The BIG Easy

This week is Father's Days and it's gotten me thinking about how grateful I am for my dad, my step dad and my grandfather.
In searching for some good fathers day stories for my Sunday sermon, I thought I would go to Snoops.com and make sure these stories were real. While looking around, I came across a few I had never heard of, and this one is one of my favorites.

Way up North and a long time ago, there was a no good opportunist the neighborhood called "Easy Eddie." He had run numbers in the rackets and eventually put himself through school to be an accountant. While there, he took an interest in counseling and found out he had a knack for twisting the law in the favor of his clients.

In the mid twenties, Easy Eddie starting cooking the books for a few shady people and before long he was hired by none other than Al Capone. Al Capone virtually owned the city of Chicago and his favor on Eddie's life opened up doors he had only dreamed of. Capone's money from fear, fraud, prostitution and bootlegged booze was poured over Eddie like the whiskey he peddled.

His skills with the law and legal maneuvering kept Big Al out of jail for a long time. He also went into several business ventures with Capone and through fraudulent enterprises cheated his way into living the life of the rich and the privileged.

To show his appreciation, Capone paid him very well and had Eddie's whole family occupy a fenced-in mansion complete with live-in help that took up an entire city block of down town Chicago. While Eddie lived the high life - others were being murdered and lives were being ruined. It was something else.

In the midst of all that, Eddie was raising a family and his son was a jewel. Butch O'Hare was a little boy tough as nails, yet innocent. Eddie really loved that kid and wanted him to have the best of everything. He often wondered what kind of legacy he would pass down to his son.

Touchable
When Butch got old enough to ask questions about the source of his daddy's money so did the Federal Government. A man by the name of Elliot Ness was bound and determined to throw Capone under the jailhouse and he decided to use the teeth of the IRS to do it.

When approached and cornered by the Untouchables he was point blank asked if he had ever considered passing down a good name to Butch. After consideration, easy Eddie did something not easy at all. That month he told Butch and his wife that he was going to testify in court against none other than Scarface himself and that their lives would never be the same.

Eddie and his children got closer than ever before and Elliot Ness told young Butch that his daddy was "a good guy." He even came to see him graduate from the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, in the summer of 1937.

Butch had grown up to see his daddy make a stand and it had a profound effect on him. Several years later on November 8th, 1939 he also saw his Daddy pay a terrible price for it. Edward O`Hare was caught by Capone's henchmen and murdered a week before Capone was released from Alcatraz.

Alls Fair

The day after Pearl Harbor-December 7, 1941, the then-28- year-old Lt. O'Hare was pulled from the arms of his young bride and sent west to the shooting war in the Pacific.

About ten weeks after the "day of infamy," Lt. O'Hare was flying his single-engine Grumman F4F fighter in the area of the Gilbert Islands. At that crucial moment, only O'Hare and his wing mate were aloft. The rest of the Lexington's fighters were aboard the carrier refueling and reloading, when nine enemy bombers attacked the Lexington.

One at a time, Butch O'Hare flew at the heavily armed Japanese aircraft, and one at a time, he began killing them off. The airborne shootout that followed took place within sight of hundreds of Lexington crewmembers. O'Hare was being fired on with machine guns and cannons from all angles, but he "just kept moving," one report said.

For his inspiring exploits on that fatal day in February 1942, Lt. Edward H. (Butch) O'Hare was designated the U.S. Navy's first "Ace" of World War II. He was immediately promoted two grades to Lieutenant Commander.

President Roosevelt called Lt. O'Hare's outstanding performance, "One of the most daring, if not the most daring, single action in the history of combat aviation." Years later, when Chicago's airport was renamed for Butch O'Hare, President Roosevelt's tribute was engraved on a plaque and included in an exhibit that stood for years in the International Terminal.

Butch O'Hare survived that battle but he didn't outlive the war. Somewhere he is buried at sea but his memorial is in Chicago O’Hare, known as the busiest airport in the world. So the next time you have to go through O'Hare think about the influence a daddy has when he leads by example and does the right thing. Even when it is not so easy.

"Honor your father and mother" which is the first commandment with a promise-
Ephesians 6:2

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