MORGAN PARK — Jim Rago, the Chicago Park District's longest active employee, retired on Monday after working for 54 years as a custodian.
Almost all of the 77-year-old Roseland resident's entire career was spent at Kennedy Park.
"It's been like family here," Rago said before walking out of the Morgan Park field house for the final time.
Jennifer Cronin met Rago when she was 4 years old, attending the park's preschool at 11320 S. Western Ave.
Cronin, a lifelong Morgan Park resident, worked her way up the ranks. She eventually became supervisor at Kennedy Park and thus Rago's boss.
"He was the grumpiest old man with a heart of gold," Cronin said.
Cronin said Rago was eligible for full retirement when he turned 50. Instead, he stuck around another 27 years, cleaning bathrooms, mopping floors and giving patrons a hard time.
His gruff approach only endeared him to the community. In the late 1990s, several of the park's most loyal users renamed the community room for the beloved janitor.
Strangely enough, Rago would often greet these same Kennedy Park regulars by asking, "Don't you have anyplace else to go?"
Rose Quane of Morgan Park was one of Rago's many well-wishers on Monday.
"My kids went to camp here [at Kennedy Park] and did all the programs here. Then, they were camp counselors when they grew up. ... They were always coming home with Rago stories," Quane said.
Rago landed a job with the Park District in 1960, shortly after returning from a 16-month stint in Korea with the Army. He worked for a couple of months at Fernwood Park before being transferred to Kennedy Park.
He was reassigned briefly to nearby Mount Greenwood Park. Though he quickly returned to the Kennedy Park, where he knew the names and faces of nearly everyone who frequented the 18-acre park, swimming pool and playground.
"If somebody came in the park that he didn't know, he'd watch them," Quane said, adding that she always felt her children were safe as a result.
Known more commonly by his last name, Rago was often perceived as crotchety by adults. But Janel Morris of Morgan Park said her six children immediately saw through the guise.
"He wasn't always the smiley-est guy, but my kids loved him," Morris said.
Rago would often share tennis balls he'd found left behind on the park's courts with Morris' older boys and offer Dum Dums to her younger children, she said.
"Honestly, I can't believe he retired. In some way, I thought he would never retire," she said.
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