The Belushi Benches

I grew up in Wheaton, Illinois - a Western suburb of Chicago.  We moved into a new house on Plamondon Court when I was five months old.  Wheaton has few claims to fame.  It is the home of Wheaton College, a Christian school so conservative that dancing was banned at campus events - unless it was square dancing.  This ban was lifted in 2003, with the statement that dancing was allowed, "as long as students use caution and good judgment and avoid any behavior which may be immodest, sinfully erotic, or harmfully violent."

So...        there's that.

Wheaton Central, or Wheaton Community High School as it was known before more high schools were built, has at least four famous alumni: Edwin Hubble, Red Grange, Bob Woodward*, and John Belushi.  That list may provide some balance to the college.  John graduated in 1967, appeared in the first airing of Saturday Night on October 11, 1975, and married his high school sweetheart, Judy Jacklin, in 1976.

Our neighbors to the East on Plamondon Court were the Bakers who had two daughters, Leslie and Barbara, ten or more years older than I was.  Our back porches formed two sides of a roughly triangular lawn area, and there were a few times when Barbara, home from college or something, spotted me and invited me over for a Coke and a chat at their redwood picnic table.  It seems like some kind of wormhole that, nearly fifty years later, I can walk thirty feet and sit at that table with detached benches, now on our deck.  (It's 5 below zero, and the table is covered with snow, but I could do it.)  And I now know that Leslie and Judy were close friends and they often hung out around that table with other friends, including John.

In the summer of 1979 I had just graduated from Wheaton Central, the triangular lawn area was now filled with our swimming pool, and there was a fence between the pool and the Bakers.  Saturday Night Live was huge and John Belushi and Dan Akroyd were in their "Blues Brothers" phase.  One afternoon that summer I was swimming with my friend Jeff Avery.  I was standing on the diving board and high enough to see over the fence when John and Dan pulled into the Baker's driveway.  Dan said, "Nice chlorine pit you got there," and joined John at the Baker's door.

From Wikipedia:

Like many of his fellow SNL cast members, Belushi began experimenting heavily with drugs to deal with the constant pressure. His unpredictable temper caused him to be fired (and immediately re-hired) by producer Lorne Michaels a number of times. In Rolling Stone's February 2015 appraisal of all 141 SNL cast members to that time, Belushi received the top ranking. "Belushi was the 'live' in Saturday Night Live", they wrote, "the one who made the show happen on the edge ... Nobody embodied the highs and lows of SNL like Belushi."

I was walking down an Ithaca, NY street with friends on a Saturday evening, on our way to a pizza restaurant, when I heard that John Belushi had died of a drug overdose the day before - March 5, 1982.

The Bakers moved from Plamondon Court in about 1988 and not needing a picnic table at their new home gave theirs to my parents who moved about three years later.  By now Dad viewed the table as a cultural artifact and didn't leave it behind.  He named it "The Belushi Benches,"  and being the historian and curator that he is, set out to establish its provenance.  He reached out to Judy, now Judy Belushi Pisano, and she returned a generous response.

Her "Certificate of Authenticity" reads:

"To Whom it May Concern:

The vintage 1960's picnic table currently owned by George Johnson of Harvard, Illinois, has an interesting story, and, I believe, a very good energy about it.  Let me explain.

Growing up in Wheaton, Illinois during the late 60's, my friends and I enjoyed hanging out at the Baker's (the Johnson's neighbors, who later gave them the table.)  Their back porch afforded us some modicum of privacy and allowed us to be a bit louder than in the house, so gathering round the table usually took on a party atmosphere.  My boyfriend at the time (my husband-to-be), John Belushi, was co-captain of the football team and already known for his good sense of humor.  Although his primary interest at the time was sports, he was slowly becoming quite the entertainer.  Sitting around the table, John humored us with imitations (a coach, teacher, parents, Joe Cocker, Marlon Brando...) and charmed us with his silliness.  He always seemed at ease on the Baker's porch, as he held court at that table.  It was a wonderful, easy-going time.  Since those days, this functional, somewhat enchanted slab of wood has become known as the "Belushi Benches."

So, if you are the new owner of this table, I hope you too will gather with family and friends to find joy and laughter, and create new happy memories 'round the table."

It is our summer dining table.  Friends and family gather there from time to time in the warmer months.  And our kids often hang out there with their friends, more comfortable out of earshot.

Happy birthday John.

*Bob Woodward (Class of  1961) wrote Wired, a biography of John Belushi, published in 1984.