Before There Was Ben & Gerry
Returning once again to the days of youth and adventure in southwest Detroit. These were the times before bicycle helmets, cell phones, safe places, video games, the internet, cable tv, and widespread fast food emporiums, even before shopping malls. The kids of these times had more freedom and entertainment options than the kids of today. It was another hot summer in Detroit. Billy and Stevie were either playing baseball in the mornings or looking for ways to do some fishing. Unless they could find a cooperative older relative, the chances of going fishing at a lake were very unlikely. So they always knew they could rely on the usual alternative, going down to the Detroit River and fish from the West Grand Boulevard docks. There, close to the Ambassador Bridge, the J W Wescott mailboat and the fireboat they could spend a day in peaceful fishing. They had their rods, and sinkers and other basic fishing tackle, but were handicapped by a lack of genuine coin of the realm. Neither one of them were in receipt of a weekly, or monthly stipend or any type of allowance from their parents. Chores were done when required, but were done pro bono, or as a requirement of continued residence in their respective places of domicile. Endowments of cash or allowances, were for them, something handed out to kids on television shows or some well off kids that were not in their circle of acquaintances. Creative ways had to be found to round up money to pay for minnows or worms at the bait store and bottles of pop to quench their parched throats while fishing at the river.
One way of acquiring funds might be collecting pop or beer bottles to return to the store for the deposits. This was something that was done by other members of their family, so there was a bit of competition in that endeavor. Another way was doing a paper drive. You could go to houses and garages in the neighborhood as well as your own house and collect old newspapers that might be sitting around. People were happy to get rid of them. You just had to have some old nylons or rope and bundle up the papers. The hard part was then getting a parent or older brother to help load the papers in the trunk of the car and then drive down to the junk yard on McGregor Street in the shadows of the train viaduct. The junk yard would pay one cent per pound for the old papers. If you worked hard enough, you might collect two or three dollars for your efforts. Assuming you didn’t have to share that cash with the driver, you then had a good stake for a number of days of fishing, including snacks, pop and bait.
The bait store was on Porter Street right under the Ambassador Bridge and on the way to the docks. You could buy worms, minnows or even crawfish if you had the extra dough. You might pick up some pop and chips while you were there. It would then allow you to have a good day at the river with hopes of some perch or something bigger to put on your stringer. It was after one of these trips to the bait store, that Billy and Stevie hit upon their genius idea of cutting out the middle man and enabling themselves to have free bait and also extra money as well. On their way home from the river, they discussed and made plans for their venture into entrepreneurship, on a small scale.
The next day, they used some of their left over money to go down to Cozy’s Sweet Shoppe and purchase some small cardboard cups with lids. These were the cups that Ethel would scoop ice cream into, adding the toppings and dispense as sundaes from her counter. The small cups with the lids would be the perfect fit. That evening they pulled out the garden hose and began to spray the back yard at Billy’s house to encourage the worms to rise from the dirt. Armed with flashlights the two crawled around the yard and started adding in dirt and grass with a dozen worms in each container. It was hard work, and a dirty job, and after a couple hours they finally had ten or twelve cups of worms. They poked some holes in the lids to keep the worms alive and then put the cups in the garage.
Early next morning, they loaded up the cups along with their fishing gear and walked the mile or so distance down to the docks. They then walked around to the various fishermen and offered their worms for twenty five cents a dozen. Many of those guys were big time fisherman and used more than one rod. They would cast their lines out as far as they could into the river and then put the rod in a holder. They usually had a bell at the tip of the rod and if they had a hit, the bell would ring. These were after the prize game fish of the river, they were looking to reel in some big Sheepshead. (Later that summer Stevie was to compose and sing his newest song : ’The Man Who Caught Liberty Sheppie, He was the Greatest of Them All’ ) so they had need for extra bait to keep them going all day . In a short while they were all sold out, except for the dozen they saved for themselves. They were in tall cotton now. With over two dollars to share, they would fish like kings that day at the river.
As a matter of economic news, relative to those days- a quarter was not like the quarter of today. It had some real purchasing power. You could buy 5 candy bars for a quarter. It would get you two sixteen ounce bottles of grape or orange Nehi pop. Twenty five cents would get you into the Saturday afternoon matinee at the Stratford Theatre with money left over for a candy bar and a box of popcorn. That quarter was good enough for two packs of Hostess Cupcakes or Twinkies. If you had a car, it was more than enough for a gallon of gas. Two dollars was financial freedom for a couple days at least.
That night, the founders of Billy and Stevie’s Worm Empire, came up with a better plan for finding worms. The older brother of our friends Johnny & Foster, had invented a new worm finder. He had come up with a new device. It was a steel rod which was attached to an electric cord. When the rod was placed into the ground and then plugged in, it would cause the ground around it to vibrate. Soon the worms began to pop up around this area and it was much easier to round them up. They couldn’t use this every night, but it did help shorten the time for worm hunting when it was available. This enterprise was beginning to be a profitable venture. So where did it all go wrong? Why were Billy and Stevie not the Ben and Gerry of the worm industry? Well, they were a little young and also were easily seduced by the other options available during the summer. There were baseball games to be played during the day, also maybe ball games to see down at Briggs Stadium. Also there were opportunities to go a beach every once in awhile if any older person decided to take us. These beach trips were rare and could not be rejected as the chance might not come again. If it was a rainy day, it was important to get caught up reading your comic books, looking at your baseball cards and maybe even visiting the Bowen Branch Library to get a book for summer reading. There were also the usual game of guns played in the local alleys, either cowboy or Army and on summer evenings there was also the chance to play games with other kids, like Release or Pom Pom Tackle. So with these distractions, the business slowly dissipated and was not revived. Maybe with adult supervision it could have turned into something big time, but adults were busy working, taking care of all the kids and cooking and cleaning their houses. So like Marlon Brando in the back of the cab in On The Waterfront , we sat on our bikes and just thought : “….we coulda been somebody, we coulda had class, we coulda been contenders, instead of just some dumb kids, which we were…” adjusting the quote a little. But we were kids and had fun that summer.A financial opportunity missed, but it was more important to be a kid. It would be soon time enough to join up with the reality of life in the big city.