Chicago Days: Growing Up Absurd On The South Side

by Ken Stange

"Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days." -- Flannery O'Connor

West Englewood, on Chicago's infamous South Side, is a notoriously poverty-stricken and crime-ridden district. That's today. This memoir is set in an earlier time. In the 1960s, West Englewood was a rough, working-class, immigrant neighbourhood, rife with street gangs and racial conflict. My local high school yearbook in the mid-60s included a picture of the cop whose entire beat was the school. What could be more absurd than a youngster with intellectual ambitions growing up in such an environment?

But it was also a time when opportunities for a young person were far greater than now. An interest in science could lead from getting a chemistry set for Christmas to experimenting with dangerous chemicals unquestioningly delivered to a private address from far away chemical supply houses. A car that could only be started by spraying ether into its carburetor could be purchased for 75 dollars and be allowed on the road. A shy young man could manage to live two one of the mind and one of the streets.

216 pages, Paperback

Published February 28, 2017

About the author

I’ve had 18 books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction published. I also have had literally hundreds of publications in literary magazines. In 2011 I won the Exile/Vanderbilt Short Fiction Prize for a story subsequently included as one of the tales in my God When He’s Drunk. I’m also Professor Emeritus at Nipissing University and have taught Creative Writing at other various institutions. I also am a digital artist and have made some modest contributions to science. (Obviously, I’ve kept busy.)

I believe life is a gift. And the correct way to respond to a gift is with appreciation and reciprocation. Art and science are humankind's best way of responding to the gift of life. I've certainly been appreciative, and I've tried to reciprocate with my own modest gifts.

My website has more information about me and my various doings than anyone could possibly want to know.
http://KenStange.com/

Reviews

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written and nostalgic memoir, filled with stories of growing up in fifties and early sixties on the south side of Chicago, attending a public elementary and high school, hanging out in the neighborhood with his gang, and performing science experiments in the lab he had created in his basement. Stories of favorite teachers and not so favorite ones. Of losing his faith right before Confirmation after reading the entire bible from cover to cover. Of the Chess Club and falling in love with the life of the mind. Stories of best friends, male and female. Oh, and snowballs and water balloons as ammunition, that first car purchased for seventy-five dollars, and the childhood sweetheart from grammar school who wound up becoming his forever wife. If you lived during that time or know someone who did (a parent or grandparent, perhaps), you might find this a lovely read. I did.

Ken Stange also contrasts growing up as a teen in the Sixties with growing up today in the same urban neighborhood. We see how much has changed, and not for the better. Unlike today, when in 2012 alone, 29 students from that same high school were shot, eight fatally, back then, there was no gun violence, and gang meant your group of friends. Boys being boys, he and his friends did push up against authority, but it all turned out well in the end.

This is how well. Ken Stange went from the South Side of Chicago to Loyola University for his B.A. Then to Canada when the draft was on to finally end up as a Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Nipissing University, an award winning writer of fiction and poetry, an early digital artist, and a father of two.

I remember stories my father used to tell about his childhood, like about the time he and his friends hoisted a Model T up on a light pole ... Trick or Treat!. This memoir carries that same sepia tint of a golden past.