January 11, 2011
CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCE: The 81st Street Gang
Aside from all my financial woes, I get enjoyment remembering past experiences, especially childhood memories since I feel that I had one of the “best of times”. My philosophy is to live for the day but sometimes the past is enjoyable to remember when times are challenging and the future for what you might want to achieve. The following post generally describes many of the experiences of the so-called 81st Street Gang. This was a neighborhood made up of primarily boys with maybe 4-6 girls. The boys were split into older brothers and us young ones where the older brothers were always putting ideas into our heads.
I’m not sure how or why the 81st Street Gang was created but I have a sneaky suspicion that one or more of the older brothers probably had seen the movie “West Side Story” and felt the need to have an identity because of all the boys on the block and a force to be reckoned with if a challenge ever came up (which was only one or two that I remember). It was not made up of destructive kids but more mischievous ones. I’ll share some of the more remembered experiences but may have more down the posting road.
This experience should probably be told around the 4th of July and probably be reposted around that time again. Before the 4th , of course, you could find all of the boys migrating to the nearest fireworks tent within walking distance which would be 2 to 3 miles. We would buy strings of Black Jack firecrackers (most powerful in those times), bottle rockets and buzz bombs primarily for our armaments of celebration. We did our fair share of blowing things up or dodging bottle rockets.
There was a girls camp, called Camp Little Flower, located just south of our neighborhood and so the summer when I was around 10-years old one of the older brothers came up with the idea to raid the camp late at night with fireworks (firecrackers and bottle rockets). The older brothers came up with a plan of how we would scare these camped out girls in their wooden barracks in the wee hours of the morning. Since our parents would let us have overnight campouts in our backyards we planned to sleep outside the night of our excursion adventure to be able to accomplish this mischievous deed. The plan was to secure cigarettes from one of the smoking parents for making time bombs of the firecrackers by removing the filters, lighting one end and screwing onto the fuse of a 50-100 black jack string. Then we slowly and silently placed the firecrackers under each of the barracks and then retreated behind a hedgerow with our bottle rockets ready to await the big event. It takes about 8-minutes for a cigarette to burn down so for a small boy it seemed like a lifetime. When the black jacks began exploding all the girls ran out screaming and yelling while we hand launched our bottle rockets over their heads. It was one of the most exciting times I remember until the old lady who ran the place came out with her double barrel shotgun and shot it in the air. We all scattered fast and regrouped later at the homestead to laugh and giggle about what we had done. Our parents never mentioned any word of what we had done but many years later in my care giving residency, bonding and stories sharing I told my mother about what we had done and we both got a big laugh from it.
Another time, Ricky Joe, Mikie (next door neighbor friend) and myself had built a triple decker tree house in a big elm tree located on the side street overlooking the grade school and main street thorough fare. It was quite the achievement and place for many future sleepovers. We had nailed boards for steps up into the tree house but were interested in more access privacy when some of the older brothers mentioned some really good rope located down the road at a construction site for a new addition going up. We checked it out that evening and saw the rope they had mentioned on a flat-bed trailer. It was in a mat-like configuration and about an inch in diameter. PERFECT! It was heavy and the three of us 9-year olds drug it around a back way to get it back to the tree house. We had to go through a pasture that had a barbwire fence so we hoisted the heavy rope over the first fence and drug it through the high grass, over another fence and to its final tree house location. We started cutting it up to begin the making of a rope ladder then because of the thickness of the rope decided to finish it the next day.
Early the next day the three of us started working on the rope ladder again. We decided to break for lunch so Mikie and I went back home had our lunch and began walking back up the street to finish the ladder when, at the top of the street, we saw some men throwing our rope ladder in the back of a pick-up and didn’t look too happy. Mikie and I turned around and headed back home and wondered what had happen and why were those men taking our rope. I soon got a call from Ricky Joe saying that Mikie and I needed to come up fast because Sgt. Moore, a juvenile-truant officer, wanted to speak to us and that we were in trouble. We met at a corner house at the end of the street where the cross-walk lady of the grade school and mother of one of another childhood friend lived. She was one of those busy-bodies and always got involved with the shenaningans of the neighborhood kids (we kept her pretty busy in our growing up years).
So there we were at Mrs. K’s house. Ricky Joe, Mikie, myself, Mrs. K and good old Sgt. Moore. The three of us sitting there facing Sgt. Moore, the well-known feared truant officer of Raytown shaking in our drawers wondering if we were going to jail. Rumor had it that Sgt. Moore did what he did because he had shot himself in the foot at some time in his career and was placed in his downgraded position or because he now had a limp due to his injury. First, Sgt. Moore informed us how much trouble we were in, taking a rope dynamite-mat used in blasting purposes to keep rock and debry from flying all over the area. He was also interested in how three 9-year olds could even begin to drag or carry such a heavy rope mat. We found out that they only caught us because they followed the mashed down grass through the pasture to the tree. We innocently believed that it was just regular rope and of no value. Well, it’s worth was $125 and Sgt. Moore said it would have to be paid for and asked how we would do that or have a police record if not. So many mowed lawns by Mikie and I later and I’m not sure what Ricky Joe did but I’m sure he paid a bigger price from his mother since it was on their property we eventually paid it off with no police record and promise to Sgt. Moore not to get in any trouble like that again. Of course, the threat by him of keeping an eye on us through the on-coming years helped considerably plus the grounding of 1-month by our parents. The tree house saga will continue in another posting because the tree house would get us in almost big trouble again (Mrs. K would come to our rescue since her son was involved).
There’s one more tale to tell before I bring this posting to a close. This took place when I was either 7 or 8 years old during the early fall season. One fall evening, as it was getting dark, some of the older brothers again came up with an idea of a scavenger hunt which sounded like lots of fun to us younger kids. They told us we had to go to the other block and knock on people’s doors and ask for toilet paper, eggs and fresh tomatoes but primarily toilet paper for the scavenger hunt. They would get the eggs and tomatoes. Ricky Joe, Mikie and I began our scavenger hunt door knocking and at the first house a man answered and said he would give us a couple of roles but looked at us and asked, “you’re not going to tepee any houses are you”? We didn’t know what that meant until we got down several houses and the older guys had, as we found out the meaning, tepee’d a house big time of someone they didn’t like. Well we saw that and continued down the street decorating a hedge row on the side-walk when the man who gave us the toilet paper opened his front door and looked our way. We ran and we ran fast back towards homestead land but the long way so as not to reveal where we came from.
About 45-minutes later the older guys showed up and had more toilet paper, eggs and tomatoes (tomatoes from a nearby neighbor with a big garden). We followed the older guys to the other block of our horse-shoe development where we were told that it was okay to throw our eggs and tomatoes at this one house along with them. It turned out that it was the house of someone else they didn’t like. We went home after that and retired for the evening when about an hour after we got back there was a knock at the door by a Raytown Policeman who resembled “Lurch” from the “Adams Family”. He only asked for my brother to come along to the Police station with him so I got to stay home. Oh, I forgot to mention we had a sitter because my mom and dad were at some function. Boy! Did the you-know-what hit the fan when they returned home. Asking me what happened I told them that “Lurch” had come and taken my brother to the Police station. They called and told the police desk that a policeman named “Lurch” had taken their son there and what was going on. The policeman who answered wondered who the heck was “Lurch” when I finally told my parents that that was a nickname and I didn’t know what his real name was. That was just the beginning of my getting into trouble, especially when they found out I was involved. I heard that it was quite a scene at the police station with Ricky Joe’s parents, Mikies’ parents and mine. Mikie and I got stay home but Ricky Joe ended up there and I understand he was yelling that he didn’t have anything to do with it and blamed all the other older brothers brought in. Come to find out the last house that was egged, tomatoed and tepeed was where my brother had been seen peeking in the window by the kid they didn’t like and so the round-up of many of the older 81st Street Gang and Ricky Joe. Another 30-day grounding for my brother and I.
God bless and God speed
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