The Hospital Hill Gang - Part Two

The Hospital Hill Gang - Part 2
By Paul Baker

In my first article, I mentioned how we would all gather in front of Sonny’s house for the “Million Kid March” to the Park Theater. I remember Sonny’s mother coming to the window, and she would always ask me to look out for Cosmo, Sonny’s youngest brother. I always thought it was sort of strange to ask me that as us kids always looked out for one another, but I would say, “Yes, Mrs. Rogers, I will.” We called Sonny’s parents Mr. or Mrs. Rogers as we all had problems trying to pronounce Radzikowski; they didn’t mind and got a kick out of it.

Sometimes the best fun was going to the theater as we would taunt and tease each other during the march. One of our favorite taunts was when someone spotted an empty pack of Lucky Strikes. He would place his foot on the pack, and when someone walked by, slug him as hard as he could usually in the shoulder, and yell “Lucky Strike no return.” With that shout, there was no way you could hit him back unless of course, you came across an empty pack of Lucky’s.

When we arrived at the Park Theater It seemed like there was always a long line of kids waiting to get in, and of course it seemed to take forever to reach the ticket window. I remember the price of a ticket as being twenty five cents which was a lot of money for us kids back then and most of our gang didn’t have money for candy or pop corn, so we would share whatever we had.

It’s hard to explain the commotion that went on before the movie started, poor Leo would do his best to quiet us down, but it hardly ever worked. Most of the time there was always a western to be seen, the stars back then were Roy Rogers, Gene Audrey, and Hop-a-Long Cassidy. Hop-A-Long Cassidy didn’t really appeal to me as his white hair told me he was too old and that he shouldn’t be out there fighting all the bad guys, but we cheered all the good guys in their white cowboy hats.

What bothered me the most about these westerns was when Roy or Gene would start singing, I just couldn’t stand it as I always thought it was silly for tough cowboys to sing. It was the main reason why The Lone Ranger was my favorite hero. No singing and he hung out with an Indian.

During the winter months, we never knew when you were going to get snow until it actually happen. And what a gift it was when the show was over and us kids burst through the side doors at the front of the theater and were greeted by falling snow. When we got the first snow fall it meant to us that the snow ball fights were to begin. Sometimes about a half million of us kids would get right into it on Cottage and Green Sts., and we just belted each other with snow balls, it was always fun and no one got mad.

As we all know, every gang has a leader and at the beginning it wasn’t me but rather another kid a little older than me named Ronnie. Where ever Ronnie went so did the gang; and for some strange reason Ronnie delighted in beating me up. One time after a bad beating, I was lying in bed moaning and groaning when my father came home from work and asked me what was wrong. I told him Ronnie had beaten me up again.

My father was a boxer when he was young, and he told me it was about time to learn how to defend myself, so whenever he came home from work I got a boxing lesson. I was left-handed and my father told me he hated to fight southpaws as they would move around to his left and he had problems with this.

The boxing lessons gave me some confidence in myself, but I really was still afraid of Ronnie. The showdown came one day as I was coming home along Woodlawn from the Hamilton School with my friend Joel who lived on Garland St. We were crossing Harvard St, and Ronnie and some of the gang were taking a short cut between two houses which led to the Pear Field on Fremont Ave.

Ronnie saw me and picked up a stick and threw it at me, I picked it back up and threw it back at him, he didn’t see this, but one of his followers did. The kid yelled out to Ronnie that I had thrown the stick back, and Ronnie and the other kids turned and started to walk towards me. I told Joel to go home as this was my fight; I knew it would just be between Ronnie and me.

I turned and walked towards Ronnie, it was like a scene out of a western when two gunmen would have a duel. I was scared at first, and I was thinking about the boxing lessons my father had given me. Ronnie was a dancing type of fighter and I was a flat-footed type where I would hold my ground and duck and weave when punches were thrown. As the fight begun, adults who lived in the surrounding houses all came out to watch the fight, some cheered for me and others cheered for Ronnie.

Ronnie was full of confidence and had a smirk across his face, but I just kept throwing right hand jabs at him, and when he dropped his right, I would hit him with a left cross. As the fight progressed, his smirk left his face which was getting redder with each landed punch. Soon he was tiring and stopped dancing which made him an easier target for me. The final blow came when he charged me, I side-stepped him and hit him in the stomach real hard. He just keeled over and to my amazement, started to cry.

I moved in and was going to beat him to a pulp, but I stopped as his crying was so pitiful. My knuckles were bleeding real badly, but his face was a mess. The other kids came over to console Ronnie, and I just turned up Harvard and ran home. As I entered my house, I told my brother Harry I had beaten up Ronnie, he just looked at me and didn’t say a word. Harry was a tap dancer so I figured he could care less about fighting.

A few minutes later, I heard some kids calling out for me. I went out to my second floor porch, and there were all the kids that hung out with Ronnie. They were all smiling and wanted to know if I was coming out. I looked at them, and then it dawned on me why they were there. I was now the leader of The Hospital Hill Gang. I went downstairs and walked over to them, and they patted me on the back.

The tables had turned for Ronnie, and now whenever I saw him, I would beat him up. This continued for awhile until I got tired of beating him, and strange as it seemed, we became good friends. We knew we would need each other to protect our turf as we had run-ins with a big gang from Malden St., but that’s another tale to be told.

The Hospital Hill Gang was a tight-knit bunch of kids as we rarely left our neighborhood to play with other kids. Once in a while we would go down to Nichols St playground and use the swings, or get involved in a yo-yo contest with other kids who hung out there.

Our favorite candy store was down on Nichols St not far from Lawrence St. It was called Benny’s, and he had the best display of penny candy in the area. For about a dime, you could fill your pockets with the best tooth decaying candy around. One of my favorites was a waxy harmonica that you could play a tune on and then eat it, it really was disgusting.

I do hope you all enjoy this tale of growing up in Everett, it’s probably a neighborhood most of you knew little about as we rarely had kids from other neighborhoods come up to play with us. But most importantly, it’s a tale we all can relate to when we were kids growing up in our wonderful and unique City of Everett.