{"id":2772,"date":"2011-05-29T10:03:45","date_gmt":"2011-05-29T15:03:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.astroblastro.com\/?p=2772"},"modified":"2011-06-01T13:16:43","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T18:16:43","slug":"chicago-stone-grease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/astroblastro.com\/?p=2772","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Stone Grease"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I must have been twelve or so. I was rummaging around in the storage space formed by the roof and the hip wall, behind the chimney in our old house on Billings Avenue.<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a> Maybe I was going through an old suitcase, but I came across a threadbare black athletic shirt. Was it made out of jersey netting? On its front was a big graphic in white ink: a wicked looking dagger, impossibly jabbed through a pair of over-sized dice. Their may or may not have been a mean looking snake on there, and in a big arc over the graphic, the initials P. I. T. A. in big block letters.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

P. I. T. A.<\/h1>\n

This strange piece of clothing was my dad’s. I asked him about it and got a great batch of stories of his high school days. As I remember it, he and a group of dudes that made mischief together dubbed themselves the Pain In The Asses. (Or Pains in the Ass?) I really wanted him to have stories of rumbles with rival gangs or at least a drag race or something. I think he told me all they did was organize tag football games. I really wanted that jersey to be a gang shirt.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I got to thinking about all this because I came across this great site full of old greaser gang names and compliments cards. A real treasure trove.<\/a><\/p>\n

These guys were the closest to where I’m living now:<\/p>\n

\n

COAL YARD GANG:
\nThe Coal Yard Gang was at Lakewood and Wolfram, near Southport and Lincoln Avenue. Just a local white gang originating in the early 60’s. Mostly just taking care of local business. Our colors were Black and White. I was mostly a partier. I was too small, and often found myself in over my head way too many times. I remember Lennies across from Lane Tech. I can still taste that greasy bag of fries, ten cent pin-ball games. It was neat place. Everyone was safe there. Even girlfriends could meet you there. (Via Reddit)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Digging a little more, I found this little documentary on the Gaylords.<\/a> Finding out that my dad wasn’t really a gangster was bad, but it’s even more disappointing to find out how hung up on race these dudes are.<\/p>\n

My Uncle Dan gives a little background<\/h3>\n

P.I.T.A. well\u2026. NOT a group of \u2018gangbangers\u2019 ! More like neighborhood guys in desperate need of a name for their floor hockey team. We used to all hang at da park. Every group (grade level) or age had a bench to sit on and to ease the tensions between us older, younger, really older (High School) kids. The Phs Ed. Instructor for the Park District created a hockey league for us to beat the shit out of each other in a organized way. It was fantastic! It had rules, and penalties, just like the BlackHawk games we loved to listen to on the radio. Because none of us could afford a game ticket or play on REAL ice cuz we were city kids. Middle class families living from paycheck to paycheck\u2026.and yah they were a real pain in the ass!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

THIS POST COMPLEMENTS OF:<\/h1>\n

Crazy Ralph \u2022 Zofo \u2022 Demon \u2022 Tex \u2022 PW Lake \u2022 Lucifer \u2022 Pope \u2022 Dopey \u2022\u00a0 Bee \u2022 Fish \u2022 Knight \u2022 Ears \u2022 Angus \u2022 Oscar \u2022 Lil Rich \u2022 Lil Worm \u2022 Capone \u2022 Shorty \u2022 Chaino \u2022 Hoss \u2022 Tiny \u2022 Ceasar \u2022 Lil Cisco \u2022 Cocolo \u2022 Nino \u2022 Lil Drago \u2022 Chaco \u2022 Coco \u2022 Shadow \u2022 Lil Man \u2022\u00a0 Dobe \u2022 Boxer \u2022 Puttet \u2022 Indio \u2022 Duke \u2022 Pappo \u2022 Chanco \u2022 Junior \u2022 Pro \u2022 China \u2022 Froggie \u2022 Chet \u2022 Rican \u2022 Vida \u2022 Smuckers \u2022 Unicorn \u2022 Bubbles \u2022 Giggles \u2022 Sweet Pea \u2022 Chaser \u2022 Rebel \u2022 Skippy \u2022 Sir Lazy \u2022 Maggs \u2022 Lil Boz \u2022 Crazy Tom \u2022 Lil Freak \u2022 Satan \u2022 Lil Rich \u2022 Skull \u2022 Monk \u2022 Deuce \u2022 Dragon \u2022 Warlock \u2022 Lil Spike \u2022 Sahama \u2022 Hitman \u2022 Groucho \u2022 Big Jim \u2022 Butcher \u2022 Lil Dago \u2022 Fro \u2022 Lil Capone<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I must have been twelve or so. I was rummaging around in the storage space formed by the roof and the hip wall, behind the chimney in our old house on Billings Avenue. Maybe I was going through an old suitcase, but I came across a threadbare black athletic shirt. Was it made out of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,8],"tags":[296,269,20,298,297],"class_list":["post-2772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-design","tag-calling-cards","tag-chicago","tag-family","tag-gangs","tag-neighborhoods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astroblastro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astroblastro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astroblastro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astroblastro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astroblastro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2772"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/astroblastro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2807,"href":"https:\/\/astroblastro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions\/2807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astroblastro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astroblastro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astroblastro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}