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The Other Summer of 1968 in Chicago by Barry Daniels There was a lot going on in the summer of 1968: the Vietnam War and the peace movement, hippies, yippies (no yuppies yet), the Weatherman, the Russians in Czechoslovakia, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, preparing for men on the moon, the Cubs in first place (briefly), and on and on. Most everyone knows about the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that year. I was there. Not at Grant Park or downtown or the International Amphitheater, but in the working-class neighborhood that was my little world. I don't know what made me think of this day, it just kind of popped into my head. Do you know how those things happen? Memories, obscure or otherwise, just pop into your head and, just as fast, it pops out of your head. I had to write this one down. **** It was a typical summer afternoon in West Englewood, on the Southwest side of Chicago. I was 13 years old. I was walking with Dan and Dave Waterman, twins, my best friends, to Lindblom Park on Damen, between 59th and 62nd. We called the park Damen Park. We were likely dressed in shorts, canvas Converse All-Stars and T-shirts, which was what we dressed in every day. In those days, before cable TV and video games and central air conditioning, Damen Park was my world: baseball, basketball, football, hockey, whatever. As we walked to the corner of 60th and Damen, it all happened. It now seems like a little microcosm of everything that was going on in the world. We got to the corner and saw a little boy, maybe 8 or 9, on the sidewalk, covered with blood, bleeding from his head, holding his head, rolling and screaming, obviously in pain. The interesting thing I remember about the blood was that it was streaming down his head in small trails, kind of like you see on some of the professional wrestlers. I guess the heat and humidity do that. If you've seen something like that, you'd know what I mean. Although I knew most everyone in the neighborhood, I did not recognize him. These were the times when you seemingly knew every kid in the neighborhood. His older sister was there, and she was asking him again and again 'what happened'. As he was rolling on the ground holding his head, he said some black guys hit him with a baseball bat. Strange, because this area was lily-white at this time, but Damen was a busy street, with many people using it to get somewhere. Why would someone stop a car, get out, and hit some little kid, in the head, with a baseball bat? More and more people began to congregate at the corner. Many in the group were the older teenagers, from around the neighborhood, all dressed in "dago t's" and "khaki" pants, with the cuffs rolled up. These were popular at the time and were the dress that the tough-guys, or greasers, wore. Greasers, hippies, dupers, collegiates, we were all part of a youthful caste-system. Among the crowd were Paul and Jimmy something-Ski, I don't exactly remember their last name. Both big guys, one blond, one with dark hair. Eddie Lackey was there, a little fireplug of a guy, about my age but much more experienced with being a "tough". He always had a crewcut that I think his father forced him to get. His hairstyle, normal now, really stood out in 1968. I had first met Eddie Lackey several years earlier, at some type of day camp at Marquette Park, which was not far away. That's the same Marquette Park known for Dr. Martin Luther King and American Nazi Party notoriety. When I first met him, he was climbing up the Darius-Girenas monument in the park at 67th and California...barefoot! If you know the monument, which is a tribute to two Lithuanian aviators who tried to fly from Chicago to Lithuania non-stop just prior to WWII, you'll realize how bizarre Eddie climbing it was, and why I can still remember it. All in all, about 20 people ended up on the corner and by this time, an ambulance had come, treated the little boy, and taken him away. A police car and a paddy-wagon came, questions were asked, and they drove away: To the hospital? To the station? To look for the black baseball-bat wielding kids? Who knows? The crowd was now across the street and standing next to Dee-Dee's Hot-Dog Stand, also known as Goofie's. Goofie's gave away free fries with hot dogs, how can you beat that? I consumed more than a few Goofie's dogs in my time: we did not yet fear cholesterol. They also had a jukebox. Every time I hear the song 'Black Pearl', by the Sonny Charles and the Checkmates, I think of the time I was standing in there and Johnny Zuma, a teenager or older, played the song over and over again. Johnny wore yellow-tinted glasses and a black leather jacket...seemingly all the time. For some reason I remember George Wallace for President bumper-stickers all over the streetlight pole, in front of Goofie's: must have been 1968. Things were getting tense. "Some fuckin' nigger hit some little kid with a baseball bat" said someone from the crowd. Seemingly no one actually saw it happen, except the little kid, and he was gone. Jimmy, Paul, Eddie, and others, started taunting black motorists on Damen and one guy stopped. The thing that I remember, was his large Afro, this was 1968, after all. He was in his 20's or 30's, and had a wife, maybe a grandmother, and I think a little girl in the car. Why he would stop I have no idea. He had balls. After the car stopped, taunts were hurled back and forth, and the black guy started to get out of the car. Most of the crowd started to run, but I distinctly remember Eddie Lackey saying: "Don't run, don't run, stand here." Everyone did, including myself. The behavior of crowds, in certain situations, is amazing. Eddie Lackey made all 20 or so people stop in their tracks. The black guy got back in his car, and seemingly everything was over. Then more taunts. Paul and Jimmy started across the street and up to the guy in his car. Traffic was basically stopped. From somewhere, baseball bats appeared in Paul and Jimmy's hands: maybe they were playing softball in the park. Paul and Jimmy usually weren't in Damen Park too much, nowhere near as much as me. They hung out a few blocks East, at Earle Playground on 61st and Hermitage. Earle Playground was the birthplace of the "White Berets", which was a "movement" that likely never made it out of the surrounding neighborhood. The "White Berets" were a group of white kids who got together in response to the symbolism of the Black Panther's wearing black berets. Seemingly every kid in the neighborhood had a white beret, bought from some long-forgotten men's shop on 63rd and Western. The owner must have made a nice profit. My older brother brought a white beret home one-day and my mother immediately threw it out, I remember them arguing over it. I remember hearing that the police made the owner of the store stop selling them. One time in Damen Park, a meeting of the White Berets was called and several hundred people showed up. It was an amazing sight watching Randy Spect, I guess the self-appointed leader of the White Berets, all 250-odd pounds of him, waddling across the park, leading a group of several hundred, to try and find a place to meet and talk. The police came from everywhere and sent everyone on their way. After all, this was 1968. Paul and Jimmy approached the car, baseball bats in-hand. "Fuck you, nigger." "Oh yea, come on with it!" It was either Paul or Jimmy, I don't remember, that stuck the first blow, a smash to the trunk of the black guy's car. His car was nothing special. If I remember correctly, it was a light blue or gray Buick or Chevy, maybe a Chevy Malibu. Amazing how some details you can remember and not others. Someone went around the side and smashed in a passenger window with a bat. I remember one of the women in the car ducking as the glass flew in every direction. More windows were broken and more glass went flying. Another black driver happened by, and somehow, in all this chaos, got the guy's family in his car and drove away. The original black guy slammed his car in reverse and started backing-up his car, at a high rate of speed, looking to run someone over and kill. The rage had boiled over. He flew North on Damen, driving backwards. Something led me to get out of there...maybe to tell my friends what happened, maybe just because this was way over my head and my instincts said to "vamoose". Several years later, probably in the middle 70's, I was talking with an acquaintance of mine named Mike Hensley, in a locker room, after a park district basketball game. I say 'acquaintance' here, because Mike was a wild guy, a very tough guy! He was a borderline-criminal kind-of-guy, out of my league. I was just on the fringes of the neighborhood tough-groups. Mike had some terrible scars on the upper part of his body. I asked about them. He told me a story, about how years ago some black guy chased him down Damen and smashed his car into him, trapping him under the car and collapsing a porch on Damen. I realized I was there when it happened. He didn't seem to be impressed that I was there, at least not as shocked as I was to learn what happened after I left that day. I guess a lot of people were there that day. I don't remember him being there, but it was his type of tough crowd, so I guess he was. He indicated he almost died, and was in the hospital for quite a while. Amazing! This was the summer of 1968 in Chicago and a lot of things were going on that got national publicity. A lot of things were going on that got no publicity, like this event in my little world. What happened to the little boy who got hit with the bat? Who hit him? Whatever became of all these people involved from a legal perspective, or from a life perspective? Who knows? I think I'd almost like to do some research, via the newspapers, old police reports etc., to find out more about that afternoon, and exactly what happened. I'd like to talk to Paul and Jimmy, Eddie Lackey, the black guy, and Mike Hensley again, or someone else who was there, and hear what they remember. My guess is their version would be similar, but different: it always is. Police will tell you that if you interview multiple people who saw an incident, you get multiple stories. But isn't it odd how things pop into your head? The End.
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