Two Little Devils

Ahhh, the 1950′s, southside Chicago:  one shade less than being classified as juvenile delinquents, my father and his best friend, Uncle Kenny, were always up to no good.  The stories they told to grandchildren around the campfires decades later were legendary.

Their shenanigans began during early childhood; my grandma dreaded each phone call from Pasteur Elementary School. Uncle Kenny had something like 12 brothers and sisters so the Peto house was where all the action was.  Ma Peto once had a bee fly up her skirt and the kids still tell about that day as she dashed around the yard screaming.

The only physical thing separating Uncle Kenny and my dad’s Chicago brick bungalows was an 8′ gangway between their houses.  There was about 3′ of grass, a sidewalk, a chain link fence on the property line, and then 3′ of more grass.  They could look into each other’s bedroom windows.  Sign language worked for a while, but they figured they could improve upon it.  Each ” borrowed” enough parts from local pay phone booths to construct a working line suspended between their windows.   Piece by piece, by trial and error, they mastered a voice system that worked.  Only God knows what they talked about into the wee hours.  Ma Bell was on a need to know basis and she didn’t need to know.

Jimmy (my dad) at 6247 So. Kilpatrick Ave., Chicago

There was the time when my dad, who contracted polio in 1945 at the age of 4, was famous for hitting other kindergarten kids with his crutches in the school playground.  Grandma damn near expected a call once a week telling her how her Jimmy was a bad boy.  He sought revenge the summer of 6th grade by breaking into the school and smashing garlic cloves real hard with his “good foot” into the wood classroom floors.   By September, the school was ripe and could not open.

In 8th grade he and Uncle Kenny blew up the science lab.

No one was more relieved when my dad graduated 8th grade than his mother!

For winter kicks, the two of them would crawl up a fire escape attached to a two story brick building at the corner of 63rd and Cicero, onto  Pete the Shoemaker’s flat roof, (Pete turned the soles and made all of my dad’s shoes with a 7″ left foot lift).  Pete’s brick building had a  rook tower facade, perfect for striking innocents and hiding hoodlums.  Together, the two boys would spend hours making ice balls.  They would wait for the city buses to stop at the corner and then bomb the folks getting on board.  At the first sound of sirens, they would climb down the fire escape and run back to safety at their homes, just across the alley.   A couple of real sharpies.

They never stopped making trouble.  In their 40′s, they decided it would be a good idea to burn a rubber tire pile which resulted in the Edens Expressway being shut down.  Did I mention their fixation with M-80′s?  “Fire in the hole” at Devils Lake State Park in Wisconsin every 4th of July.  They blew them off in the water to watch the fish float and also wedged firecrackers into tree forks to “light ‘em and run”.

One summer, in the late 60′s, they built a “motor chopper” for my little brother.  They designed and manufactured a bike with an 8 horse Briggs & Stratton engine and a seat built for two.  Woody and I rode that thing up and down the alleys at 52nd and Kedzie.  We even brought it up north to explore logging trails near Crystal Falls, MI.

Back before adolescents had video games and cell phones, there were plenty of innocent troublemakers and real life “games” being played!