We played a lot of ball in and around our city block—on Van Buren Avenue, Simpson Street, and in the alley that ran east-west through the block. (Minnehaha Avenue was, of course too busy and it had streetcar tracks. There must have been good reason why we seldom played in Pascal Street, but I do not remember.) The streets were narrow and had a scattering of parked cars. Simpson often had no parked cars, so it was the most likely place for a baseball game.
We had the tar-surfaced field of Wilson High School within a block. The dirt and grass field at Hamline Playground was only three blocks distant. Both of these had backstops for baseball games. Hamline University's broad lawns were only a block or two away—more suitable for a pick-up football game. While these places were seldom the sites of serious games by serious and talented players, they were the places to go if one wanted something close to serious—they drew from a larger neighborhood of players. There were no great athletes on our block, so the baseball and football played on our streets and in our alley were more spontaneous attempts at something to do.
The games seldom lasted long before other interests, chores, or meals called us away. I was the young kid on the block, so the games flourished before I was old enough to be a significant contributor and slowly faded as the older kids began to trickle into other stages of their lives and as I began to consider myself an athlete. Nevertheless, I have nostalgic memory of them.
My memories are not about the quality of play, but of the baseballs that went into forbiden yards, the balls that bounced off the wall of a house inches away from a window, the streetlights that came on in the fall during the final plays of a touch football game, the calls out of back doors and front doors taking kids away to dinner, and the tar bike incident.
Background: As far as I could see, there was no difference between the streets in the neighborhood and the black, asphalt surface of major streets and many highways. But, there was a difference. Our streets had been built and graded as “dirt” streets. I am sure there was enough gravel in them to call them “gravel roads”, but we mostly referred to any road that was neither asphalt nor concrete as a dirt road or dirt street. I didn't know they were essentially dirt streets because, since they were built in the 1920s, they had been surfaced and resurfaced with tar and a coating of sand. (I believe the correct term then and now is "oiled street", but the substance laid down was so much thicker and blacker than the oil that went into cars or onto bicycles that everybody I knew called it "tar".) This every-summer phenomenon fascinated kids, but it was a threat to every home's floors and carpets. From the day of tarring and for a few weeks after we were supposed to take our shoes off before coming into the house from play. Alas, my mother scrubbed many a tarry mess from our carpet as best she could. I presume I was the principle culprit. Of course, even the sand without underlying tar played havoc with home cleanliness. The “tennis shoes” we wore (some regions of the country called them “sneakers”) were perfect carriers for tar and sand.
I remember the tar bike incident of one hot summer day.
As sometimes happened the Forcier family and Weiman family (or at least the kids) were in a cold war. The war played out in cold shoulders multiple times a day because the families lived directly across the alley from each other, and the alley was important to comings and going. Such feuds happened a few times. As the little kid on the block, I was always in the dark as to how they began and how they ended. I believe it was the older kids in the families who started them and did whatever was necessary to end them. Genie Forcier and Jerry Weiman and I usually did our best to keep our friendship going covertly when a feud was on. But, that was not always possible. Blood is thicker than water and Jerry and Genie sometimes had to pretend they didn't like each other. I was always closer to Genie, so I was automatically on the Forcier side in such feuds—I could play with Genie but not with Jerry.
I remember during one intense feud, Jim Forcier and one of the older Weiman boys had a fight in the alley right behind our garage. Kids from both families and other neighbor kids gathered 'round. Then dad Weiman showed up. He commenced to referee the fight (closer to wrestling than boxing) and to keep the other kids out of it. I'm blank as to how the fight came out, but I do know nobody got hurt.
In the midst of such a summer feud the Forciers took a long family vacation. They had a bigger lawnmower than we did, but I did my little-kid best with it to cut their grass while they were gone “up north to the lake.” Of course, before he left Genie asked me to vow to not play with the Weimans while he was gone. I did so vow, but what was I to do? I had nobody to play with, and the Weimans of all ages became so very nice to me, encouraging me to come over to their side. I was bored. So, during what seemed like a very long Forcier vacation I found myself often in the Weiman yard and house.
I paid for it with Genie's anger when he got home, but that's not what this story is about.
On an extremely hot summer day during that feud, with the Forciers out of town, the Weimans and other neighborhood friends started a baseball game on Simpson Street at the west end of our block. I was perhaps 7 or 8 years old--too small to participate in the game. I sat on the curb, watched the big kids play, retrieved the ball a few times, and held my breath as balls bounced off the houses on either side of Simpson Street-- coming close, but never shattering a window.
The game had not gone on for long, however, when the tar truck showed up. Tar trucks were like the tanker trucks that roamed rural highways carrying milk, except they were smaller and filthy black no matter what color they were painted.
The city guys cleared us out of the street. We stood to watch as they lowered the sprayer arms on the truck and coated the east half of our block of Simpson with tar; turned around; coated the west side; and then moved on to another street.
This was the most fun part of the summer tar ritual. All but one of us stood near the curb to watch. We knew what would happen next. A truck with sand would show up and drive over the tar to spread sand across the surface.
There we were with a gleaming lake of tar before us, no sand-truck in sight. Jack Weiman was the one who was not standing among us. He soon appeared on his bicycle, however. He declared he would ride the tar. We could only drop our jaws in awe of such a heroic effort. Jack emerged from the alley onto the tar of Simpson and headed south toward tar-free Van Buren.
He didn't get half way there, perhaps fifty feet, before his bicycle slid out from beneath him--looking like a horse rising on its hind legs. Like the unskilled rider on such a horse Jack fell flat on his back onto the tar. We gasped, but nobody could dare rescue him. He rose, black from butt to shoulders, and soon black on the side, arm, and hand he needed to stand, grab his bike, and race toward home. Two of his sisters raced after him to do the best they could to remove the tar.
The rest of us just stood around in awe of what had just happened. Was Jack a hero or a stupid clown? I don't think we were sure which.
The sand truck arrived; its sand quickly erased from the street all signs of Jack Weiman and his bicycle. We slowly dispersed.
I didn't see Jack in the hours nor days after. Life got back to normal. I got paid for cutting the grass. Genie got over his anger with me. The feud ended somehow. The Forciers and the Weimans were friends again. Summer turned to fall. Baseball turned to football. Streetlights replaced the lingering sun of summer evenings.
We had the tar-surfaced field of Wilson High School within a block. The dirt and grass field at Hamline Playground was only three blocks distant. Both of these had backstops for baseball games. Hamline University's broad lawns were only a block or two away—more suitable for a pick-up football game. While these places were seldom the sites of serious games by serious and talented players, they were the places to go if one wanted something close to serious—they drew from a larger neighborhood of players. There were no great athletes on our block, so the baseball and football played on our streets and in our alley were more spontaneous attempts at something to do.
The games seldom lasted long before other interests, chores, or meals called us away. I was the young kid on the block, so the games flourished before I was old enough to be a significant contributor and slowly faded as the older kids began to trickle into other stages of their lives and as I began to consider myself an athlete. Nevertheless, I have nostalgic memory of them.
My memories are not about the quality of play, but of the baseballs that went into forbiden yards, the balls that bounced off the wall of a house inches away from a window, the streetlights that came on in the fall during the final plays of a touch football game, the calls out of back doors and front doors taking kids away to dinner, and the tar bike incident.
Background: As far as I could see, there was no difference between the streets in the neighborhood and the black, asphalt surface of major streets and many highways. But, there was a difference. Our streets had been built and graded as “dirt” streets. I am sure there was enough gravel in them to call them “gravel roads”, but we mostly referred to any road that was neither asphalt nor concrete as a dirt road or dirt street. I didn't know they were essentially dirt streets because, since they were built in the 1920s, they had been surfaced and resurfaced with tar and a coating of sand. (I believe the correct term then and now is "oiled street", but the substance laid down was so much thicker and blacker than the oil that went into cars or onto bicycles that everybody I knew called it "tar".) This every-summer phenomenon fascinated kids, but it was a threat to every home's floors and carpets. From the day of tarring and for a few weeks after we were supposed to take our shoes off before coming into the house from play. Alas, my mother scrubbed many a tarry mess from our carpet as best she could. I presume I was the principle culprit. Of course, even the sand without underlying tar played havoc with home cleanliness. The “tennis shoes” we wore (some regions of the country called them “sneakers”) were perfect carriers for tar and sand.
I remember the tar bike incident of one hot summer day.
As sometimes happened the Forcier family and Weiman family (or at least the kids) were in a cold war. The war played out in cold shoulders multiple times a day because the families lived directly across the alley from each other, and the alley was important to comings and going. Such feuds happened a few times. As the little kid on the block, I was always in the dark as to how they began and how they ended. I believe it was the older kids in the families who started them and did whatever was necessary to end them. Genie Forcier and Jerry Weiman and I usually did our best to keep our friendship going covertly when a feud was on. But, that was not always possible. Blood is thicker than water and Jerry and Genie sometimes had to pretend they didn't like each other. I was always closer to Genie, so I was automatically on the Forcier side in such feuds—I could play with Genie but not with Jerry.
I remember during one intense feud, Jim Forcier and one of the older Weiman boys had a fight in the alley right behind our garage. Kids from both families and other neighbor kids gathered 'round. Then dad Weiman showed up. He commenced to referee the fight (closer to wrestling than boxing) and to keep the other kids out of it. I'm blank as to how the fight came out, but I do know nobody got hurt.
In the midst of such a summer feud the Forciers took a long family vacation. They had a bigger lawnmower than we did, but I did my little-kid best with it to cut their grass while they were gone “up north to the lake.” Of course, before he left Genie asked me to vow to not play with the Weimans while he was gone. I did so vow, but what was I to do? I had nobody to play with, and the Weimans of all ages became so very nice to me, encouraging me to come over to their side. I was bored. So, during what seemed like a very long Forcier vacation I found myself often in the Weiman yard and house.
I paid for it with Genie's anger when he got home, but that's not what this story is about.
On an extremely hot summer day during that feud, with the Forciers out of town, the Weimans and other neighborhood friends started a baseball game on Simpson Street at the west end of our block. I was perhaps 7 or 8 years old--too small to participate in the game. I sat on the curb, watched the big kids play, retrieved the ball a few times, and held my breath as balls bounced off the houses on either side of Simpson Street-- coming close, but never shattering a window.
The game had not gone on for long, however, when the tar truck showed up. Tar trucks were like the tanker trucks that roamed rural highways carrying milk, except they were smaller and filthy black no matter what color they were painted.
The city guys cleared us out of the street. We stood to watch as they lowered the sprayer arms on the truck and coated the east half of our block of Simpson with tar; turned around; coated the west side; and then moved on to another street.
This was the most fun part of the summer tar ritual. All but one of us stood near the curb to watch. We knew what would happen next. A truck with sand would show up and drive over the tar to spread sand across the surface.
There we were with a gleaming lake of tar before us, no sand-truck in sight. Jack Weiman was the one who was not standing among us. He soon appeared on his bicycle, however. He declared he would ride the tar. We could only drop our jaws in awe of such a heroic effort. Jack emerged from the alley onto the tar of Simpson and headed south toward tar-free Van Buren.
He didn't get half way there, perhaps fifty feet, before his bicycle slid out from beneath him--looking like a horse rising on its hind legs. Like the unskilled rider on such a horse Jack fell flat on his back onto the tar. We gasped, but nobody could dare rescue him. He rose, black from butt to shoulders, and soon black on the side, arm, and hand he needed to stand, grab his bike, and race toward home. Two of his sisters raced after him to do the best they could to remove the tar.
The rest of us just stood around in awe of what had just happened. Was Jack a hero or a stupid clown? I don't think we were sure which.
The sand truck arrived; its sand quickly erased from the street all signs of Jack Weiman and his bicycle. We slowly dispersed.
I didn't see Jack in the hours nor days after. Life got back to normal. I got paid for cutting the grass. Genie got over his anger with me. The feud ended somehow. The Forciers and the Weimans were friends again. Summer turned to fall. Baseball turned to football. Streetlights replaced the lingering sun of summer evenings.
(c) from date of posting, by Bob Komives, Fort Collins
Nice flashback for me but not sure what years you speak of. We played ball at Wilson and Hamline playground. Lived close Lafond and Pascal. Nice story describing it as I remember it.
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