This is one of a number of short stories about Footsie Watkins and his family’s nomadic lifestyle. Billy and Grady (NuNu) was the eldest of ten children born into a family of dysfunction, poverty and bigotry. The two older boys bonded and grew up together learning to deal with adversity while leaning on one another for moral and physical support throughout their lives that was filled with sadness, humor and hope!
Again, the rent had not been paid which prompted an argument between the landlord and our dad, Footsie Watkins! The landlord also mentioned that he was not too happy with the holes in the wall board that had that had been caused from a recent potato fight with our cousins, Jerry Dean and Bobby Dale Williams! Our misbehavior and irresponsibility of having an indoor potato fight had turned our dad into a raving and slobbering maniac of which NuNu and I had paid a dear price by dancing to the tune of his razor strop! Nevertheless, the landlord invited our family not to live there any longer!
Prior to that, our family had been humiliated while being evicted from an old converted rat infested one car garage with no utilities, heat, bathroom or water! A picture of our family appeared on the front page of the local newspaper announcing the eviction---it was very embarrassing for those old enough to understand! However, the cockroaches were probably glad to see us move because we never had enough food and they had to eat next door!
Aside from our errors of judgment, NuNu and I determined that if we were going get through this life and live to be a ripe old age, we had better learn how to cope with any humiliating and degrading circumstances and roll with the punches---we learned at an early age that if we were to compete within society and the realm of the real world, we needed to become more creative for our own sake and survival!
Our next place of abode was found to be in a downtown slum-like neighborhood on Madison Avenue in Wood River, Illinois. Including our family, there were a total of eight families living in our tenement building with each the adjoining buildings housing the same number of families. The walls were thin with virtually no privacy…thus everyone was able to overhear and therefore knew first hand of their neighbors private affairs!
61 East Madison Avenue was located one block behind the main street of Ferguson Avenue where the downtown stores were situated separated by a back alley. Taverns were plentiful on both Madison and Ferguson Avenues with drunkards openly reeling down the sidewalks, sleeping and urinating in doorways and sometimes even worse!
However, regardless of the many taverns and the unruly clientele they attracted, massive crowds of people would gather, shoulder to shoulder, to shop downtown Wood River on Fridays and Saturdays! Husbands would bring their wives to cash their paychecks at either Tri City or Kroger’s and buy their weekly supply of groceries…both stores were located within two blocks of each other! As there were yet no malls or super stores, most families did the majority of their shopping at the downtown establishments! We usually took advantage of the week-end crowds to ply our shoe-shine business.
On Mondays, we would forage the alleys behind the grocery stores for over ripe fruit and day old bakery products. Our family was always elated when we hit a mother-lode of edible day old bakery products and over ripe bananas! Apples, and especially oranges, that were too over ripe would be salvaged and used as ammunition to be thrown at automobiles or lobbed over the stores at unsuspecting pedestrians strolling on Ferguson Avenue!
The neighborhood was a mixture of Armenians, Italians, Germans and other ethnic groups. When everyone found out that we were from Arkansas, they referred to us as ‘Arkies’ labeling us as red-necks of which we were proud of and never defended!
An old man, John Dockovich, lived downstairs in the tenement next door to us and when we would say something not pleasing, he would say “shuta uppa ya face or I break’a ya nose!” Old John ‘Doc’ really liked us even when we attempted to mock him in his own dialect---he would roar with laughter for our poor impersonations of him!
There were no black people living in Wood River. Wood River was a sun-downer town which meant that blacks had to be out of town by sun-down! Subsequently, this encouraged the black people to live in Alton and other surrounding communities that didn’t carry this moniker! Even so, Alton Blacks were still required to ride in the rear of the buses and had to use their own restrooms and water fountains which was very degrading to them and their race! We could relate somewhat to the Blacks humiliation as our family was often referred to as white trash and many times denied the same privileges that others routinely enjoyed!
Regardless of nationalities, most everyone living in our neighborhood was a St. Louis Cardinal base ball fan! We could walk from one end of Madison Avenue to the other and hear Harry Carey describing the feats of our beloved Cardinals on the radios---it was like a neighborhood stereo! When the Cardinals would play the Chicago Cubs and put the big hurt on them, everyone was elated! You would hear Harry Carey say, “swung on…its hit…way back…way, way back…it might be, it could be…it is, a HOME RUN!!” Stan Musial was my favorite ballplayer and hero--it was always more gratifying when he got the big hit---which was more often than not!
With so many taverns in our neighborhood, cold buckets of beer were the norm. As no one living on Madison Avenue could afford refrigeration, there was a steady stream of “beer runners” bringing home their favorite brand of cold lager, be it Falstaff, Stag or Bluff City, to name a few local beers. It seemed beer was a staple in most households regardless of a families’ financial status or income! Deposits were required on the bottles and buckets…being the enterprising and creative individuals that NuNu and I had become enabled us to accumulate these items and cash in on this bonanza often!
Whenever someone in our group would cut the cheese, this unpleasant odor allowed anyone nearby to yell chugs! Whoever said chugs first meant that person had the right to hit the person who ‘farted’ in the shoulder hard with his closed fist followed by the same of any and all others who were present! You could always tell apart the guys who farted a lot as they always had black and blue marks all over their upper arms! However, a guy who could fart and stink up everything on a regular basis seemed to be held in high esteem by his friends! As our family usually consumed beans on a daily basis, NuNu and I sported bruised arms but were highly respected by our peers!
At times, groups of us would go to the Wood River movie theater on Wood River Avenue just to have farting contests and see how much we could disrupt other people’s pleasure! Sometimes we would ‘cut-the-cheese’ in a row of seats, get up and move to other seats while holding our noses and pointing to a guiltless unsuspecting patron as the Usher come down the aisle to see what all the commotion and stink was about! Many times, we were kicked out of the movies for our mischievousness and smelly behavior!
Booger Foster
Donald ‘Booger’ Foster and his family lived in the unit directly behind us with their entry door in the rear on the alley side. Boogers dad, ‘Snooks’, was a small thin man who slinked around the neighborhood like a little scared mouse trying to hide along a base board! His mom was stone deaf and always yelled and cussed so loud everyone could hear her through the thin walls! She was especially loud when ‘Snooks’ come home drunk, which was almost nightly! She was an extremely wide and large person who appeared to have consumed too many of the day-old pastries that we had salvaged from behind the downtown grocery stores…and unfortunately, was challenged by the lack or hint of any ordinary beauty! Footsie said she must have fell out of an ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down…we surmised this was the reason that Snooks was drunk all the time!
Boogers mom made him baby sit his younger brother Bobby almost everyday. Bobby was a little brat who was not too smart but was tolerated only because of Boogers friendship! He grew up to be a real big dumb ass when he robbed the local bank and was cornered by the police in a dead end alley and arrested! As kids, we had roamed all the alleys of downtown Wood River and knew every niche and cranny by heart! Bobby indeed turned out to be a complete fool who evidently had lost his sense of direction and had forgotten that specific alley was dead-end which resulted in a long prison term for him!
In the summer of 1949 there were families with many kids living in our neighborhood! NuNu and I mostly hung around with Booger Foster and Russell Owens. Russell lived in the next door tenement building. Most of the time, we usually looked for things just to get into trouble with. We would openly pilfer empty soda bottles, old car batteries and anything else to sell for enough money to go to the movies and buy a box of hot buttered popcorn with a box of old hard ju-ju fruit candy!
Booger Foster was an extraordinary person with not much direction and very little hygiene…if any! He rarely combed his hair, wore a pair of glasses as thick as the bottoms of Coke bottles and was always picking his nose! Therefore, we nick-named and called him Booger! Booger had the strongest set of kidneys and bladder capacity of anyone we had ever seen! Amongst us, we would have urinating contests and Booger always won, using no hands! He could piss farther and for a longer period of time than anyone in Wood River!
NuNu and I had become very creative and figured out how to cash in on this tremendous talent that Booger seemed to possess! Not only did we know every street and alley in downtown Wood River, we were also very familiar with the roof-tops of all the downtown businesses as well!
When we were ready to transact some business, we would say, “Hey Booger, lets go make some easy money tonight!?”
He’d look at you through his double thick glasses, stick his finger in his nose and give you his possum-eating grin and yell, “When…what time…lets go!”
In the beginning of our little business scheme, we would have Booger drink at least a quart of water to load and re-enforce his kidneys to enhance his bladder capacity for superior results of endurance and distance! As our business blossomed and flourished Booger felt he had become the ‘Star’ attraction and therefore became more demanding of certain amenities for himself! Instead of just drinking a quart of water, we now had to furnish him with a cold bottle of Nehi cream soda for his pleasure before every engagement! Booger claimed the cold Nehi cream soda lubricated his innards and therefore made him much more accurate and dependable! He sometimes forgot that NuNu and I were the brains behind our business endeavors and as the front-men had to take all the abuse from our unsuspecting clients! Also, we had to suffer from the collateral damage of Booger’s erroneous and misdirected overspray!
Our business plan was simply this; our production crew would climb upon the roof of a down-town tavern overlooking the front entrance with ‘Booger’ standing ten to fifteen feet back from the edge of the roof! As the inebriated patrons would exit the tavern, NuNu and I would position ourselves at the very front edge of the roof, lean over and yell, “Hey Mister, if you don’t throw a quarter up to us, we’re going to piss all over you!!”
Some of our selected clients would throw us up a quarter as they thought what we said was creative and humorous but not life threatening! For those who elected not to invest in our business scheme, we would signal Booger to “let ‘er go!!
To see Booger prepare himself for this challenging event was like poetry in motion along with the timing of a Swiss clock! He would belch, roll his eyes upwards, slightly bend his knees and lean backwards at the waist to achieve maximum range! It was simply amazing how far out he could urinate while laughing and spraying those below at the same time! The targets would look up and yell, “I’m calling the cops and you little heathens are going to jail!!”
We’d laugh like hyenas and run across the roof tops all the way down to the end of the block and climb down, walk back up the street like nothing had ever happened!
Solock Ketcherdorf
There never seemed to be a dull moment while living on Madison Avenue! It seemed that Footsie had never met a landlord that he liked and Solock Ketcherdorf, our present landlord, was no exception! Solock and Footsie were big men and were always at each others throats over the smallest thing!
Solock was a big Russian-Armenian who liked to drink more than his share of alcohol who could intimidate as many people as Footsie could! So it was only a matter of time and inevitable they would eventually clash under the right circumstances!
On a particular hot sweltering summer weekend, mixed with alcohol and inflated self egos, would set the stage for the proverbial showdown at high noon! NuNu and I was visiting on the second floor rear porch watching as Footsie approached from the front of the tenement around the side yard toward the back alley on his way to the downtown area for more to drink! Solock was already drunk and had been in the back yard trying to stay cool from the hot summer heat, just lounging and looking for something to get mad about…his wish was just seconds away!
As Footsie rounded the rear corner of the building, Solock saw him and yelled, “Hey Arkie, you no good’a sons-a-bitch’a, you no live’a back’a here…you live’a up’a the front, so you no walk’a through here!”
Footsie replied defiantly, “Solock, y’alls just a big dumb foreign ‘pile of crap’ and y’all is not big enough to keep me from walking to wherever I wants to go!”
Then, Solock yelled and run toward my dad saying, “I don’na like-a you Arkie and I gonna kick’a you big’a ass!”
They started fist-fighting and rolling around on the ground while cussing at each other between gasps and panted breaths! Footsie finally got the better of Solock and had him down while hitting him with his fists! Solock grabbed Footsies hand and bit into it like a piece of raw meat! Footsie yelled out in pain and pulled back! Solock then escaped of what would have been a real good old fashion whipping administered by Footsie! As Solock ran into his rear apartment, he yelled back over his shoulder, “Arkie, I get’a my gun and shoot’a ya big’a ass!”
Footsie was no fool and probably had somewhat sobered up with all the physical activity he had just endured! As NuNu and I stood watching from the second floor rear porch, he turned and run around to the front of the building where we lived! Solock came out of his apartment with his gun and peered around the rear corner of the building! About the same time, Footsie reappeared looking around front corner of the building armed with his pistol!
They commenced shooting at each other…we thought we were at the movies watching a gun-fight at the O.K. Corral! Our sister Alice and little brother Jack had been playing in the side yard and was inadvertently caught in the middle of the crossfire…they quickly hunkered down to dodge the firefight whereas not be hit! NuNu and I were situated right above where Solock was standing and firing his gun toward Footsie! For a fleeting moment, we had the idea to drop some empty glass milk bottles down on Solock’s head to divert his attention, but in the event we should miss there was no escape route! We decided not to do that and ducked down as bullets continued to fly everywhere!
Finally they were out of ammunition and someone called the Police! The Police Station was just a block away and the Officers arrived when the excitement and shooting was over and arrested both men. Footsie was kept in jail for a few hours to sober up and was released as the Police surmised he was only acting in self-defense! Solock was released a few days later. No further incidents occurred between the two while we lived there as Footsie stayed around in the front where we lived and Solock stayed in the rear where he lived!
Entrepreneurship and Other Misdeeds
Nu-Nu and I also had other business interests including that of shoe shine boys! We claimed downtown Wood River as our rightful territory! However, the older “Italian” boys from Little Italy liked to bully and intimidate us…we were always at odds with them over territorial business rights! We were very good shoe shiners and were welcome in most taverns to make our rounds! Most adult men wore silk socks and would become very upset if you got shoe polish on them! Sometimes a customer would be so drunk he could’nt keep his foot on the shoe pedestal making it difficult not to get polish on his socks! I eventually became the resident shoe shine and clean up boy at Braves Barber Shop on Ferguson Avenue. Braves eventually become Thorpe’s Barber Shop where, later as adults, NuNu and I got our haircuts for a number of years.
On hot days, we would frequent the Wood River swimming pool located between the high school and the Round House on Wood River Avenue. Alton did not have a public swimming pool so people from Alton would ride the trolley to Wood River to swim and indulge in our enjoyment as well! However, the trolley station was located in Little Italy resulting in a long walk to reach the pool for the out of town visitors. For extra entertainment, we would float dog turds in the pool just to get reactions and squeals from the girls and our unwelcomed guests from Alton!
We were daily scavengers in the downtown alleys. Our favorite dumpsters were behind the grocery and drug stores. More than once, we found some old wormy cigars in the dumpster behind Reese’s Drug Store! We re-packaged them putting the best ones on top! We took our new found wares to the local taverns for resale and hopefully a monetary return for our hard work! Poppa Jimmy, of Jimmy’s Tavern, always bought the bulk of them! It was a win-win situation for everyone as his unsuspecting customers smoked them and never complained about the worms…the worms never complained either! He made a profit and we made a profit…Capitalism was great!
We were also pin-setters at the old Wood River Bowling Alley located in the basement of a furniture store across from the Mid-Town movie theater on Ferguson Avenue. We set pins using the old manual operated pin-setters and were paid ten cents a game! We would often have our fingers crushed and bruised when the pin-setter on the adjoining alley would inadvertently hit our fingers with his ball as we simultaneously used the same ball return! Whenever there was a shortage of pin-setters, we would set double alleys. This was always a challenge as you had to really hustle, especially when two bowlers would throw their balls at the same time on adjoining alleys!
At 61 East Madison Avenue, our front door opened directly out onto the sidewalk which seemed to be an open invitation for drunks to knock on it day and night. There were at least six taverns located in a two square block area from where we lived. As mentioned earlier, Footsie could be very intimidating to a lot of people and subsequently made enemies when he made his tavern rounds! When both he and mom would go out at night, they would leave me home to baby-sit with NuNu and our younger brothers and sisters. Invariably, while they would be gone, dad’s detractors would pound on the front door yelling,
“Arkie, we’re going to kill you and your family!”
If Footsie had been home, they would never have had the nerve to do that! However, being just a young boy, these episodes were very tense and scary! I would hide my younger brothers and sisters under the beds and get a butcher knife for our protection! Under these circumstances I was much too young for this responsibility but was not given any options!
As we often times got into trouble with the Police, NuNu and I were somewhat well known by the authorities at the station house. The Police Station was located on the corner of Madison and Wood River Avenue, next to where the water tower now sits. Whenever NuNu and I would become featured guests of the local law enforcement agency, Hess Perrigan the Chief of Police, would send word down the street to our parents that we were being detained! Mom would immediately come to the station and argue that whatever we were suspected of had to be false and erroneous!
Mom would argue and say, “Why Mr. Perrigan, my boys are good boys and would never do anything that you have described!”
Hess Perrigan lean back, smile coyly and say, “Mrs. Watkins, I know these boys of yours to be good boys--that’s why I sent for you to come and get them!”
Hess Perrigan was a good old boy who, down deep, really liked and cared for us. But sometimes enough was enough…even for Hess Perrigan! He also knew Footsie would whip us unmercifully when he came home!
To help alleviate the juvenile delinquency in town, Hess Perrigan had a brain storm and started a Junior G-men Club. NuNu and I were invited to join! At the time we thought this to be a very good idea until the rules were explained to us! We were empowered and expected to report any crime that we might observe!? This ploy meant that if we committed an offense, we were obligated to report ourselves to the Police!
As young baseball fans and followers of the St. Louis Cardinals, we had never personally played in an organized baseball game… at that time; Little League baseball was unheard of! The Police Department decided that the Junior G-men should have their own baseball team with NuNu and I invited to participate as players…I was now 12 years old and NuNu was ten! NuNu had more natural ability than I did and quickly become a good ball player while I had to practice continuously to become be a decent player! A Police Sergeant took a liking to me and practiced with me at the side of the Police Station almost every day. This helped strengthen my throwing arm and helped to keep me off the streets most of the time!? To my recollection, we never played a game, just practiced a lot!
Nevertheless, NuNu and I decided we wanted to have a real team that would play actual baseball games and not just practice! We put our heads together and formulated a new business venture! We solicited local businesses for donations and bought baseball tee shirts with the team name printed on them…we called our team the Wood River Jets! I was in the seventh grade and NuNu was in the sixth grade at Lewis and Clark Junior High School. We would proudly wear our new jerseys to school where we were envied and looked upon very favorably by the other kids…most of them now wanted to become a member of the now famous Wood River Jets! However, we had collected more money than was needed! We quickly called an executive meeting and voted overwhelmingly to use the surplus reserve for other company expenses, such as movies and entertainment for us…once again, democracy reigned!
Tornado
On a Sunday afternoon in 1949, NuNu and I had raised enough money through one of our enterprising projects; we decided to attend a matinee movie at the Wood River Theater! When the movie was over, we exited from the south side door…it was very muggy and ungodly hot! The low clouds appeared to be roiling to and fro with an eerie dark black color outlined with a greenish hue! It looked like a storm was brewing and we decided to get home at once! As we were hurriedly walking to our house on Madison Avenue, there seemed to be a strong smell of sulphur permeating the air which appeared to be very different and strange to us!
When we arrived home, Uncle Goldie’s 1926 Chevrolet was parked in front of our tenement building giving an indication that Aunt Christine and her family had come to visit for the day! They had already been to the corner tavern and had brought back a couple of cold buckets of beer that would undoubtedly aid them in any forthcoming important conversations!
The wind started to blow very hard and all the younger kids were finally rounded up and accounted for! I ran to the front window and observed a very large black storm cloud churning and hugging low to the ground coming directly at us across the Standard Oil Refinery that sounded like a freight train! Footsie was trying to close the front door and could’nt because of the severe wind and atmospheric pressure! With his eyes bugging out, he was yelling to everyone, “cyclone…cyclone, y’all take cover!”
I looked out the window at Uncle Goldie’s car and the strong wind had turned it completely around! I looked up in the sky and saw big trees just floating in the air like feathers! It seemed that I was under a hypnotic spell and could’nt force myself to move away from the window!
The Tornado continued its path directly toward us and as it got within a few hundred yards the pressure of the vortex completely collapsed a big oil storage tank! At that moment, the funnel cloud veered and turned ninety degrees easterly toward the direction of Sixth Street and beyond! The tornado razed and devastated a corridor east on Madison Avenue, past Sixth Street and onto the Brushy Grove area where many homes were destroyed with innocent people killed! It completely destroyed a mobile home park, twisting and cutting the trailer units apart like a giant can-opener that had run amok!
After the danger had passed us, the adults felt their nerves needed to be steadied and sought out the cold buckets of beer for assistance in this matter! However, they were much too late! In the throes of disaster and without realizing it, Aunt Christine had chug-a-lugged both buckets of beer leaving not a drop for anyone else! Compared to the reactions of the beer deprived men, the tornado proved to be just a breeze!
Heavy rains followed the tornados devastation and flooded Madison Avenue and other low lying areas! Dad’s brother, Uncle Donald, heard about the tornado on the radio and come to Wood River from Alton to check on our welfare. Needless to say, the power lines were down with no electricity and the drinking water was declared non-potable. Our entire family had to live with Dad’s sister, Lola, and her family north on Wood River Avenue next to the old ice plant until the flood waters subsided. After about three or four days the water receded and I think Aunt Lola and Uncle Harry were glad to see us go home…I know we were glad!
We continued living at 61 East Madison Avenue for awhile longer until Footsie received an insurance settlement related to Sister Alice’s untimely accident that happened some months prior! This financial windfall enabled him to buy a property which had been leveled by the tornado leaving only the basement and a big pile of nail filled lumber in the yard! We moved into that basement with hope that our lives would become more secure, enhanced and normal!
Now in our old ages, NuNu and I have revisited several times the old neighborhood of 61 East Madison Avenue where we had once lived, scavenged for food and played during our childhood. The Police Station, taverns and tenements have all been razed and turned into a public parking lot! Nevertheless, the visits still bring back many memories and voices echoing of the past! We have also question ourselves, would we have done anything differently….probably not!?
By W.W. Watkins
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