Everybody! Quick! Stick a broom into your front yard with the bristles pointing towards the sky! That will ward off any rain storms!
Each summer, our block held a “block party.” Everyone from our street and a few surrounding households would get permission from Detroit to block off our road from Frankfort to Chandler Park with old school “sawhorse” style blockades on a special Saturday. Once the street was closed, our gang of kids were allowed to ride our bikes in the street. It felt amazing to have that freedom. We also got to play “traffic cop” when a neighbor’s car approached the barrier, we would rush over, confirm they had “clearance” and move the barrier out of their way.
As the day progressed, families would drag out card tables, picnic benches, BBQ grills, canopies, umbrellas and lounge chairs. Cliques of interest would form huddled tables and chairs. The police, firefighters and E.M.S. from our street would group up, the gossip corner would form and the general “dads with beer” area would appear. Everyone was friendly, nobody was excluded and generally, there was a happy hum of activity… except for a few years of “kid wars.”
The “kid wars” were a few dramatic moments during the block party schedule with an intermittent “feud” (kid drama) between a few of our neighborhood gang. Either somebody wasn’t somebody-else’s best friend any more or somebody wasn’t invited to play one recent afternoon or something of the like. In retrospect, most of these were just opportunistic demonstrations for attention with the whole neighborhood nearby to witness. By the end of every block party, everyone was friends again.
Around noon, a water balloon or squirt gun fight was usually planned and the beer-drinking dads would fully commit to getting a bit more tipsy than normal making socializing a little more comfortable. Our block included many Detroit Fire and Police… which made it pretty easy to get a visit from uniformed police in a police car or even better: 15 minutes with an open fire hydrant for the kids to run through. There are few things more exciting for an eight-year-old than an opened hydrant releasing a cone of water into the street. We scorched our feet on the dry asphalt rushing into and out of the frigid hydrant spray. (Legend tells of an angry neighbor on an adjacent block complaining that their water pressure was negatively impacted by the use of the hydrant ending the tradition after a few years. However, the kids of Hillcrest all decided that there should have been plenty of pressure to supply city water and hydrants at the same time.)
By mid-afternoon fruit salads and Jello-molds would make an early appearance in the potluck area alongside soda, water, KoolAid and what appeared to be punch clearly labeled “adults only!!!!”… and the kids knew what that meant. (However, I’m pretty sure some of the high school age kids sampled that punch when nobody was looking.) A couple of hours before the sun would set, the potluck food would join the afternoon snacks and the kids would start to circle the buffet attempting to identify the food that would earn a spot on our styrofoam oval platters.
The food was all very good… even the stuff the kids stayed away from. There were families with many different backgrounds and family recipes to share. Some of the older families would present luncheon meat, cheese and crackers. Others would bring a whole BBQ grill and prepare hotdogs, hamburgers, or grilled sausage. My mom was famous for her potato salad… but often contributed one of those Jello-molds mentioned earlier. Occasionally freshly fried chicken, baked ham, mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallow topping, seven-layer salad, seven-layer dip (layers were a big deal in the 70s and 80s, I guess), and other delicacies made it to the tables. There was always one person to bring the pickles, olives and other assorted condiments. That may not sound like much, but there wasn’t a pickled vegetable left at the end of the night.
Then, dessert appeared. Most years, I believe there were more desserts than main courses. That meant that most families contributed BOTH a main course or appetizer as well as a dessert. There were many options from the nearby Kroger or Farmer Jack grocery stores: Little Debbie, Hostess, Entenmann’s, and everything in-between was on display. There were plenty of homemade cakes, pies (my mom made an amazing strawberry-rheubarb pie from our garden behind the garage), cupcakes, brownies, cookies and occasionally pastries. I admit that we kids headed for the treats from the grocery store first… we usually had pretty limited access to packaged snacks. But as we got a little bit older, we learned that we were missing out on the homemade delicacies crafted with love (and a little competitive instinct) by our neighbors.
Dessert time was more than just sugar onboarding to prepare for the upcoming game of “witch” (more on that later). Children, adults and seniors were all too full of food and beverages to move. Instinctively, things shifted to conversation and ultimately a bit of story time. When I was still very young, one of the older ladies on the block told us about the first time she saw a car near the end of the 19th century. Sometimes the neighborhood police officers and fire fighters would tell moderately edited (PG-13) stories about some of the excitement from the past year. (The stories were always better when they had a few beers still in their system.) A story told by one of my best friend’s police helicopter pilot fathers involved an “emergency landing” with a major fast food mascot onboard… instantly becoming legend. Kids would chip in with their best efforts: a kid that ended up with stitches at school, a big sports-ball win, seeing a sports star at a local restaurant. We were just happy to be part of the excitement.
As the story time slowed down and adults started switching to coffee and soda, the sun was setting and the street lights were flickering to life… usually. (Detroit wasn’t great at keeping the street lights operating everywhere during the 80s. I’m pretty sure that we didn’t have fully functional street lights for about 5 years straight…) Sun down? Time to play “witch”…
“Witch” (also known as “Ghost in the Graveyard“) was a game of tag where one child took a turn to be the “witch”. They would cover their eyes… usually leaning face-first into a tree and counting while the other children hid. The block party provided a rare opportunity for big kids and little kids to play the game together… we were also allowed to hide ANYWHERE in the neighborhood were a neighbor had left their backyard gate open. “Witch” began as a special game only played during block parties, but when the Hillcrest gang was old enough, we would occasionally play it later in the summer when the sun would set before we were called in for the night. Still, the block party version stayed special.
The first “witch” was usually one of the older kids that explained the rules to any newcomers to the block, younger kids who had not played yet and any parents that wanted to listen in. All of the kids would group around the “witch” at the “base” until everyone began to count in unison:
“One o-clock, two-o-clock, three-oclock, ROCK!
Four o-clock, five o-clock, six o-clock, ROCK!
seven o-clock, eight o-clock, 9 o-clock, ROCK!
Ten o-clock, eleven o-clock, twelve o-clock, ROCK!
Starlight! Moonlight! I hope to see the witch tonight!”
As soon as the counting began, every child scrambled to hiding places: under bushes, behind fireplace bump-outs (chimney projections), behind cars in driveways, next to porches and behind trees (climbing trees was forbidden). While hiding, you could hear the witch discovering your friends, chasing and tagging them making them a “witch” to help the hunt. Screaming during the chase… louder and more excited as more “witches” were in pursuit. With every new “witch”, you knew the chase would be more difficult. Your only escape would be to make it back to the “base”. Every hiding kids’ heart was pounding. It was dark. Big kids chasing little kids. Little kids chasing big kids. The remaining adults cheering them on… likely having returned to the beers, punch or some whine in a box. It was truly magical.
I don’t remember what the cleanup was like: the kids were usually playing “witch” until they were wrangled for bedtime or crashed from exhaustion. However, the neighborhood was back to normal the next morning with sad, spent road barricades laying flat on each corner having completed their duty from the previous day. The nearby neighbors were still happy to see each other, but you usually didn’t see everyone together like during a block party.
When my family moved just outside of Detroit (less than a quarter mile away) in 1988, there were no block parties in our new neighborhood. I was starting high school the next year and even though I stayed friends with my Hillcrest crew, I made friends at my new school and spent less time on Hillcrest each year after. The same was true with most of the other Hillcrest kids.
As an adult, I moved to suburbs of Detroit (and now Lansing). Each time I moved it was to more and more rural locations and none of them had block parties. Those events were something special: the adults would start planning in early spring, make arrangements with the city to close the street, plan fun for the kids, food to share and time to be together. If it’s possible and you don’t have a block party where you live, try to make it happen. Talk to the neighbors you know and encourage them to talk to more neighbors. Throw the idea out there on your neighborhood/community virtual space/social network. In 2020, I thought about those block parties often… now, I think they could fix a lot of what ails us socially these days. See your neighbors, eat with them, drink with them. Talk to them. Have a party.
Perhaps you know that Better Made chips and Vernors originated in Detroit, but did you know that Velvet peanut butter did too? (And that they invented peanut butter you don’t need to stir!) did you know that all of the Coney Island restaurants (famous in Detroit) can trace themselves back either by business or blood, to the first 2 Coneys on Michigan Ave., Lafayette and American? Growing up in Detroit, I have a lot of nostalgia for these brands and watching the documentary (hosted by Erik Smith, local tv legend) brings it all back: watch it on their site!
When you’re in High School, getting a car and the freedom it provides is a big deal. A lot of my friends had pretty nice rides… I can’t say the same about my 1984 Chevy Celebrity Eurosport. That was one of the most inaccurately named cookie cutter cars ever belched out by the big three (perhaps seconds only the the “Reliant”). It was a pig… but I was a car stereo guy. I built a bandpass-style subwoofer enclosure, bought a cheap amp and a second-hand (removable) Alpine head unit and replaced the stock speakers. It sounded decent… and was plenty loud. We would pile into my car and make the “Gratiot loop”: north from 8 Mile Road to around 14 Mile Road and back. We could spend hours just driving back and forth, talking to people in other cars, playing silly pranks, people watching and trying to get phone numbers.
Occasionally, I would meet up with Dave Damore and head out to Gratiot. He was the kind of guy that knew way too much about cars for a 16-year-old. He built up a pretty mean Chevy Malibu, spending every spare dime he had on the performance parts… and not caring much about aesthetics. It was loud and fast, and that’s all that mattered. For a little fun, he would talk trash to guys driving their parent’s Mustang GTs (the alpha car of the 90’s) and con them into a stoplight drag race. It was rarely a close race and even more rare for him to lose. Either way it was fun… and stupid… but mostly more of the former.
When Dave wanted to be a little more serious, he would look for some competition on French Road in Detroit. The stakes were higher and the area was more dangerous (at least to suburbanites like ourselves). Cruising took a back seat to flat out racing. This wasn’t a social exercise, it was a pure adrenaline rush. Looking back, I think a lot of my love for cars and racing started there, in a dirty beige Malibu that smelled of oil, race fuel, and hot rubber.
Right out of high school, I started a decent paying job doing AutoCAD work. It paid well enough for me to get a better car: a 1989 Chrysler LeBaron GTC. With 174 horsepower and 200 lb/ft of torque, it was easy enough to get into trouble. I didn’t have the car long enough to ever cruise in it. I was working nearly full time and going to college. Eventually, sleep deprivation got the better of me and I wrecked it on my way to work.
My next car was trouble: a 1989 Firebird Formula. Bright red, t-tops, V-8, WS6 package. I made a few upgrades and cruised Gratiot with my friends and/or girlfriend pretty regularly. It was a fair match for most of the other gas heads out there that were silly enough to street race. Luckily, I never really got into trouble with that car. I still own it, though it’s sitting in my barn in desperate need of attention. I keep calling it my “retirement project”… someday I’d like to clean it up and take it out on Gratiot again.
I still love cars… I own a 1999 Camaro and race (legally) a Spec Racer in SCCA national events. I’ve loved driving several sporty Subaru models: a 1998 Impreza RS, a 2002 WRX, and now a 2011 Legacy GT. All very quick and fun to drive. The catch is, there’s just not a cruising culture around me like that on Gratiot in my teens. Sure, there’s the Woodward Dream Cruise and Cruisin’ Gratiot events, but there barely more than a parade. Perhaps it’s not so much the lack of a cruising culture as I’ve just gotten older.
Someday, I’ll uncover my Camaro, uncork the exhaust and head out to the east side on a Friday night some time and test that theory…
It’s fall in the Detroit area and commercials run regularly advertising Cedar Point’s “HalloWeekends.” While Sandusky, Ohio may be the closest amusement part to Detroit these days, it was all about Bob-Lo Island in the 80’s.
Boblo Island Storage Building
My grade school had annual outings to the island. Though I didn’t especially enjoy the boat ride at the time (approx. 80 minutes), I would love another chance to experience the sights, sounds and smells of the boat. Each had either a dance floor, arcade or both, concessions and of course an amazing view of the Detroit River. The park itself was relatively small with a couple dozen rides ranging from bump’em cars to full-on rollercoaster thrill rides. I was never quite old enough to enjoy the park to the fullest and regret having been afraid of the best rides.
The Screamer
These days, the entire island returned to its residential roots, housing private homes, vacation property, and marina space. Who knows… in another 20 years rides may return and ferries could carry excited Detroiters to that little chunk of Canada (yep… it’s really part of Canada) to appreciate local amusements… though I doubt it.
YouTube is a great way to go back in time find commercials and TV shows from the past (though I still can’t find any episodes of Kid Bits!). Here are a few for your viewing enjoyment:
If you can find a few more Detroit favorites from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s post a link in the comments!
“X-Entertainment”:http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0969/ has a great article on the experience of waiting for that Sears (or JC Penny in the midwest) catalog to show up full of the year’s best toys. Usually sandwiched between the underwear and hand tools were the things dreams were made of. My brother (Christian), and I would negotiate which things we would each as for. You see, we would cut out the toys from the catalog and tape them to our wish list… since there was only one item per catalog, it was difficult to ask for the same thing. Usually, we would ask for complementary toys: He-Man for Christian and Skeletor for me. Be sure to check out the “X-Entertainment Article”:http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0969/, it’s worth the read.
“Balduck Park”:http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/5/92144.html?1182200984 was the nearest public park to our neighborhood. During the summer, kites flew there and there was a “nature area (which we called “The Naych”) to hike and ride bikes, a hill provided some excitement and a few fields to play soccer, baseball, and football. My early memories of Balduck include an archery range, too, but I never had a chance to participate. Every 4th of July, the “big kids” would head over to the field at Balduck and launch the “good” fireworks into the sky. On the 5th, a group of us would pick over the scraps looking for cool shell casings and any remaining live fireworks. Usually, we would tape together the old casings of spent fireworks to resemble guns, swords, and rocket launchers.
The hill was a blast in the winter. We would go in small groups to sled down the hill. At one time, there were toboggan runs. They were great when iced over, but eventually grass grew in the cracks and they were removed. (Legend told of a little girl that wiped out on her sled and knocked all of her teeth out, but that was mostly local urban myth.)
Eventually, we outgrew playing war in the alleys and backyard bushes and moved to the Nature Area. We would have epic hunter/hunted battles. Days were spent building forts and traps throughout the single acre wooded lot. We mostly just sat there in our rigged-up base talking and eating lunch.
When were a little older (maybe between 12 and 16), we would venture to the Nature Area at night, dressed head to toe in military camouflage. Although it started as a chance to play “witch” (kind of like tag at night… more on that later) in the woods, it quickly evolved into “hey-let’s-scare-the-crap-out-of-drunk-highschool-kids.” Jocks and their prey would hang out at the picnic benches just outside of the Naych swigging on ill-gotten booze and ghetto-taxed beer. We found this practice despicable (at the time). So, what else was there to do other than shoot the drinks off of the table with BB guns and slingshots? Most of the time, this would send the offenders scattering, yelling all the way to their cars. (Balduck had a reputation as a dangerous place because a body was found behind the hill in the early 80’s.) Rarely, the letter-jacket wearing tough guys would venture into the woods to prove their manhood. Mistake.
By this point, the majority of us were 14, 15, and 16 years old. Some of us had a few years of high school wrestling experience and were in the best shape of our lives. The jocks would enter the Naych. 1 or 2 of the crew would then cover the entrance with a big branch of leaves. Then the biggest of the bunch would drop from the trees directly in front of them… dressed in full combat gear. Drunk and scared out of their minds, the Jocks would run back towards the entrance that no longer existed (once they figured it out and screamed “they’re trying to trap us… we’re going to die!”), freak out and turn around to run down a random path. At that point we usually uncovered the entrance and snuck around trying to find them without revealing our location. Awesome.
One time, however, they must have called the police, because Detroit’s finest showed up with a spotlight and some flashlights (on a night that we didn’t scare any drinkers). Although very scary, we managed to escape undetected. A huge rush, yes… but also pretty stupid. At around 6′ 2″ and 180 lbs, I might have looked pretty scary dressed in camo, to both a jock and the cops.
As we grew older and spent more time at school or driving around with our newly earned licenses, we visited Balduck less and less often. I still remember that place very fondly. Every time I look out my window at the woods around our house, I think “hey, that would be a great place to build a fort and play witch.” Someday, I might do just that.
Everyone on the street knew each other. Every summer… usually late July, the block would put up a barricade at each end of the street, set up tables in the road and have a whole-block party. Early in the morning, our families would work on their agreed task: filling water balloons, making a dish for the potluck, getting ice for coolers, etc. The kids only had one task: clean up your bike. We would gather at one house and detail our bikes with concourse precision. It was the one day of the year that we could ride our bikes *in the street* and not get in trouble… our bikes _had_ to be clean!
Meanwhile, the adults would form into smaller groups: the gossipers, the sports fans, the cops, and the beer drinkers. Gossipers took turns telling each other the dirt, carefully avoiding subjects involving other gossipers present. Sports fans would stand around and either complain about the Tigers or rave about their indestructibility, then change gears to talk about how the lions need to do either as well or better than the Tigers come football season. The cops would start as a separate group, but eventually merge with the beer drinkers… that group was self-explanatory.
The earlier block parties had 3 distinct groups of kids. The “big kids,” “older kids,” and “us.” The big kids liked to scare, intimidate and chase us. The older kids were nice, but quite obviously not interested in being around either of the other 2 groups… the kind of other kids that were most likely to be babysitters or tutors.
Around a week before each block party, “the word” would get out that the big kids were going to “get” somebody in the BRAT Patrol. The reasons were trivial, but the excitement was priceless. Everything came to a climax early during the block party with a big kid chasing someone home and a few water balloons being used before the official water balloon toss began.
After a little mid-street bike riding, somebody’s mom would organize the balloon toss. The balloon toss replaced the open fire hydrant that traditionally accompanied the block party. However, legend says that “Crazy Kers” (a mysterious man around the corner) complained enough to the city about the loss of water pressure when we did this that it was eventually discontinued… anyway, back to the balloon toss: The kids all got a kick out of the adults that dared to participate. Predictably, the toss would become a water balloon fight and everyone would be soaked to the skin. A little more bike riding and everyone was dry enough. The kids would take turns guarding the ends of the block, glaring at confounded drivers when they approached the block party barricade. Occasionally, we would let residents in by sliding the barricade over just enough. To an eight-year-old, that’s real power: complete control over who is allowed in and out of your world.
As the sun began to get lower in the sky, dinner would make it’s way to the lines of tables set up earlier in the day. Everyone would gather, pile up food, and sit together to eat. The adults took their time, chatted, and hoped the food would make the kids sleepy. No such luck. We all knew that the block party meant we could stay up past dark… and that meant we could play “witch!”
After dinner the adults would start up card games and drink coffee (or sometimes more beer). The kids (all three groups) would gather on a front porch and set the rules for the night’s game of “witch:”
* One person starts as the witch, they will hide
* Everyone else covers their eyes and counts the magic chant:
bq. One-O’Clock, Two-O’Clock, Three-O’Clock… Rock! Four-O’Clock, Five-O’Clock, Six-O’Clock… Rock! Seven-O’Clock, Eight-O’Clock, Nine-O’Clock… Rock! Ten-O’Clock, Eleven-O’Clock, Twelve-O’Clock… Rock! Starlight, moonlight… Hope to see the witch tonight!
* Look for the witch (seeking). When found, yell, “Witch!” and try to get back to the safe zone (goal) without being tagged.
* If you are tagged, you help chase down the fleeing seekers.
* The person that found the witch is the witch next time.
Block parties made this game possible. Normally, we would have to be in before dusk. But since the whole neighborhood was outside, we were allowed to play until we were exhausted… and we did. Sometimes I think I looked forward to block parties more than Christmas or birthdays. I’ve never seen or participated in a block party like those of my youth.
During our regular adventures, we discovered that the over-grown vegetation in the alley at the end of the block made a great place to set up a “base.” We put on our best camouflage outfits, hopped on our bikes, and drove right into the bushes. I’m sure a half dozen 7-10 year-olds dressed as a special forces unit riding brightly colored Schwinns wasn’t especially inconspicuous, but we thought we were just about on par with a ninja squad. We fashioned tunnels through bushes, made an area to hide our bikes, and formulated an escape plan in case we were discovered.
Occasionally, one of the neighborhood dogs on the other side of the alley fence would discover us, bark a bit, and then be on it’s way. The real excitement happened when the people who’s garages lined the other side of the alley started backing out. We tried our darnedest to keep from being discovered. Occasionally, we would be chased off because it was “too dangerous” in the alley. However, minutes later, we would be back, planning world domination one alley at a time.
Once of the great things about the BRAT Patrol was that each family had a different “attraction” at their house. Ryan had a fort built on 4 foot stilts, Mike and Ginny had a racetrack (initially for bikes, but later for RC cars) behind their garage… plus they hosted “Ghostbusters Central” in their garage, we had a pool, and Joe had a tree fort.
In the summer we would usually start the day with skateboarding or bike riding, then end up working on one of the forts or racetrack, then eventually cool off around mid-day in the pool. There was nothing quite like building a fort or digging a hole then jumping into the pool.
We al lived just a few doors from each other, all on the same block. That was our world. We rarely went “around the block”… especially when we were younger. It was the DMZ of the area. The overall area was better then. Not the stereotypical Detroit you hear about on the news.
Our neighbors were mostly police and firemen mixed with the average blue collar jobs in the auto industry and factories. We were all on the same schedule, starting with a 9:00 all clear to go outside and play…
