There were a lot of us kids about the same age living up and down 14 ½ street for a stretch of three blocks. This is looking up the street in the picture to the left. I wouldn’t call us a gang but we did get a little out of hand, at times. We played football and softball on this street. We fought and played on this street. It was our street. Cars learned early on not to come up or down this street unless they lived here.
This was an all white neighborhood. The “colored”, as we called them then, lived from 11th street on down to first street. Some whites lived there too but the colored did not come up past 11th street. Everyone said that it was not safe to go down to 9th street after dark, which was full of bars and kind of wild at night, but I did and never had any problems. There was a 4 lane bowling alley there and I made a little money setting pins at night.
We never had any colored play ball with us. Not really a rule but it just never happened. I had one colored friend named Roy Q. We usually walked to school as he would go by my house every morning anyway. At first he used to knock on my door but after a couple times, my mom got really mad. She said she didn’t want that ‘nigger’ knocking on her door. Some of the neighbors might see him. So, I usually waited outside for him. We both played sports at school. He was the fastest kid I ever saw but he was too lazy or perhaps afraid to go out for track because he was colored. I was the fastest kid at central junior high in the 50 yard dash and the 100 yard dash but I knew Roy was faster because off the track, I could never beat him. He would run, while looking backwards, just fast enough for me not to catch him. He was also a thief. He was always showing me comic books and other things he would steal from Larson’s soda fountain and Walgreens drug store. He never really had a chance. His two older brothers were already in prison. He just did what he knew. Eventually we drifted apart without realizing it. But we were friends for while there and I am glad for that. This was in the early 1940’s.
I never understood completely why the colored couldn’t live past 11th street. I knew there was some segregation in those days but it never bothered me much. In fact, I don’t believe I really knew what Segregation meant back then. It was just a way of life. It was not until I joined the navy and eventually wound up at Quantico, Va. One day I went on liberty to Baltimore, Maryland and for the first time, when I got off the bus, I saw white and colored toilets and colored and white drinking fountains. Here I was 18 at that time and never knew this was the way it was in much of the country. But I learned fast.
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