As I walked out in the streets of Chicago… Kindergarten was on 23rd and Wolcott; the grammar school that I attended was on Cermak and Wolcott. Yes, Wolcott one block east of Damen would become a prevalent street in my early days.
We walked to school each day; it was less than a half mile. I guess that was more of a thing back in the day… being able to walk to your grammar school. All of the kids that went to the school lived within walking distance; it’s different now. Sure, I see some kids walking to my son’s grammar school, but most of them I would say, including my son, get dropped off. For us, about 2 miles would be a bit of a trek in the morning. Back then, 4 blocks was nothing. Typically, we walked down Damen and then turned left to get to school. My kindergarten is still there; it’s actually a “dual language magnet school” now… oooohh. My grammar school has not survived. Actually, the building did, and along with a couple additions, turned into a High School; the church that was across the alley from our school is long gone too. There used to be a gym/skating rink that was right across 22nd place. My grammar school didn’t have any sports teams or anything like that, but we did use that building for roller skating parties and gym. I remember one day in gym I threw the dodgeball at probably the toughest kid in our class; it hit the top of his shoulder, bounced up, and broke his glasses; he was crying. I thought I would be crying later (haha), but it was all good; I apologized, we were cool. We were so cool that later on in life, he would “hook us up” with some party goods.
Outside this building on Wolcott, was a parking lot, where we used to play softball; I remember one day in particular. One of the boys in my class was up to bat. After he hit the ball, he threw the bat; I stood there watching the bat fly in the air in slow motion, hitting one of the girls in our class right in the mouth. She was crying, holding her mouth, but that wasn’t enough to keep the blood from pouring out everywhere. There was also a little corner store across the street, where many kids from the school went to buy Garbage Pail Kids and penny candies. I preferred the Walgreens a couple steps down. I would ask my mom to stop in there all the time, hoping that she would buy me another pack of baseball cards for 40 cents; I liked the stick of gum too. Outside the Walgreens parking lot is where I saw one of my first fights. I’d have to check with my friends on the details, but an older sibling of one our classmates came up and sucker punched my friend, sending him to the hospital for stitches; we would meet him later in front of his house, welcoming him home. There would be other fights further down the street, including a couple between some girls; I remember one of the girls was thrown on top of this car…
Yes, there was a lot of action on Wolcott growing up. I remember racing one time down the street in the snow when I fell and cracked my head; probably had a concussion but what did we know about that back then?
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