In each edition of The Frunchroom, we try to showcase many aspects of the South Side. But we also love telling stories about the Beverly/Morgan Park neighborhood where we live. On July 21st, Bill Leslie brings us just such a story – one steeped in his own upbringing.

Bill has spent his entire life in the City of Chicago, except for a four-year stint at the University of Illinois in Champaign, which at the time was just considered a part of Chicago’s far south side.  He has moved all the way from St. Margaret of Scotland to St. Barnabas to St. John Fisher.  He has been published in the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Reader, and was a weekly football correspondent for the Beverly Review in 1973, keeping the public informed on the exploits of his football team, the mighty 7^th and 8^th grade Buckeyes of St. Barnabas.

At Quigley Preparatory Seminary South, the image of Barbara Eden in her “I Dream of Jeannie” costume kept him from ever seriously considering a vocation as a Catholic priest. Yet after four years at the U of I, Bill thirsted for more Catholic education and attended DePaul Law School. He also studied improv comedy through the Second City, and once wrote a much better ending to a Saturday Night Live skit.

Bill then became a Senior Assistant Attorney General and realized his life-long ambition of marrying a Mother McAuley girl.  Along the way, he coached many youth sports teams, in baseball, softball, soccer, and basketball.  He is currently lawyering at Scannell and Associates on Western Avenue in Beverly.  Bill and his beautiful wife Marianne reside with three of their four kids in Beverly – one is off the payroll, thank God.

Bill will read a hyperlocal story – set on the square city block that comprises Sutherland Public School– about his adventures as a kid playing various forms of baseball there.

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