One of the two things that every kid did know about every person on our end of the block was whether they were a Chicago Cub fan or whether they had made at least one very bad choice in their lives and were a Chicago White Sox fan. Now, as the old saying goes, “some of my best friends” were White Sox fans. As far as I am concerned, this shows that we can overcome all our differences and there is hope for humanity. Given the depth of hatred between these groups, the fact that they could live and play together had a Romeo and Juliet nature about it, including the sad ending part (by that I don’t mean the poison stuff in Romeo and Juliet, I mean the sad end Cub fans had to live with every year in October).
The other thing every kid knew about every other kid’s parents was whether they were grass people or not. Really, the grass people identification was a lot more relevant than the Cub/Sox one. So, I don’t want to create any confusion—grass people didn’t smoke grass (I don’t think drugs had been invented yet, at least from our perspective). Grass people were those who worshiped their grass, regardless of their stated religious affiliations. In other words, I mean the “get off my lawn” group. While people could move back and forth between being grass people and not, it was rare. None of the serious grass people ever fell out of faith with their lawns, and those grassnostic people who occasionally converted during the dreamy spring planting frenzies would quickly fall off the grass wagon as summer came. Their apostasy was greeted with great joy by the block kids.
This knowledge of people’s grass affiliation was critical. Nearly every block activity, especially street softball and hide-and-go-seek, required some involvement of neighborhood front yards. While we tried to honor neighbors’ grass affiliations (we do believe in grass choice in this country), we did not always succeed. We would occasionally trample (literally) on a neighbor’s grass freedom. Now, in addition to being a potentially unconstitutional action on our part, this would also occasionally result in the confiscation of whatever ball had ventured onto their lawn, confiscation of your hula hoop, etc., or a call to your parents. That meant hearing from both the offended neighbor and your own parents the never-ending lecture on how there was a beautiful park just three blocks away where we could play. Adults!
Bob Marksteiner was born in Chicago and grew up in Franklin Park, Illinois
