Days of Rage and the Core of this Chicago Realtor

Posted by Tom McCarey

March 6, 2008

Blessed This and That Afloat and Amid I was six years old in 1968.

The year that Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis.

The year Bobby Kennedy was gunned down after he won the California Democratic Primary.

The year Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia while Chicago cops viciously beat Vietnam war protesters at the Democratic Convention.

And every night as all of this was recounted by Walter Cronkite on the evening news we dehumanized the missing and killed in Vietnam with daily body counts. And then Richard Nixon was elected President.

Two and a half and ready to rock I’ve never thought about it before, but at the tender age of six the seeds of my political consciousness were planted. And ever since then my sentiments have been a mixture of hopefulness offset by an unbridled rage rooted in a tenacious recognition that justice is fundamental and must be fought for despite and against ignorance and smugness.

In other words that explains why I yell at the tv when different talking heads pontificate or prognosticate. It also explains why I won’t allow Rupert Murdoch’s Fox news to pollute my home through any of my televisions at any time.

I had a beret then, and hair as well It also partially explains who I am and the cystallized intensity I bring to the table.

Somehow Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy impacted me, and their profound decency initiated the shaping of me. And so today as was the case for thousands of days before this one I am motivated by an intense yearning for fairness and justice.

These traits would serve me well no matter what path I chose. Whether father to my two-year-old Jackson in his red chair, whether father to soon to be one-year-old Lucas below, or as a student a while back at the University of Illinois (that’s me).

But as a Realtor working so closely with so many people as they make some of the most important economic decisions of their lives these traits enable me to truly and consistently assist my clients while advocating for them and their interests as they purchase and sell homes in Chicago. To be a bit trite, it keeps me honest and puts my clients’ interests at the forefront in each and every situation.

Sweetly Toward the Future (It's Now) with Birthday Boy Lucas It’s funny that the ‘68 Days of Rage, when I was but six, commenced my personal trajectory that today plays out for me as one of Chicago’s top residential realtors. It’s funny, too, that 40 years later we stand at a historic moment in our country’s history to reclaim the momentous hope so clearly enunciated by both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.