[Dark Saint Alaick]

Who is John Drury

John Drury... first began his gastronomic adventures in this life at Chicago, Illinois, on August 9, 1898... in school he was terrible in arithmetic but talented in drawing... had to quit high school to help lift the mortgage of the old homestead... worked in factories, drug stores, stockrooms and department stores... continued education in Lane Technical Night School, studying English composition and French... remembers the English composition but forgot the French... fired from his job as clerk in a South Clark Street bookshop because the proprietor caught him once too often reading Keats... worked on a farm in the Illinois River valley and quit after a week because the plow horses would stop in the middle of a furrow and look at him contemptuously... later became clerk in book section of Marshall Field department store... at outbreak of World War was refused admission to army and navy because of failure to meet physical requirements... intent on wearing a uniform (being Irish), he enlisted in the 11th Regiment, Illinois National Guard, and helped to keep Chicago safe for Democracy ... in 1918 went to New York City to live in Greenwich Village... first contact with intimate side of restaurant life gained while working as a bus boy in Child's, on Broadway, near Wall Street... helped edit a literary magazine in the Village... began to write free verse poetry -- but not because everybody else was doing it... returned to Chicago and Marshall Field's book section... reviewed books for Llewellyn Jones, of the Chicago Evening Post... went to Los Angeles in 1920 where he made his first bow in journalism as copy boy on the Los Angeles Record, having been hired by Ted Cook, of "Cook-Coos" fame... the third day on the job Ted made him a cub reporter, giving him as his first assignment the duty of checking on the price of eggs... two months later he was made dramatic and motion picture editor of the Record... made several expeditions across the border into Mexico, but not for alcoholic purposes... after getting enough of the City of Angels and Hollywood, he returned to Chicago, where he became a police reporter on the City News Bureau... his poetry began to appear in the "little magazines that died to make verse free"... to New York again (1923) where, after John Farrar gave him a free meal at the Yale Club, he shipped as a messman (gastronomy, again) aboard a tramp freighter to the east coast of South America, visiting Brazil and the Argentine pampas ... back to Chicago again and began reviewing books for Harry Hansen, on the Chicago Daily News... another sea voyage in 1925, this time to London... same year saw publication of his first book, "Arclight Dusks," a volume of free verse poems ... joined reportorial staff of Chicago Daily News in 1927, after which he covered many gang murders... second book, "Chicago In Seven Days," appeared in 1928, and, since its printing, he has become a sort of "unofficial guide" to the city... last summer he made an expedition across the border to Canada, for alcoholic purposes... he smokes a pipe... has a talented wife... and a dog... has never lectured to a woman's club or over the radio... his hobby is Chicago... Carl Sandburg once wrote of him: "John Drury loves Chicago very much. It is neither an ethereal nor an ephemeral love that John has for the Windy City. John walks, rides and flies over it. He eats and sleeps anywhere in it. A thousand cops know him. So do all the reporters, and he never gets into trouble."