On a Wednesday afternoon, March 11, 1953, I was 12 years old. The Iron Mountain News paperboys, who won a trip to Chicago, were being picked up and brought to The Iron Mountain News office. There were 20 winners. We earned points, 75 to qualify, adding new customers, and selling to customers subscriptions for magazines, four per month at 15 cents per week.

I was picked up at Vivio’s store in Norway by Les, the paper bundle delivery guy, on his route to Powers. Along the way we picked up two other winners, one in Vulcan and another in Loretto.

We met our chaperons at the newspaper office and then rode around Iron Mountain in a VW mini van owned by Francis Ryan, our bus driver to Chicago. That mini van was neat, nobody ever saw one before in Iron Mountain and many people stopped to watch us go by. We visited WMIQ at 10:30 p.m., the am radio station located above the newspaper office and were introduced over the air, each of us speaking in the mic, giving our name and city where we were from.

It was nearly 11 p.m. Wednesday night when we finally boarded the bus to Chicago. The highways back then were only two lane like our country roads of today. It took forever to reach Green Bay, our first stop at an all-night restaurant for burgers, fries and pop. U.S. 141 went through downtown Green Bay and on to the west side of DePere back then. Next, onto Chicago.

We arrived in Chicago Thursday morning, driving forever through the city to downtown Michigan Avenue next to Lake Michigan. The bus pulled up in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel, where we stayed that day and night. We were so impressed; it was like a city inside the hotel with stores and places to eat. I didn’t have much money on me, one does not make a big income on a paper route. But I bought some souvenirs and post cards.

Thursday and Friday we were busy touring the Museum of Science and Industry, the Planetarium, The Field Museum and the Aquarium. We visited the Midway Airport and each of us had a chance to sit in the pilot’s seat on a Pan-Am four-engine propeller airplane, named the Constellation, designed by Howard Hughes.

Friday, we would have attended a Chicago Sox-Cubs baseball exhibition game, but it was canceled due to cold weather.

Friday night we were scheduled to see the Wolcott-Marciano fight, but it had been postponed also.

Instead, at a movie theater, we watched “The Quiet Man” staring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, made in 1952 and just released. After the movie we boarded the bus back to Michigan, I was dropped off in Norway at around 9 a.m. Saturday, March 14, 1953.

The three days before St. Patrick’s Day each year, I never forget our trip to Chicago in 1953, as I tell my family and friends and for the past many years, I always watch “The Quiet Man.”