Sunday, January 17, 2010

Flint Photos: Knife-Wielding Thugs in Bassett Park


Thankfully, I've completely forgotten the circumstances that led me to be photographed in Bassett Park in 1975 wearing a pink polyester shirt, flexing my chicken-bone arms, and biting a very large knife with my very large teeth. This was during the "Gangs of Flint" era, so it may have been some sort of initiation ritual. Only one thing is certain: I was no longer getting buzz cuts at Johnny's Barber Shop on Lewis Street.

The home of Mr. and Mrs. Fink is on the far left, and the house Dave McDonald eventually bought is on the far right.


4 comments:

  1. A bandanna, and we have, "The Pink Pirate Of Penzance". The terror of Bassett Park. Funny what a few props will transform a ten year old into. I was a different action hero every weekend myself. Good memory Gord.

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  2. You look like you're practicing your ninja moves or maybe some version of the tango with a very tall imaginary partner. I'm sure stranger things have happened in that park.

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  3. Hey Gordie....never realized my old crib on Bassett Place would be so famous....I love the panoramic shot from an earlier post.....my mom was playing with my oldest son out in the park by the bushes directly across from the house when a young male went racing by with the FPD in pursuit shortly thereafter. The police warned my mom and son that they should go indoors as Balkan had been robbed and they were pursuing the suspect. A few weeks later I was playing with my son when he spotted a gun in the bushes....with my keen detective instincts using a small twig i pulled out the pistol in question, it was a Daisy....but it looked like a real .45 ...apparently the robber had ditched it as he made off with the "dough"...pun intended

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  4. I found this site very interesting. I grew up on Jackson Street in the 1940s. I used to walk across the park to go swimming at Haskell pool almost everyday in the summer.halo song used to go ice skating on a pond at Bassett park my school practiced football at Bassett park I graduated from Flint Technical High School in 1957. We were the first family to live at 1902 West Jackson Street seems like a
    very small house now. All the good memories of shopping downtown when I was
    a little girl having Vernors downtown and a QP at the old Vernors store. After a
    day in high school we used to take the bus downtown and have a coke at Paris
    candy shop.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.