Monday, October 15, 2012
Archive
We're the River Boys, our chief antagonists the
Mountain Boys. We labeled them derisively, their
hailing from a hilly section of the city, but
they liked the name.
Rumbled many a time! Let’s call the results a draw.
The historical highlight was the State Street Chaos,
where the fight spilled out of Delahome Park and
blocked traffic to and from downtown for three hours.
That was a mix of brawling kids, and cops using clubs.
Our pact forbade weapons. Fists only.
Register-Courier, it was, came up with STATE STREET CHAOS!!! Excoriating the mayor and police chief.
The latter was a florid boozer who couldn't get away
with only words this time. He actually responded.
Police Academy grads were sent away to study
Gang Control in New York and Chicago.
When they got back they made inroads, but the atmosphere
in the neighborhoods was changing anyway. Both places
being seriously boutiqued, and with shopping centers
planned. Pennys to anchor theirs and Sears ours.
Slums were cleared under federal programs and nostalgia
buffs complained mightily. But the housing stock was lousy
and shoddy, however picturesque. (We had a couple of
houses slide into the river during a downpour.)
And the women had gotten the bit in their teeth, actually
picketing downtown for equal pay. Which would have been
enough, but they wanted to enforce “feelings” on everyone.
Some men responded by drinking more, others by hugging
while meeting. In the cultural wave, the younger River Boys
and Mountain Boys became feminized.
The older guys have dug in, sort of. A representative fellow
we call The Ambassador, lives among us now, having taken
a job on a barge. But he comes from the "mountains."
Actually was a ringer there, import from New York’s Bowery.
Real Neanderthal who fought in the welterweight class under
the name of Packy-o McFarland.
He's a bit outspoken and we quote him often. "Where can you get a fuckin drink around here? All the dives have
pasted nautical crap on the walls, and the bartenders
are college graduates.
The waiters were old men with long aprons and black
shoes and limpy feet. Now they’re squirts bullshitting
about wines.”
“What the fuck do the women want? They turned
the whole city into a chick flick already! How ’bout
a rap, side of the head, to help straighten the dears out?”
With prompting of his sister-in-law, a Domestic
Relations Officer dropped by, but determined
he was all talk.
I’m just back from a sales conference where I met an old
Mountain Boy. We spoke of our memories of State Street,
and he pointed to a scrape on his chin he said I gave him
I apologized. Forgotten to take off a ring in the frenzy.
We laughed at it all. What’s left?
“You know,” I told my son when I got back, “Lots of changes
for the better, but...something lost too.”
“Yeah, stupidity!”
Labels: gangs, gentrification, police, rumble
