Billy Sandrow's Crowd

There was a bunch of toughs in our neighborhood. They were known as "The Blood Gang" and they had a vague reputation among their peers and younger kids that put them in the same league with John Dillinger and other classic malefactors. In reality they were a not-yet alumni society from Immaculate Conception School. They were Catholics who tuned-up on each other at recess in the schoolyard and they occasionally intimidated unpopular Protestants like Barry Buchanan and bums who hung around the railroad. They were known to back-lip adults who had the timerity to challenge their leisure when they got too noisy.

Their greatest crimes of record wouldn't get to the police blotter. On Friday nights, for a while, they would ambush boy scouts and rough them up a little. The scouts met at the Presbyterian Church. Sociologists would analyze their behavior and say they did bad deeds because the Catholic Church frowned on the Boy Scouts meeting at Presbyterian churches. Or, they did it because of some jealousy toward the smart uniformed gang that had a better profile than them. One Friday night someone in The Blood Gang threw a rock through a window in the Boy Scouts meeting room. The scoutmaster and his assistants took off after them. They never returned.

The boys from the Catholic School were convinced by nuns that they were a superior sort. Their handwriting was better than the scribbles of public school kids, but fights weren't started over calligraphy. They were better athletes. Did nuns coach football? There's a kid making the sign of the cross when he stepped up to the plate. There's one kissing the scapular his mom made him wear.

"Strike three!"

Our crowd didn't have the kind of cohesion that held The Blood Gang together. They were under the thumb of nuns <@145>til the end of the school day and they might set out for a little mischief to prove that the good sisters didn't have absolute control over them forever.

We had different friends at school and didn't evolve into a pack. When I was little my pals were kids on the block. At school we were at desks in different classrooms, or different schools. The guys we hung-out with at school lived elsewhere and we didn't play in their sandboxes in the afternoons. All of the Immaculate Conception mob was intact after eight years of convent rule. We might have become a gang but some kids had daddies that chose to move away and take their families with them. Intact, we might have been formidable but Howard Glickman, a proven good fighter, moved away. So did three others from our pack of seven. Still, we had Jimmy Evans, who had proven credentials in the public school lot after a good punch-out with a kid around the corner who was in the Catholic School crowd. That boy made the mistake of thinking he could intimidate Jimmy.

The idea of gangs was a social acceptance thing. Kids who stayed at home while others played together were thought of unfavorably. It's not fair, nor kind, nor reasonable to depreciate the odd child who doesn't mix. But, it's logical because the norm is to mix...with people who have like interests. And it's logical that small children have natural similar inclinations (I suppose, because they are primitives) and those outside these habits are viewed as weird. The long range danger is that the solitary child might drift to a social hermitage. That's unfortunate.

Our gang (in the Hal Roach vision) was the informal crowd of kids who were roughly the same age in the same neighborhood who responded to common actions: building forts, playing group-games like tag or hide-and-seek or king-of-the-hill or marbles or ball. Identity might become acute at snowball fights when aggressive loyalties and meaner traits were revealed. Our first clubhouses were sandboxes. Later they were crawl-spaces under porches. Eventually they were forts or "bunks" in "the lots."

Loyalty was unshakable on the days we gathered together. Nevermind that we would sometime later grow-up and abandon that idea because part of growing-up was to cast aside our playthings. Playmates would have to be abandoned in favor of a wife if there was to be a next generation of playmates. It's the natural way of saving the species.

We weren't going to sit in the sandbox forever.

Girls were ahead of us. While we were climbing trees and wrestling and building bunks and playing the archaic cowboys and indians, they were cuddling dollies. They talked to their Raggedy-Anns and changed panties on Betsy-Wetsies and had tea-parties with dolls and girlfriends. They nattered constantly, even at Jacks or Old Maid or rope skipping. All of their play was a rehearsal for the future.

We were more basic in our approach to life. We lived for the day that was upon us and if girls got in our way we would taunt them...or throw mud-balls at them. In the winter, though, if we took a fancy to one of them, we'd pelt her with snowballs. That was a subliminal affect. We didn't recognize or admit our target was our object of some special interest.

When I was in highschool newer friends were found who didn't live nearby or sat in the same classroom or sang in the choir-boy heaven or were drafted into the scout patrol. We might meet friends through older friends then paradoxically drift from the older ones to better loyalties with the newer ones. Even the insulated Catholic School kids hung around with some of the public school kids who were their neighbors and then the ones who played baseball on the sandlots. When we got to highschool we all were shuffling around our activities to wider groups of companions.

Billy Sandrow was, I think, the first of my pals outside the older definitions. He lived as far west from Emlen School as I lived east. I might ride my bike up to his house, or walk and we'd play wire-ball or "catch." We'd wrestle to test new "holds" that might be used on enemies. A lot of time was spent in chats, I guess not too unlike the natter our sisters did. He had to show me his room. Boys like giving the tour. "Wanna see my room?" That's where models and rock collections and other treasures are kept. You don't show that stuff to strangers who might be thieves. We'd sit on the step and watch traffic. His mom made snacks.

His friends of worth lived in other neighborhoods. I was on Mayland Street. Dave lived on Pastorius Street, Joe on Haines, Bill on Manheim, others on streets not even near each other. If you inherited Billy as your friend you got all the others too. If I had met Bill Tull first, it would have been my inception into Bill Tull's crowd. Or if I knew Dave Wagner first it would be Dave Wagner's crowd. None of these guys could yell out the back window to each other. Today, kids in this situation would drive, be driven or take a bus over to see Jimmy or Joe or any of the others.

Dave and I were happier when the Sandrows moved to Baynton Street into a house closer to and between ours. This move made meetings more frequent. We'd go to Ostrum's drug store for sodas and hang-out on the steps. That annoyed adults sometimes. We'd go to the Rialto more often to see movies. They would come down to my block and we'd gobble pizza at Jack's Tomato Pie House. We would go to the "Y" to shoot pool. We weren't quite into a heavy social whirl of parties and dances — some, to be sure and sometimes that would be on an individual foray. "Where's (whoever in the crowd)?" "At (so and so's) party."

When Billy pledged at Pi Rho Sigma and got an initiation and a frat jacket we ho-hummed his move. The year before I declined the invitation. I suppose Dave did as well. The jacket was a fashion statement and Dave depreciated it in a kidding way that didn't lessen a great friendship at all. Afterall, we were all friends and there were no jealousies in our world.

In November of 1949 my Uncle Jim was married. Details of my first drunken binge that night have been recounted. I might have been miserably sick when I got home but I was smart enough to get out of the house early enough that Sunday morning to avoid my father's arrival from work.

I'm going to early mass. I used this tactic as an act of propitiation and aimed it at my mother. I think I caught her off-guard. At any rate she wasn't prepared to deny me the benefits of my religion.

On the way to church I passed Sandrow's house. I heard my name called. Billy was on the roof of the porch. We talked. He invited me away from my other plans and I helped him scrape paint (his chore) and spent the day away from danger. His mom made lunch for us. That was a good excuse to call home and put the invitation on a done-deed plane. Keep mom off-guard. The later I go home the better the chance was that my father wouldn't go nuts over what his wife told him about the night before. Whatever I felt, I would eventually have to go home from one sanctuary or another and I would know immediately if life was worth living.

There was hope. I could stay at Sandrow's for lunch (which was already eaten). Be home for supper: that day at six. We went to the movies. We really can't stall off anything forever. I got a good word of compassion from my friend who helped to save the day for me, if just a little.

When I turned the knob of our door I knew my father, busy with some small chore, gave me half-a-glance and a piece of advice. "Don't do that sort of thing again."

It worked.

I guess sixteen in 1950 could be compared with twelve or thirteen nowadays. A lot of kids are drunk and on their way to being grandparents on the third day after puberty sets in. The pills up in the medicine cabinet were for people too sick to get along without them. That's simple enough.

That's one side of our condition. When I was young my parents weren't too keen about leaving me alone if they went away. They would send me to my mother's youngest sister's house in Blue Bell Hill. That was okay because my Aunt Lillian was everyone's favorite aunt. She lived across the street from Fairmount Park and at the corner was one of the most famous bridges in the world, recently constructed.

In 1950 my parents went to Florida and surprisingly let me "guard" the house. They left orders: things to be done. My sister had married the year before and lived far away, next to Emlen School. I got a lecture on responsibility and shook my head up and down in agreement.

There are no stories to spoil my parents' admonitions. Some of the time was spent at Wildwood so that knocked out a good percentage of time for potential failure. When I was at home I spent the usual time with Pira and the the local crowd. And I spent the usual time with Sandrow and the not-local crowd. One night Billy and Joe DiMatteo and Dave and I went to the Rialto. We saw a gangster movie. During the dull parts we went to the men's room to smoke cigarettes and clown a bit. Afterward we went to Jack's for pizza with anchovies. I peeled mine off — too salty. We all walked back to Baynton Street and Billy invited us to stay over. His family had gone to Ocean City. Dave couldn't. Joe and I did.

We all slept in his sister's bed. That was important because we all wanted to talk to each other as long as we could stay awake. Popular writers today can't imagine three guys in one bed without the prospect of sex. I don't think we could have imagined it at all. If we heard of such a tale, we wouldn't believe it. Now everyone's a voyeur and couldn't imagine otherwise.

In the morning we heated up the leftover pizza Billy brought home. It wasn't enough for hungry kids so we went to Nick's "famous" restaurant for a real breakfast and we drove the waitress nuts.

Billy Sandrow's crowd would be dispersed one more time before school. Bill Pira's crowd would go to Cape May. I divided time between the two. I turned seventeen and, all things considered, I was happy.