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TAYLOR STREET ARCHIVES
“It was a glorious time.”
The Rags-a-line Man and Other Sounds from Taylor Street
The New York Times Bestseller, Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared
Diamond, reconfigures how various peoples evolved as they had.
How it was that the Inca emperor was slain by soldiers sent across
the ocean by the King of Spain…and not the other way around?
While the Taylor Street Archives is galaxies short of Jared Diamond’
s revelation of how various peoples and their particular
circumstances had evolved, the hope is that this writing along with
other writings comprising the Taylor Street Archives will provide
balance for modern day sociologists and historians as to how it was
for us growing up on the streets of Chicago’s Little Italy…the
legendary Taylor Street…“The Hull House Neighborhood.”
The research of historians and sociologists is often compromised by
hidden agendas and/or previous perceptions that are knowingly or
unknowingly harbored by those theoreticians. The need to abide
by the conventional wisdom and/or to be politically correct (often at
the expense of being historically accurate) can also take its toll.
Fashioning identities, blossoming self concepts or forging
personalities, they all have their roots deeply imbedded in the
activities that took place on the streets of the neighborhoods from
whence they had evolved. Those activities must, by definition,
include the games that were played. Much of the story of how it was
for those who were imprinted by the streets of “the Hull House
Neighborhood” can be dissected from the sounds that still resonate
from those streets
Antoneeey, get up here!
The sound of your name, bellowing from an open window and
resonating through the neighborhood, as it ricocheted off the 3 and
4 story buildings, ended your participation in whatever game you
were playing. Whether is was softball, buck-buck, or any type of
team game, one of the wall-to-wall kids that proliferated the
neighborhood was quickly chosen to replace you. You rushed
home, dreading the unknown consequences. The worse case
scenario was being called because of a chore that had not been
satisfactorily completed before you darted out of the house to meet
your friends. Whose name was next to be called? How many calls
would there be before the street would be abandoned?
The rags-a-line man.
“Rags-a-line” was the cry of the junk man as he made his rounds
through the neighborhood. He bought “rags and old iron” along
with any other junk we managed to pillage from the neighborhood.
Other warped cries were from vendors who had something to
sell…not to buy. “Whaadee meeelone” (watermelon) and “wee wee
potahdooooh” (sweet potato) was the cry of the produce man who
also made his rounds with a horse drawn wagon. Other, barely
intelligible cries from the streets were those of the ice man, milk
man and pizza man. Each call having evolved from countless
repetitions.
Wanna go junkin’?
Piercing the silence of the early morning air on week-ends and
summer vacations was another familiar sound: “Wanna go
junkin?” The invite reached the ears of other youthful
entrepreneurs awaiting the call to join the scavenger party. It took
skill to get out of bed, at the crack of dawn, without awakening
those asleep on either side of you.
Wanna go rat hunting?
Despite the work of Jane Addams and her other well meaning
associates, the alleys of Taylor Street remained treacherous. That
visible and very real threat gave rise to another sound from the
bellows of the Hull House neighborhood, “Wanna go rat hunting?”
Armed with half broken bricks and sticks with protruding nails, we
pursued our prey relentlessly but cautiously.
The bonfire
Many of our Taylor Street nights wound down with a bon fire and a
potato roast. Inner city slum neighborhoods all had an endless
supply of wood to be burned. We never ran out of places to get
wood to feed the fire. Potatoes were another story. The Halsted
Street merchants all displayed their produce in boxes on the
sidewalks in front of their stores. It was easy pickings to snatch a
potato at night. I suspect we got away with it as often as we did for
several reasons. Most important, the merchants knew our parents
shopped there during the day and it was good business to let us
run off with a potato that was more or less valueless when viewed
in the total scheme of things. A thumb on the scale or faulty
addition on the weekly pay credit book more than made up the
difference.
Buck Buck
Buck Buck was played by two teams of approximately five people
each. The “down” team built a horse with their bodies by locking
on to each others waists. Each member of the “up” team had to
leap onto the backs of the “down” team. One member of the “up”
team would display one or more fingers and ask the captain of the
“down” team, “Buck Buck, how many fingers up?” If the “down”
team guessed correctly the teams would change roles. Also, if any
member of the “up’ team touched the ground with any part of his
body, the teams changed roles.
One strategy that was employed was for all of the members of the
“up” team to land on the back of the weakest member of the
“down” team. The intent was to cause the human chain of the
locked “down” players to break. If successful, your team retained
their “up” position which entitled you to repeat the leaping process
on to the backs of the “down” team. It took both skill and strategy
to have all five jumpers land on top of each other, which forced one
besieged and helpless “down” player, to support the weight of a
mile high stack of guys.
Ring-a-leevio
A team game which must have evolved as a ritual celebration of an
earlier time when tribes, warring against each other, took prisoners.
A box was drawn in the dirt and served as the prison for those who
were captured. Once everyone was captured, we changed sides and
the prisoners now became the aggressor tribe who hunted down
and captured the fleeing members of the other tribe. There was
always the opportunity to rescue those members of your team who
had been captured. Breaking into the jail and shouting “ring-a-
leevio” freed those members of your team who had been caught
and jailed…giving them another opportunity to run away and hide
once again.
Peck n’ stick
Reflective of the ingenuity of depression era kids of immigrant
parents were the creative games devised by those kids utilizing the
resources that their environment made available to them. All that
was needed to play peck n’ stick was a broom. The neighborhood
had more than enough broken broom sticks to go around. A 6 inch
peck with tapered ends was fashioned with a knife or hatchet. The
stick, measuring approximately 3 feet in length, was cut away from
the same broom. The tapered peck was ricocheted into the air by
the 3 foot stick. While in the air, the peck was hit out to opposing
players who attempted, as in baseball, to catch or field the peck.
Score was kept by how many stick lengths away the throw back in
by the defenders allowed you to measure off. Cocoa was the
champion peck and stick player in the Goodrich School yard.
“Mother’s Doll, this is going right through your window.” And it
did, across Peoria Street, four flights up through Archie’s
window.
Tops
The manner in which we played tops may have been reflective of
some underlying need which may have been either inherited or
acquired. It went something like this. The object was to take turns
hitting the down top with your top until it reached the opposite
curb. If you missed, you replaced the down top with your top. The
top that was down when we reached the designated curb lost. The
penalty was a house brick (there were plenty of house bricks in our
empty lots) smashing down on the losing top. The act appeared to
be symbolic of an execution…a beheading, if you will. I never
understood why our Taylor Street games imposed such a severe
penalty on our losers.
Cinder Stadium: “Over the fence is out.”
The sounds that came from our make shift softball fields were
unique in that there were always arguments over which of the
variations of the complex rules applied to the last ball that was hit.
One of the most memorable rulings that came out of those
arguments was “Over the fence is out.” Rulings were often upheld
on the basis of which team’s players were bigger and stronger…and
sometimes, who shouted the loudest. “Such is the world as it is,”
and we accepted that reality. I was much later that I realized a
larger truth, “Such is the world as we had made it.”
Marbles
We played marbles in much the same way as, I imagine, everyone
else had. We played pots, circles, etc. We also had our favorite
marbles, our “brannies.” Whenever we lost one of our brannies in a
game, we tried to bargain for their return. We were rarely
successful. It seemed that winning away someone’s favorite
marble, their brannie, was the equivalent of Paris winning away
Helen from the Greek King, Agamemnon. And not unlike that
Greek saga, bargaining for its return was useless. It had to be won
back.
Kickin’ the can
This game was very much like ring-a-leevio except that, instead of
two teams competing against each other, there was only one player
responsible for seeking out and capturing the others who were
hiding to avoid being seen and caught. The lone player was the
jailer. The “can” served as the key to the locking and the unlocking
of the imaginary jail. If the jailer found someone in their hiding
place, he had to race back to the can and knock on the pavement
three times, calling out the captured player’s name; e.g., “one, two,
three for…” If the discovered player, however, beat the jailer back
to the can, he shouted, “kickin’ the can” and all of the previous
caught players would be freed as the jailer was retrieving the kicked
can.
Babies
Babies imposed the harshest penalty of all the games we played.
The lone loser was placed against the wall. Each of the other
players, from twenty feet away, threw a softball at him. The only
protection the loser had was, if anyone missed, he had to cover the
loser with his body. Sometimes we used a league ball. (We call the
8 inch baseball a league ball to differentiate it from the 16 inch
softball which was prevalent in our neighborhood.) If a league ball
was used, the distance was 30 feet. The game went something like
this. Each player dug a hole in the ground large enough to hold an
8 inch league ball or a 16 inch softball. When the ball rolled into
one of the pots, everyone ran as fast as they could until the pot
owner called, “STOP!” If you were hit by the thrown ball you
received a “baby,” which was recorded by placing a stone in your
pot. If the thrower failed to hit anyone, he received the baby. The
player who received 3 babies first went against the wall…again
reminiscent of the Aztec warrior games of the 16th century.
Chase the Wild Horse
A hybrid game that evolved from “kickin’ the can” and “ring-a-
leevio.” Like kickin’ the can, there were no teams, just one person
acting as the jailer. In lieu of a can there was a lamp post. Freeing
the captured players required that someone tag the lamp post and
shouting, “Chase the wild horse!”
Chicken Charlie: “No dime no show.”
This story could not be complete without mentioning another
sound from the streets, Chicken Charlie. Chicken Charlie was an
elderly black gentleman who traveled up and down Taylor Street
with a string and an old, worn out chicken. When we heard his call,
“No dime, no show…no dime, no show,” we all ran over to him to
see what new tricks his chicken could perform. It was always the
same. His chicken trying to balance itself, as it stood on the string…
one end tied to a lamp post and the other end pulled taught by
Chicken Charlie.
Scooters/push carts
The sound of home made push carts permeated the neighborhood
during those long, hot summer days. The ingenuity we acquired
during those depression days gave birth to the personalized push
carts. One 2 by 4 board, a single discarded skate and an apple box
were all that was needed to make a push cart. Separating the front
and back part of the skate gave us the front and the rear wheels
which we nailed onto the bottom of our 2 by 4. The apple box was
then nailed onto the front part of our custom push cart. Pieces of
wood nailed onto the side of the box served as the handlebars. As
we designed later models we added decorations such as bottle caps
and rabbit/squirrel tails. The only things the Hells Angels had on
us were an internal combustion engine and leather jackets. If we
wanted to make a scooter instead of a push cart, you simply used
another 2 by 4 board in place of the apple box.
Guns
The most creative part of our play was the inner tube guns we
designed. During the depression era of the 1930s and the 1940s, all
tires had thin inner tube linings. Their elasticity was comparable to
rubber bands. These were used to make guns with which we used
in playing games such as cops and robbers or cowboys and
Indians. To make a rifle required several 1 by 2 inch boards
configured in such a way that the cut strips from the inner tubes
held them together. A complex manipulation of the inner tubes
and sticks also provided a trigger. Cut strips from the discarded
inner tube also served as the bullets. These long rifles achieved
amazing distances. A pistol, with less range, was made in the same
way except that they required shorter sticks and fewer inner tubes
to make. One could surmise that some of the earliest spaghetti
westerns took place on the streets of Chicago’s Little Italy. All we
were lacking was an Ennio Morricone musical score.
Pinners and fast pitch baseball.
Most of our buildings had a stone molding across the front wall. A
rubber ball, if it struck the top of that molding perfectly, could fly
to the other side of the street. Pinners was the primitive version of
inner city fast pitch baseball. You could play either pinners or fast
pitch with just one player per team. All that was needed was a
pitcher and a batter.
Fire hydrant
During the long hot summers the streets were filled with children
playing under the fire hydrant. The power of the water was
amplified by the ingenious manipulation of wooden boards angled
down the throat of the hydrant. The youthful screams as we ran
through the high powered water can still, if one listens carefully, be
heard whenever the temperature reaches over 90 degrees. The
memory of those youthful muscular bodies held tight by their wet
sopping dago “Ts” and the soggy blouses of soon to be Apollonian
girls being tossed and dragged into the hydrant can never be
erased. With our limited experience and restricted environment,
our homes were lakeside property. And that’s as good as it gets.
Tag: You’re it!
The difference between us humans and all other species is
“knowledge tag.” We are the only species on the planet capable of
handing down our cumulative knowledge from one generation to
the other. No other species is capable of that. We played tag (“you’
re it!”) on fire escapes that were 3 and 4 stories high. Not just on
the steps of the 3 and 4 story fire escapes, but under the platforms
of those fire escapes, swinging from bar to bar, ledge to ledge and
wind sill to wind sill to avoid being tagged. The narrow six inch
ledge around the Field Museum, was another one of our favorite
locations where we played tag. We gave no thought to the imposing
30 foot drop to a concrete walk below that ledge. I don’t know what
possessed us to confront the dangers we did without having second
thoughts. It’s also possible that, in addition to knowledge tag, also
passed on to us are primal memories and primal instinct which can
dominate our thoughts, influence our responses and override that
which distinguishes us from all other species, “knowledge tag.”.
Perhaps the primal memories of escaping from predators in our
distant past are too easily resurrected in the passion of our games.
Under certain circumstances and under certain conditions, primal
instincts can and do emerge, overcoming the sensibilities and
responsible behavior we acquired from generations of ancestors.
Anyway, as I look back, that’s the way it seemed to me when we
were growing up on Taylor Street.