Sibling Assignment 2015.13: The Sunnyside Bike Gang #3Siblings

Since our sister Christy will be moving back to the old neighborhood soon here is the assignment:


"Share a memory of  hanging out with people from the 'hood during childhood .

Christy's story is here, and Bill's will soon be here.

My memory involves a certain summer I was in grade school.  It was upper grade school, but I can't remember what summer it was exactly, but if I was to venture a guess, it was 1974 or 1975.

Our "hood" encompassed a rather large area called "Sunnyside".  Our grade school was called Sunnyside and was on the east edge of our neighborhood.

One summer, my friend Kellee Crall and I decided to "hang out" with the Sunnyside Bike Gang.  This was a group of boys in close proximity to our age that would ride their bikes (I am talking Sting Rays, not motorcycles.)  Their hangout was the Mormon Church parking lot on Mission Avenue.

One of the endeavors this "gang" took on that summer was creating "rubber band guns" and
shooting one another with the rubber bands.

 

 

This  photo shows a gun similar to the rubber band guns that were used.  They were rather low tech.  A board, a clothes pin, and some rubber bands.  You loaded the rubber band into the clothes pin, pressed the clothes pin trigger, and off sailed the rubber band to the intended target.

 

I remember Kellee and I going and constructing our own rubber band guns.

 

I'm not sure we ever really were involved in an official rubber band gun war, but we had our weapon just in case.

 

If I remember correctly, some of the members of the bike gang included Richie Poulson, Mike Margason, Joe Margason, Larry Covey and Mouse Covey.  I think the Covey's were living there by this time.  There may have been others, but these are the ones I remember.

 

The bike gang would congregate in the church parking lot after dinner.  During the afternoon, we were all at the Kellogg City Pool spending time swimming.

 

Sounds like a pretty good summer to me.  Days spent swimming at the pool, stopping off at Wee Willie's store for some candy on the way home, or maybe Swansons Grocer, and then, after dinner, jumping on the bike and heading to the church parking lot for some rubber band gun action.

 

That is one of my fond memories of my time in the Sunnyside 'hood.