Gold Coast: Stories From A Suburban Shangri-La

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Chapter 2: LONG AGO & FAR AWAY

  It was a dear friend of mine's firm belief that man should not live where Spanish moss does not grow. I'll second that and add that all habitable areas should, nay, must, have a distinctive aroma.

  I was born in East Chicago, Indiana. A few blocks north of our Atlas Apartments residence sat a massive oil refinery and cracking plant operated by The Standard Oil Company. Talk about distinctive smells. My mother always said, You could blindfold me, put me in a plane, fly me around the world backwards and throw me out and I'd still recognize that smell before I hit the ground.

  As a bonus we were within easy walking distance of some of the world's largest railroad marshaling yards, and beyond them steel mills that ran along the shores of Lake Michigan in both directions as far as the eye could see.

  In summer the sunsets were magnificent.

  My brother and I used to leave the apartment, turn left, stop at the candy store for licorice wheels, Mary Janes, Snaps or maybe a Slo-Poke and a bottle of Kayo, then proceed past the City Service gas station to the park and its vintage M5 Stuart tank. Someone had shoved a battery into the barrel of its 37mm cannon, rendering it useless in the event of an attack by Communists, remnants of the Kondor Legion or perhaps marauders from Whiting or even Illinois. Many an hour was spent attempting to gain entry to the tank through what later proved to be the engine compartment.

  City Hall and the police station stood on the next block. Further south you came to the First National Bank. The bank's claim to fame was having been robbed by John Dillinger one sunny day back when criminals were seen as heroic and even romantic figures while public servants were considered to be inept, on the take, or both. Case in point: a silent alarm was set off by a teller the moment the first gun was shown but it was a full thirty minutes before local law enforcement agents arrived. Folks still wonder about that one.

  Turning right at the bank and crossing Indianapolis Boulevard there was an ancient Walgreen's drug store, complete with a short order grill. Its place in my family's history stems from a visit by my father and his older brother during which the Old Man pretended to be deaf and dumb.

  Such a shame, and he's so handsome, lamented the counter help.

  Things were going swimmingly until they ordered lunch. They had just gone through a highly stylized sign language routine to get across the Old Man's order of a cheeseburger, french fries and a Coca-Cola but when the waitress read it back she said hamburger.

  No, cheeseburger, said the Old Man.

  It's a miracle! cried my Uncle, as they beat a hasty retreat.

  Half a block west on the south side of Chicago Avenue was the Vogue Theater, East Chicago's lone movie house (the Mars Theater in the south end had shut down years earlier). My brother and I used to go to the Saturday matinees and watch such cinematic fare as Hercules, Hercules Unchained, Sink the Bismark, The Tingler, The House On Haunted Hill, Son of Hercules, Return of the Revenge of the Son of . . ., on and on. With the exception of Sink the Bismark most every film screened there dealt with radioactive people, carnivorous plants, giant insects, rampaging prehistoric monsters, flying things. Being four years older and subsequently wiser my brother handled the money and, once inside, held both ticket stubs. That way when the first monster leaped from the shadows and I bolted from the theater he could walk back to the concession stand and trade in my stub for cold cash. I never asked and he never offered but I think the going rate was fifty per cent of the face value.

  Backing up to Walgreen's, going one block north across the railroad tracks brought you to Brothers Restaurant, home of the Blue Plate Special. There always seemed to be five or six men sitting at the counter wearing hats, drinking coffee, eating pie. I don't recall ever seeing a woman in there ordering, eating, cooking or serving. For that matter I don't recall ever seeing a single blue plate, either.

  Continuing north you walked past St. Procopious Elementary School, which was located directly across the street from the Atlas Apartments. Cross over at the next corner and there you were, home again.

  Then, in early 1960, the world turned and we moved to River Oaks.

  As a town, River Oaks was no great shakes. No one of consequence was born there though there was a pretty good high school ballplayer back in the Sixties who had been signed by the New York Yankees. One year I even saw him on a Topps Rookie Stars card but by that time he'd suffered an injury or two and had been traded to the Angels. I can't say with any certainty that he did or didn't make it to The Big Leagues. It's possible he might be listed in some sort of baseball encyclopedia but it wouldn't change anything. Which isn't meant to take away from what he accomplished. After all, even as a minor league ballplayer he was still among the top ten per cent or so in his chosen field. And this: if only for a short time the most storied organization in the history of professional sports, the New York Yankees, the fabled Bronx Bombers, deemed him worthy of one day wearing the pinstripes.

  But that's as close as anyone from River Oaks ever got to The Big Time. There were success stories, of course, but mostly in those quiet ways that don't make headlines. No big splashes from our town. No triumphant homecomings. No investigative reporters or documentary film crews camping out on doorsteps. Each year, a number of people would finish high school, work and play their way through one last summer, then head off for college or a branch of the Armed Forces. But most stayed behind, got married and started families with the same frail hope parents always have: that their kids would not have to struggle as they did. And there were those - though their numbers were few - who ventured forth into the wide world, never to be heard from again.

River Oaks was divided into two decidedly unequal sections by River Oaks Drive. Three-fourths of the town, including the older and more established neighborhoods, City Hall, the police and fire stations, the library, the high school, and the municipal swimming pool were north of the Drive. The remaining fourth - known as Gold Coast - ran south to the Little Calumet River, a remarkably polluted waterway filled with furniture, at least one automobile, abandoned bicycles, household appliances, industrial waste and God alone knows what all else. The banks were thick with large sunflowers and strange, Triffid-like growths whose shallow roots made them easy to pull up and therefore perfect for use as missiles in the battles we waged there every summer. Another thing about the Little Calumet in summer: not only did it stink to high heaven, but little red feelie things - looking like blood-engorged worms standing on end, undulating slowly in the current - could be seen at the waterline, just below the surface.

  An inspector with the Environmental Protection Agency - had that entity existed back then - could have made a career of tracking down exactly what went into the Little Calumet and where it came from.

Untold numbers of kids fell into the River but, to my knowledge, no one drowned or suffered from anything worse at the time than the stigma attached to such a youthful mishap.

  When we moved into our house in the northwest corner of Gold Coast, the feeling among our new neighbors was that they were largely ignored and occasionally pissed upon by The Powers That Be. Even the local Little League affiliate got into the act, refusing to add more teams or build a second baseball field in the wilds south of River Oaks Drive to accommodate the new arrivals.

  The reaction to these slights resulted in the establishment of two Gold Coast-based organizations: the Gold Coast Improvement Association (GCIA) and the Civic League.

  The GCIA, as its name implied, concerned itself with improving the quality of life in our part of town, from cleaning vacant lots and planting flowers to organizing block parties, picnics, and other social events.

  The Civic League arose from the snub by those in power with the Little League. The fathers of half a dozen of my brother's friends got together and after some righteous libation and a few smokes, decided the kids of Gold Coast would have their own baseball league and playing fields, and to hell with the Little League. In the weeks that followed, they enlisted the help of a few more of their friends and some local businessmen, sought and received permission from the local school board to build and maintain four baseball diamonds on school property, then spread the word among the citizenry. At its height, the Civic League had sixteen teams in two age divisions, two hundred twenty-four players, five diamonds, and an eight-team flag football league.

  Families from Gold Coast ventured north on a regular basis for chili dogs from A & W or Dog & Suds, fried perch from taverns like Leon's, and ice cream from Dairy Queen or The Bee Hive, an actual ice cream parlor. Individuals, on the other hand, apart from attending River Oaks High or a trip to the library or the swimming pool, tended to stay close to home. No point in going where you didn't belong and probably weren't wanted, anyway. But no matter: Gold Coast looked after and provided for its own.

  At the far north end of River Oaks, approximately one hundred yards from the southern boundary of The City That Daley Built (that would be the Honorable Richard J. Daley and the city, of course, Chicago) lies State Street.

  State Street runs east and west for slightly more than four miles but it's the eastern end we're concerned with just now: the one-half mile stretch west of State Line Road which separates Illinois from Indiana. There was a time when it was door to door, wall to wall, vice: strip joints, bars and lounges, sporting houses. When I was a kid if someone referred to State Street, this was the area they were talking about. As far as the other three and one-half miles of pavement were concerned no one seemed to care too much, not even the people who lived in the rundown, two-story frame houses with brick facades enterprising landlords had converted into apartments or in the trailers and mobile homes just a bit further down the road. Luckless pedestrians, two-bit grifters, assorted losers, jivers, and chumps if the state of the housing was any indication.

  In the late Forties and on through the Fifties the east end of State Street was jumping, so much so that LIFE Magazine did a