on march 18, 2002 my hometown of wheaton il got an early morning shock as st. michael's catholic church burned down. it was a really strange day for me personally. you see i went to st. michael's as a kid. i grew up in that church. i got my first holy communion there. i got confirmed there. i went through the whole ccd process there every monday night. i would get the cross on my forehead on ash wendsday. i would try to stay awake during midnight mass every christmas eve. i went through st. michael's cub scout pack 134 den 2. i'm a catholic.my ex-girlfriend wondered why i was still catholic even through all of the pedophilia scandals and the fact that i don't agree with my church's stance on abortion and homosexuality. i guess the reason is that i grew up with it. it's a part of my life. it was like a parent to me.
when it burned down in 2002 i remember feeling odd. the sunday before i went to afternoon mass with my dad and i remember just looking around the church. i took every nook and cranny of that place in. i would look around at the place and day dream as a kid. so when i was woken up by my mother and told that it had just burned down i remember being shocked. i was just there and now it was gone.
eventually the church got rebuilt and opened on march 18, 2006 (five years to the day that it was burned down). but what still remains is why?
adam palinski (a wheaton resident and parishioner of st. michaels) was convicted of the crime and sentenced to 39 years in prison because of it. he was picked up by the police at a metra station where he was going to take the train to go to class at columbia in the city. he studied film there.
i've been studying this story for a piece i'm working on for my creative non-fiction class. i think what interests me about palinski is how similar the two of us are. apparently he use to work with wheaton community television ch 17, which is a place that like st. michael's was very important in my life. He was on the honor roll at st. michael's elementary and middle school. at wheaton south high school. he was on the speech team, student council, and apparently did a play his senior year. then he went to study film at columbia. so apparently this guy was on the right track. i don't understand what happened?
it was wired when everyone found out that adam was convicted of the crime because people at WCTV kept telling me that "he was a lot like you."
it's wired to be compared to someone like that. i'm wondering what was different between the two of us. why is he in jail and why am i about to graduate?
i think a lot of it has to do with that pressure factor of living in a town like wheaton. i wheaton north and south high schools are considered two of the best high schools in the country. i remember at my graduation the superintendent called wheaton north "one of the last great american high schools." it's not as if we are living in a shit hole town here. this town is ripe with opportunities for kids. and that pressure can be hard to live up to.
i realized today that the reason people get mad at other people is because someone failed to meet an expectation that the other had set for them. coming from a town like wheaton where you are surrounded by somewhat successful people, you are expected to be successful too. when that expectation isn't met you get labeled a loser for life.
the one thing that really made me feel funny about looking into adam was the fact that at the trial the judge called him a "heart breaker." he "broke the hearts of the church and the community." He was labeled a failure in so many words.
my dad and i talked about it today and he said something interesting. he said, "you know i don't know that much about him [adam], but at mass i always hear that we should prey for him."
even though he "broke our hearts," st. michael's still prays for adam. apparently he told the judge at his hearing that he had found religion and faith in god. when it was reported in the papers the article then said that it was "too bad" he had to find out about it now in prison.
from a town that is suppose to be cristian, they sure don't act like it.
9 comments:
well im not going to judge your article but all i can said is that adam is a good man .. who knows what happen that night maybe you should write him and letter and get to know him
I've always found this case to be curious. Adam's family was really tight with this church. If I remember correctly his mother was a teacher there and he had been a student. I have this gut feeling that he was molested as a child and that molestation was connected to the church. That's where the motivation may have come from. Why not bring that up at the trial? May straight men are still embarrasses and can't admit what happened publicly. They may feel that they should have done more to stop it, etc. I think some day Adam will come out, admit he did it and say that the anger came from the molestation.
Adam is a dear friend of mine. We write each other and talk on the phone at least once a week. And I will be visiting him next week. He has told me a lot about what happened but it is not my place to tell his story without his consent first. I will say this, adam is an amazing loving caring person who made a mistake and was sentenced to not being able to live his life. He is a good man and does not deserve to live the best part of his years in prison. He has learned from his mistake has owned up to it and now all he wants is to be the man he is meant to be in society. Adam desrves a second chance as we all do. We all have made mistakes wether we get caught or not. I am honored to call him my friend.
Adam is a dear friend of mine. We write each other and talk on the phone at least once a week. And I will be visiting him next week. He has told me a lot about what happened but it is not my place to tell his story without his consent first. I will say this, adam is an amazing loving caring person who made a mistake and was sentenced to not being able to live his life. He is a good man and does not deserve to live the best part of his years in prison. He has learned from his mistake has owned up to it and now all he wants is to be the man he is meant to be in society. Adam desrves a second chance as we all do. We all have made mistakes wether we get caught or not. I am honored to call him my friend.
Adam is a dear friend of mine. We write each other and talk on the phone at least once a week. And I will be visiting him next week. He has told me a lot about what happened but it is not my place to tell his story without his consent first. I will say this, adam is an amazing loving caring person who made a mistake and was sentenced to not being able to live his life. He is a good man and does not deserve to live the best part of his years in prison. He has learned from his mistake has owned up to it and now all he wants is to be the man he is meant to be in society. Adam desrves a second chance as we all do. We all have made mistakes wether we get caught or not. I am honored to call him my friend.
Adam is a dear friend of mine. We write each other and talk on the phone at least once a week. And I will be visiting him next week. He has told me a lot about what happened but it is not my place to tell his story without his consent first. I will say this, adam is an amazing loving caring person who made a mistake and was sentenced to not being able to live his life. He is a good man and does not deserve to live the best part of his years in prison. He has learned from his mistake has owned up to it and now all he wants is to be the man he is meant to be in society. Adam desrves a second chance as we all do. We all have made mistakes wether we get caught or not. I am honored to call him my friend.
I grew up next door to him. He was always a bit of a sociopath and his mom was nuts. He absolutely should not get out early. Just because he "changed" (unlikely) doesn't mean he shouldn't do his time for trying to KILL people (via fire as well as murder for hire). He'll get his second chance when his sentence is up.
To sheldonlovespenny: what exactly do you mean by "a bit of sociopath"?
I was in the grade below Adam at St Mike’s school (k - 8). I knew him because we rode the bus together and he was the typical ‘bully on the bus’ that we tried to avoid. Sometimes he picked on us but primarily his targets were the little kids. I remember being disgusted at the time at an 8th grader picking on 1st and 2nd graders. My friends couldn’t understand how he got away with his behavior, seeing as his mom was a teacher there and we felt really sorry for her (as 7th graders). When he graduated he joined the youth group maybe because I saw him once in Mass once doing a reading. I couldn’t believe a bully like that felt comfortable getting in front of the Church with people he had bullied. I remember fuming in the pew as I listened and talking about it later with my siblings. Later of course, he burned it down and I was shocked it was someone from the Church & school but at the same time not surprised it was him, if it was anyone. He was always shockingly mean. The annoying thing was he said something (in his friend covert recording of his confession) about not being sorry he burned down the Church because Catholic school “scars people”... School only scars people because of bullies like Adam Palinski. I found it interesting that you felt like he was on the “right path” because of his jobs and college, but I think it’s more about his core self.
Post a Comment