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Columnists - Columnists: Mike Mooney

Friday, May. 30, 2008

Chi town cruising, or a bad boy past

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I don't know about you, but my "Graffiti" years -- spent cruising Chicago's south suburbs -- were a harrowing experience.

Raging hormones.

Acne.

"Hey, Mooney! Better watch out. Danny's looking for you!"

Thankfully, I wore PF Flyers -- the preferred gym shoe for outrunning bullies.

Curfew was something to be ignored.

Spending a night in the city lockup with the guys? Now, that would be cool.

No such luck.

"We won't do it again, officer. Honest! Just don't call our parents! PLEASE!! It's 2 o'clock in the morning."

Look out! Here comes Dad's leather belt.

We would cruise Cicero Avenue and Ridgeland Avenue and Harlem Avenue.

We'd hang out at the Dog-n-Suds and score sliders by the dozen at White Castle.

But the chocolate shakes at Prince Castle were the best.

We always were scrounging a dollar's worth of change to buy some gas. Hey, you could cruise all night on a buck's worth.

"C'mon. It'll be easy. I'll get my dad's keys. We'll roll it out of the driveway and down the street before we start it up. He'll never know."

That's how it started -- stealing "Old Man Doyle's" big black Ford in the dead of night.

Jim would sleep over at my house.

Ed would sleep over at Jim's house.

I would sleep over at Ed's house.

That would enable the three of us to spend the rest of the night joyriding, once Jim pilfered his dad's car keys, that is, and smoking Camel straights, of course.

Driver's licenses?

We didn't need no stinkin' driver's licenses.

And Old Man Doyle never found out -- even after we crashed his prized Ford.

It was a cold and snowy January night when we skidded into a ditch, creasing one side of the Ford in the process.

Luckily, it still was dark when he left for work that morning. He never noticed the damage.

Boy, was he mad when he got home. He thought someone had sideswiped the car in the parking lot where he worked.

No one knows for sure why we took up slingshot hunting, but we did. During that time, it seemed the streetlights constantly were broken.

"What's that in your back pocket, son?"

"Oh, this? Just a slingshot, officer."

"Hmmmm. I see."

"Honest, we don't know how all those streetlights got broken.

"These? No sir. We only hunt rabbits with these. Yes. That's right -- only at night. Honest!"

Dad's leather belt? You guessed it.

After the slingshots were confiscated as possible evidence, we turned to M-80s and rocks.

Those were the weapons of choice in the little-known Southside "barge wars," fought sporadically along the smelly banks of the Calumet-Sag Canal.

Once, while trail-blazing through tall stands of ragweed on the way to the canal, we made a remarkable discovery.

"Look at these! Playboy!! There's a whole box of 'em! Can you believe it? How could someone just throw these away?"

What a find!

What could be better?

Music, of course.

In those years, it was all about the music.

How else to explain falling asleep with a transistor radio blaring beneath your pillow?

"Have you got that radio on again?"

"No, Mom. Not me."

Music of all kinds was everywhere.

Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond would "Take Five."

The Beach Boys rode in their "Little Deuce Coupe."

Look out! That's "Dead Man's Curve" coming up.

The Beatles were fab -- especially "Hard Day's Night," "Rubber Soul," "Sgt. Pepper" and the "White Album."

The Stones?

The Animals?

Boss.

Double boss.

Don't forget Gladys Knight.

Yikes! Who wouldn't wanna be a Pip?

Then there was the night Jon let us into the Lutheran church to taste the Communion wine.

We wanted to compare Lutheran Communion wine to Catholic Communion wine. Not much difference, really.

Later, that same evening, someone backed Mom's Datsun into a telephone pole.

Yep. Dad's leather belt.

And who could forget the final episode of "The Fugitive," which, by the way, marked my first -- and LAST -- encounter with the "King of Swill Beer."

Mostly, though, my Graffiti years were consumed with the endless search for "chicks.*"

(*Yes. I agree. This is a VERY politically incorrect term. Please do not attempt to use this term outside the context of today's column.)

"Wow. Did you see those three?"

"Yeah. What do we do?"

"I dunno. Say something."

"No. YOU say something."

"Hey! Why do I always have to say something?"

"Because you're the one who always says something."

"Never mind. They just got into a car with three other guys. Losers. They'll never know what they missed! Let's ride. The night is young!"

Ah, yes. Those were the days, all right.

Mike Mooney's column appears every Friday in Local News.

He can be reached at mmooney@modbee.com or 578-2384.