Moving from 2449 W. Grenshaw

As I mentioned in one of my previous post, I lived at 2449 W. Grenshaw til I was 16. The reason why I had to move from my childhood home is rather interesting.

Since my eye sight was failing I decided to keep to myself. Well the guys in the neighborhood somehow took the way I acted, or better still, the way I did not interact with them to mean I was in a rival gang. They could not accept that the reason I did not say hello or otherwise acknowledge them was because most of the time I could not see them well enough to recognize who they were. The local boys were of two gangs, the Harrison Gents and the Taylor Jousters. At the time they were not at war against each other.
Well, on one occasion one of my cousins came over and we decided to take a ride on my bike to buy some hot dogs, on the way there we encountered some of the local boys, and my cousin, who was a Spanish Cobra, represented himself as such. We escaped that one. However, now I was in for it. No explaining in the world would convince them that I was not a Cobra. They tried to beat me up on several occasions but I was faster then they were. One day, or I should say one evening when I could not see them coming, they chased me into my hallway with a bat. I got away but my parents decided I could not stay there any longer. I was sent to live with my Dad's aunt on 26th. and St. Louis, also in Chicago. Not a great area either with the Latin Kings and the up and coming two six. I mostly stayed inside. I did however venture out to buy something to eat. On one of these times at the Jack-in-the-box, when I sat down to eat a guy came to my table and asked if I was a King, I told him no that I did not belong to any gang. I did not know what to expect next, but he sat at my booth and started to tell me that most of the guys there were Latin Kings and they wanted to see if I represented myself as one of them or if I would say I was a two six. He stayed there til I finished and then he told me to wait a minute. I waited expecting the worst to happen next. He went and met with his boys and then signaled for me to meet him by the door. He asked me where I lived and I told him. He said that he talked the other guys into letting him talk to me alone, so that he could walk me home. He apparently believed me. He walked with me half way home and told me to watch my back since he could not help me after that day. I got to my aunts house and sat there and wondered, what next. Did I look like a punk? Apparently these gang-members thought I was some bad assed dude that had to belong to a gang. I did not as I repeatedly told people. One thing that did not help the matter either was the fact that an eye doctor my parents took me to see, prescribed some dark glasses for me since my eyes were so sensitive to the sun. I guess wearing these led many to believe I was a bad-ass.

Well, after this my mother convinced my father that I could no longer stay with my Dad's aunt. She also knew I could not return home to Grenshaw. She tried to convince him that they should look for a home somewhere else. It wasn't easy since the house we lived in belonged to his dad and he really did not want to leave there. Well, my mom and I went house hunting. She knew of some nice newer homes she had seen in an area where she had gone preaching. So we went to the area and were told of a bungalow that was for sale which did not have a for sale sign. We went to the house and rang the bell. A man answered and asked if he could help us. I told him why we were there, and he said that yes his house was for sale but that he could not show it to us. I asked him for the real estate info, and he went and got a card with the name and number of who we needed to speak with. As we were going down the front steps he called us back and said he saw no harm in letting us go inside. We were very excited. We stepped in and noticing how clean everything was, we removed our shoes. Yes, my mother did teach me manners. Well, my mom fell in love with the house. I did too, it looked like something out of a movie. A huge jump from where we lived. As soon as we got home I called the real estate agent and asked about the house. He told me about it and how much money the owner was asking for. He was asking $25,000. Back in 1971 this was a lot of money. When I told my dad he said no way could he afford that. My mom insisted on him seeing the house at least from the outside. He finally said fine. He saw it and liked it but still insisted that we could not afford it. I called the agent back and asked how much money down we would need and what the monthly payement would be. He gave me a rough idea. I passed it on to my dad. He was still against it but we went to see the real estate agent at his office. We drove from there to the house and he walked my dad through it. My dad made them an offer he was hoping they would refuse. He offered $21,000. They did refuse that but they came back with a counter offer of 21,500. This to me sounded great, but what did I know at the age of 16. Well it took everything my mom and I could muster to convince my dad that this was a great opportunity. Well he agreed and in February of 1972 we moved in to our new home. It was like living in a dream. We actually had space between our house and the house next door, and we had a garage. We had storm doors and windows. It was just too much! Finally I could live at home and freely walk the streets of my neighborhood, or could I?