Me and my "Hooligan Friends"

I hadn't actually planned to write today, but I pretty much finished my Christmas shopping yesterday.....it's cold and snowing outside this morning,........good a time as any for a hot cup and a few stories to share.

My Mom never really understood me. We kids were having breakfast before it was time for me to head out the door for school. Seems I was having a bowl of corn flakes or something. My brother Dave, who was probably not more than 4 at the time, LOVED Cocoa Puffs. We were OUT of Cocoa Puffs, and he was refusing anything else. Mom was busy making the beds, so I grabbed a bowl from the cupboard, filled it with Gaines dog food (we had a small dog at the time). I filled the rest of the bowl with milk, gave it to my brother and said something like "HERE's your "Cocoa Puffs---now SHUT UP!"

With Dave, if it LOOKED like something, it probably was, and once he started eating, he was a human vacuum cleaner. (He still is today). Mom came into the kitchen about 5 minutes later, stopped at where he was sitting and asked "Dave, what are you eating?"

"Cocoa Puffs", he replied, without ever once missing a spoonful.........

"Where did you get COCOA PUFFS?"

"Mike gave 'em to me."

She immediately took that bowl away from him and said "THIS ISN'T COCOA PUFFS!-----------I couldn't hold it in any longer.........I started busting up and Mom started slapping me, and the harder I laughed, the madder she got at she chased me around the table. I was finally able to grab my lunchbox and get out the front door and head for school.

I laughed all the way to school, shared it with my little "hooligan friends", as Mom used to call them, and THEY started crackin' up too. It was easily the highlight of my week..............until Dad got home from work that night, and then it wasn't so funny. My Dad's belt and I had formed a "close relationship" during my early years!

I soon discovered that the "trick" in life, was to not get caught doing something, but if you DID, at least keep the infraction "minor" enough so that Mom would only yell at you a little........but nothing "MAJOR" enough to get the old man involved later. Let's keep Dad OUT of this if we can. He worked hard for a living and wasn't always in the mood to hear about what "Mike might have done that day."

The neighborhood in general was always pretty "safe" when school was in session, because all the "hooligans" were at least confined for awhile each day. The girls always seemed to get better grades than us boys did. Might have been the milk and crackers......."WHAT?"

After the morning Pledge of Allegience---------which I hope NEVER goes away, God help us--------------we each got a little half pint carton of milk and a graham cracker, before our first lesson. The GIRLS foolishly threw their empty milk cartons and straws in the wastebasket when they were through.

Not US, though!

The paper tube your straw was wrapped in could be torn into 12-15 pieces of little patches that you could wad up in your mouth into nice little spitballs that fit perfectly into your old straw, that now became a blowgun!

It was always an advantage if your seat was near the BACK of the classroom. Teachers eventually catch on to these things though, and after enough weeks passed, and the classroom started looking like it went through a hailstorm, the teacher would walk around with wastebasket IN-HAND, and make SURE we ALL "contributed."

Worked for awhile, until we "graduated" to rubber bands. Anyway, the girls always did better. OUR half always seemed to "major" in RECESS. I think I got a "B" in "recess" and a "C+" in "bathroom going" (if they didn't catch you out behind the bushes!)..........which to many of us, was a lot more fun than using the boy's room, and the GREAT accomplishment of having done something they didn't catch you at!

I can never remember us having snow in San Francisco, though, and I've always felt "left out", when I've heard of guys in Wisconsin "writing THEIR names in the snow" when they were kids.

Ha-ha-ha!.............I live in IDAHO NOW!!.......... but I still have to wait till Donna leaves for work. I trust the dog not to "rat" on me!

By the time I started Everett Junior High, my "hooligan friends" & I had pretty much matured. We were using the boys rooms for their intended purposes. If you weren't trying to "sneak a smoke", you could always soak a handful of toilet paper, wad it up and toss it to the ceiling, where it would stick up there.............for awhile anyway.

You could also "sit on the throne" and indulge in scholarly pursuit. Such fluent poetry never existed in any English Literature class:

"I sit here sad and broken-hearted..........."(well, never mind THAT)!

Social Studies........Mrs. Lloyd.............Room 214

I don't remember what I had for supper last night, but I remember THIS class fifty years ago! It was tough. SHE was tough. You didn't pass HER course if you weren't willing to work. Again, the girls had no problems (must've been in the hormones).

Even "sabotage" didn't seem to work. 214 was kind of an odd-shaped classroom. It was narrow, but fairly long. The blackboard was along the leftside wall, and there was a window beyond THAT as you went further toward the back of the room. My seat was in that left row next to the blackboard. Billy Price sat behind me, and Ed Vosgein sat behind HIM (2 of my "mature" new-found hooligan buddies).

We'd "figured it out" that if there was no chalk, Mrs Lloyd couldn't write down some incredible piece of homework assignment at the end of the class.

So.............Mikey here, waits for the opportunity (when he COULD have been studying). Mrs Lloyd used to pace the floor left to right, when she was lecturing, as many do. When she'd be moving to the right (away from our leftside row), I'd reach out to the bottom full length holding tray of that blackboard, and push the chalk back to Billy.

First opportunity HE had, he'd push it FURTHER back to Ed, who would wait patiently until her back was turned again, and just toss that chalk out the window, where they would fall about 30 feet to the sidewalk. And of course, when "homework assignment" time came, everyone involved would "dummy-up" with straight faces. Of course, she always had more chalk stashed in a desk drawer someplace.

We went after the chalk and erasers BOTH the next time around, but it was short-lived. That window was closed and locked from then on, because it was suddenly "too drafty in here for some of the students."

We'd probably spent more time & effort trying to get OUT of work, than if we'd just followed along like everyone else.

Mrs Lloyd was ahead of us, too. Ya know how you always tend to look at a clock on the wall, when you're desperately waiting for something to get over with? She had a sign, neatly mounted under the wall clock in her classroom that read..........."TIME WILL PASS. WILL YOU?"

"A-AGGGGHHHHH!"............Were doomed! We're ALL doomed! There ain't no way OUT of this!!!!

My "hooligan friends" and I were all "John Dillinger" wannabe's too. BIGTIME crooks. 2 of us would start a make-believe fight" in a store, and while the clerk would be trying to break it up, a couple other guys would stuff their jackets with candy bars, and we'd all meet up later to "divvy-up" the haul.

Hubcaps would come up missing off of cars in OTHER neighborhoods (never steal on your own turf where adults might recognize you), and get sold to the old junkman on 3rd street for a few bucks.

***THAT one PARTICULARLY isn't funny, because today it's costing me a pretty good penny to find some of this stuff for the cars I'm restoring, and there's only so much of it OUT there now!..................rotten little thieves!***

I want to close today's post on a very human note..........in 1958-ish...........

George Sardonis was a little Greek kid. Sonny Bruckner and Ponnell Smith were black. Richard Brennan, Billy Whiting & I were white. Wayne Yee and Randy Yung were Chinese, and Paul Padilla was Hispanic.

We played parking lot football together, dirtlot baseball, went to the old Seals Stadium, and eventually Candlestick Park together to watch the Giants play, etc...........where you found ONE of us, you usually found most or ALL of us. Nobody knew what "prejudice" was, you have to be TAUGHT that. We were just a bunch of "little hooligans" from Potrero Hill. We had nothin', but we had a lot of fun.

It's too bad that kids have to grow up to be "people."