he lost, it was just one step back. He was ahead often enough, and when he was behind, it wasn't long enough for his competition or those who championed him to take notice. Bernie was fine. Forty years he played the game. His world was easily seen from the rear view mirror of his Lincoln. :grin:
Time passed, and Bernie nearly bit it. There was the heart attack, the smokers hack, and the blown up liver. But he kept cleaning up at the tables, his wife long ago vanished to Miami with a chunk of his fortunes, and he sauntered home every night to the sounds of his own tuneful whistling.
He would come home just tipsy enough to be polite, and he would make himself a hot chocolate, and put on his robe. This night, Bernie's hair all white now, he remembered the date—April 24—and then it hit him—"that's right," he stammered, "That's it, all these years, that's Barney's birthday." The date just jumped out after all those years, but Bernie knew to seize the moment. He went right out the next day and bet on that horse at Arlington, #24—Appling's Avenger—and through his binoculars Belmont Bernie saw this magnificent thoroughbred place 1st.
It's only coincidence now, but when the robbers split Bernie's skull open with a baseball bat in the expansive parking lot that winning day, Barney was there, poking Bernie's hand, asking him:"Brother, how come you gave me such a nice bat, but never, ever had time to play ball with me?" Barney stared at Bernie, and then tossed a baseball into the air with his tiny hands, and skipped away.
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-091019-ghost-story-borscht,0,2257390.story [Retrieved 1 November 2009]
The church buried Barney in the cemetery annex of the Angel Guardian Orphanage, 6300 North Ridge. Today the orphanage is a Misercordia Home, and the cemetery still slopes down a hill onto a fairly quiet city street.
Barney's mother gave birth the following year to a healthy boy. She named him Bernie.
It wasn't until 1962, when Bernie, known then as Belmont Bernie, a famous pro Bowler and Billiard player, donated to the Angel Guardian Orphanage a baseball bat signed by Luke Appling of the Chicago White Sox. Bernie won it in a game of pool.
The idea was genuine enough, give back a little something to the Orphanage, something they could sell to help maintain the cemetery grounds. Yet, this was the one and only contact Bernie ever had to Barney. At that, the bat wasn't even worth that much. Sorry Luke.
So time passed, and Belmont Bernie could often be spotted at booth number two at the Pump Room. Further, Bernie, also a card shark, won the first color television ever to be plugged in to a Morton Grove home, in an all night game of stud poker. :grin-square:
Yet Belmont Bernie rarely held on to anything for long. He loved to barter, trade, and steal, because it's the rush of winning, the risk of losing it all that draws all those near do wells to the game. Bernie had a wife, but the wife wasn't important, not after he chased her and caught her. Of course what Bernie needed was the action, his only way in was all in, and this is not a 9 to 5 job, this is a 7 days a week, "Honey, I'll be home by eleven," career, so when Bernie gets home at 4am smelling of eggs and bourbon, well, that's Bernie.
This life, this life of chasing the next sure thing with the Ponies, another of Bernie's grand passions, this life of brushing sore elbows with Minnesota Fats, or dining with Bill Veeck, was all it was meant to be, never more. Definitely though, except a born loser, any half ass con man could play this game for decades without it being all or nothing.
That was Bernie's trick, he would win, and take two steps forward, and when he lost, it was just one step back. He was ahead often enough, and when he was behind, it wasn't long enough for his competition or those who championed him to take notice. Bernie was fine. Forty years he played the game. His world was easily seen from the rear view mirror of his Lincoln. :grin:
Time passed, and Bernie nearly bit it. There was the heart attack, the smokers hack, and the blown up liver. But he kept cleaning up at the tables, his wife long ago vanished to Miami with a chunk of his fortunes, and he sauntered home every night to the sounds of his own tuneful whistling.
He would come home just tipsy enough to be polite, and he would make himself a hot chocolate, and put on his robe. This night, Bernie's hair all white now, he remembered the date—April 24—and then it hit him—"that's right," he stammered, "That's it, all these years, that's Barney's birthday." The date just jumped out after all those years, but Bernie knew to seize the moment. He went right out the next day and bet on that horse at Arlington, #24—Appling's Avenger—and through his binoculars Belmont Bernie saw this magnificent thoroughbred place 1st.
It's only coincidence now, but when the robbers split Bernie's skull open with a baseball bat in the expansive parking lot that winning day, Barney was there, poking Bernie's hand, asking him:"Brother, how come you gave me such a nice bat, but never, ever had time to play ball with me?" Barney stared at Bernie, and then tossed a baseball into the air with his tiny hands, and skipped away.
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-091019-ghost-story-borscht,0,2257390.story [Retrieved 1 November 2009]
