Sometimes memories just randomly pop into one’s head and I began thinking of a neighbor I had growing up in Detroit.  His name was Ross Durkin but of course I called him Mr. Durkin since we still had respect for our elders back then.  There were certain memories that stick out and, while I don’t have a ton of great childhood memories, he always brightened my day when I spoke to him.  Plus, his grandson was my best friend during my grade school years and I would play with him almost every weekend when they came over.

Like most guys, the universal language to communicate to others is sports.  We talked baseball for hours on end, obviously concentrating on Tigers baseball.  If I had to guess, he was in his late 60s/early 70s when we talked to each other a lot and he always was disgusted by how much ballplayers made back then.  “They’re all a bunch of bums” was his standard reply when we’d talk about the next “million dollar contract” that someone had just signed.  Even when the Tigers had their magical season in 1984, they were all “just a bunch of bums”.  But beneath his contempt for their salary, he really loved baseball and it was how we bonded.

He was of Polish decent (probably second generation, if I had to venture a guess) and always wore “blue collar nice” clothes, meaning a drab hue of pants, flannel or plaid shirt, dark shoes and one of those Irish tweed hats.  If it was a hot summer day and he was gardening, the only thing that would change is he would wear a wife-beater t-shirt.  His garden was beautiful and it really stuck out in a decayed urban area like where we lived.

While I have mostly positive memories of him, there was one day when his dark, drunk side came out.  It was a weekend day and he had been pounding a few Mickey’s widemouths and started getting wise with some repair/construction guys working on another neighbor’s roof across the street.  They were probably also drunk and most likely high and began to talk shit back to him.  Mr. Durkin then turned back into his house in a disgusted huff and the construction guys started laughing about the drunk old man they just told off.

The next five minutes go by and I’m still playing in the front yard and thinking nothing of it, as he must have just gone inside and forgotten about the whole thing.  Boy was I wrong.  Less than 10 minutes after that initial confrontation, he stormed out of his house with a pistol in his hand.  He started yelling at the guys, who were eating lunch on the roof (why were they eating up there too?), and began to shoot in their general direction.  Whether or not he intended just to scare them off or whether he was too drunk to aim I’ll never know.  He didn’t hit any of them but I did see roofing shingles fly up in the air where the bullets made contact with the roof.  Those guys must have shot their pants.  They begin screaming because they’re basically sitting ducks with no place to hide but he either ran out of bullets or realized that he would be charged with attempted murder and went back inside.  Needless to say, those guys got into their van faster than a NASCAR put crew changes a tire.  I was in a daze as to what the heck just happened and was frozen on the front yard until my mom dragged me in the house.

He kept his El Camino in mint shape and I felt bad about something I accidentally did one Fourth of July weekend.  I was shooting off bottle rockets during the day and one time the pipe that I launched the fireworks from tipped over.  This particular bottle rocket shot straight across the street right into his garage and careened off the back of his car.  It left a 3+ inch mark where it scraped the paint right down to the metal.  I felt horrible about it but never told him it was me, although I assume he suspected I did it.

The way our neighborhood was shaped our street bordered a canal so all streets ended on our street (Scripps).  The alley between 2 streets actually faced our house so if you crossed the street it was slightly to the left of our driveway and Mr. Durkin’s house was to the right.  Growing up in Detroit, I was witness to a lot of weird activity in the alley, including people running from the cops, people running after you heard gunfire, garbage bins being lit on fire and other assorted activities that happened in a city that was decaying right in front of our eyes.

One day I noticed a briefcase next to Mr. Durkin’s garbage bin in the alley.  It was obviously left there as either a drop-off for someone else or someone had dumped it there.  For whatever reason, instead of checking it out myself I told my mom about it and we went to check it out.  Inside the briefcase were a handgun, assorted junk, and about 20 fake luxury watches.  The piece de resistance was several Polaroids of a black guy buck naked.  I specifically remember the first photo as my mom was sorting through the case was this dude sprawled out on a couch and cupping his junk with the oddest happy face.  Imaging the Allstate “good hands” logo and this is what he was doing with his twig and berries.

Yeah, I’ve got lots of odd memories about the area I grew up in.  Maybe I’ll share some more as we go along.  There’s plenty more where that came from.