Sunday, April 9, 2017

That Old Gang of Mine #AtoZChallenge

Blogging from A to Z Challenge
April 2017
This month I will be participating in the “Blogging from A-Z Challenge” 
What is it?
Blogging every day.  It starts on April First with a topic themed on something beginning with the letter A, then every day in April, (with the exception of Sundays)  another topic continuing through the alphabet ending with, of course the letter Z.
I really don’t have a theme.  Some will be fiction.   Mostly whatever strikes my fancy.


That Old Gang of Mine

We all belong to one, don’t we?  As we move through life, we may move in and out of our old gangs and find new ones along the way.
When I was a kid my brother, sister, and I lived with our parents in a housing complex which was built specifically for returning WWII soldiers and their families.  The complex was referred to as “The Barracks”.   Even though I was very young, I think about 7 or 8 years old, I have strong memories of living in “The Barracks”.
The members of my gang were the kids from other ex-military families.
I don’t remember any of their names, but I do remember hanging out with them, playing tag and hide-and-seek around the culdesac.
When I was 9 we moved into a brand new house in a town about 30 miles south of where the barracks were.
There were many kids in the new neighborhood.
After all it was baby boom time.  Our family multiplied from 3 kids to eventually 6.
The Shebel’s across the street had 9 kids and two houses down lived the Creed's with 6 kids.  We all played in the street after school until 5:00 when the mother’s would yell for their kids to come home for supper.
As we became teenagers and our interests became less common and more individual, some of us separated from the neighborhood gang.
Personality types, social status, sports prowess, beauty, brains and the way you dressed now became the determining factor for which gang you would gravitate towards.
I’ve been in gangs where I worked,  gangs of stay at home Mom’s, and then “back to work” again gangs.  Right now I belong to the “active adult community” gang.
When I look back over my life, that’s a lot of gangs.

My forever gang,  the one which is and always has been consistent, loyal, and whose members I can always count on  is my “La Famiglia” gang.


6 comments:

  1. Sounds like some happy memories. I can still remember the kids I used to play with on the green outside my house where I lived as a child.

    Those are some lovely photos you shared as well. :-)

    Cait @ Click's Clan

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  2. Family gangs of course are the best ones! Great memories of other gangs you were involved in over your life :)

    betty

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  3. It's a wonderful thing, having a large family, I think sometimes. I was an only child, and I had one child. On the other hand, my husband had cousins all around him growing up. Mine were hours away.

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  4. They say you always find your tribe.

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  5. I grew up in almost the same kind of housing. Except military no longer lived in these barracks. Just low income families. I remember all the kids. So many kids. And we were never alone!!

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  6. Growing up I always wanted to live in a neighborhood where there were other kids. Now as an adult I live in a neighborhood and wish I lived in country (it could be because I'm single with no kids of my own). Girl Who Reads

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