The Legend of Captain Bubblegum

Longtime reader and frequent commenter Smurf's Inc, also known as Wurstside Warrrior, raised the specter of the notorious Captain Bubblegum way back in 2008. Yet we never really got the full story on this Flint legend. There was talk of attacks via mopeds and horror films, but no real information. Here's some background from Smurf's Inc:

I first became aware of Capt. Bubblegum sometime during the early 80s while attending Walker School (or was it Walker Learning Center?) One morning as the buses arrived from all over the city, the kids who arrived on bus #212 from the northwest side were terrified. Scared silly. Hysterical. They reported that a man wearing a superhero outfit had chased them. If memory serves me he struck at both Pierson and Selby. After our teacher interrogated the students it turned out that others had experienced run-ins with this character before. 

Fast forward 8 or 9 years. An outlandishly dressed street person appears on the corner of Ann Arbor and Court St. He doesn't move for weeks. Sitting on a milk crate he is christened Capt. Bubblegumhead... or was he. I assumed this was just some stupid name my friends came up with until...
1994 finds me working at Al Kessel's Al E. Oops Soul Food Cafe. Yeah, I know, that is a story in and of itself. Anyway, one of my fellow dishwashers is a Black Muslim kid by the name of Termikius. 

Termikius was a fixture for years at Pierson and Clio hawking copies of Farrakhan's Final Call newspaper. Uhhhh so, one day he regaled me with a story, the confirmation of the existence of Capt. Bubblegum. A few years previous he and two buddies were pursued by a guy on a moped screaming "I'm gonna kill you". Termikius wasn't ashamed to say that he and his pals were in a state of total horror. After all, they were being hunted down by Capt. Bubblegum!!! WTF?!? I implored him to tell me more. Another co-worker chimed in as well. This superhero gone bad was a well-known freakazoid on the north side. Allegedly he never actually caught his prey, but if he did would we ever really know?

So let's solve this mystery. Anyone have some reliable info on Captain Bubblegum?

Is that you Smurfs?

Does Wurstside = Smurfs, Inc?

Just ignore this if it makes no sense to you.

The Walker Walkers

It's time to celebrate the Flint school with what is easily the best nickname ever — the Walker Walkers. These photos are courtesy of Scott Hiteshew and Jim Holbel, both of whom regularly compete for the Sacred Carp Chalice, a Flint ritual shrouded in mystery and intrigue. But the photos probably originated with Sue Kettler. It's all a little confusing, but the photos sparked a nice little digital reunion of Walkers on Facebook.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of the names or details, so feel free to offer updates or corrections.

5th/6th Grade Walker Walkers 1978/1979

First Row (L-R): Scott Hiteshew, David Shulman, Ted Mott, Eric Tillman, Beth Green, Jim Holbel
Second Row: Mr. Malcom Alexander, Kenneth Carter, Susan Kettler, Matt Theodroff, ???, Ben Dennis, ???, ???, Valerie Barrett, Marsha Goldfarb
Third Row: Jen Kells, ???, Corey Cahoon, Todd Chaney, Lisa Phipps, ???, Keith McGee, Michelle Zacks, Alexandra Tyler

The Walker Walkers 6th Grade fieldtrip to Kampsville Archeological Center in Illinois.

In a semi-organized left-to-right order: Todd Schaefer, Jim Holbel, Logan Hansen, Peter Kleinpell, David Shulman, Merry McGhan, Marsha Goldfarb, Carol Flippen, Laura Phillips, Kris Nemeth, Lori Archer, Holly McLeod, Michelle Zacks, Janet Haley, Lester Fykes, Jen Ramsdell
When I ran a postcard of the original Walker School, longtime reader/commenter smrfz ink offered up this brief history, which I've edited for length:

The original Walker School was on the corner of Kearsley and Hunt Lane. Hunt Lane, Ash St., and portions of Manning, Mathews, Forest, and Crapo Pl. were vacated when the Cultural Center was built. Old Walker was demolished and so was much of its attendance area. The Sloan Museum sits where Walker once stood.

The "new" smaller Walker was built in the late '50s or early '60s on the corner of Kearsley and Avon, next to the Administration Building.

When I-475 was excavated even more of Walker's attendance area was lost — Mill St, Albro Place, Newton Place, Vine St. Clark and Oak Elementary had the same issues. Walker survived however. Neighborhood kids were moved to Pierce, while Walker recreated itself once again as a magnet school with citywide enrollment.

Walker's status as a magnet school lasted from about 1975-1989 or so. The gifted program was moved to Garfield and Doyle-Ryder, and the building sold and used for offices.

Jim Holbel says:

As a Civic Park kid, I never really knew anything about Walker until 3rd grade, which for me was the 75/76 school year. I was placed in a 'Gifted' students program at Walker. One day per week, I was bussed to Walker for an enrichment program. In 4th grade I was somewhat dismayed to learn the day before classes started at the end of summer that I was not going to Civic Park with the neighborhood kids, but Walker full time. So for 4th-6th grade, I was in the full-time program, often referred to as the 'upstairs kids', as the upper floor was used by the FT students, and the day-a-week program used the downstairs rooms. I recall some enrichment classes were combined with FT and PT kids.

They must have been trying a lot of (then) experimental concepts. I recall almost everything was self directed, in centers, or in small groups. There was a lot more hands on education. Looking at my kids in school now this is pretty common, but I do remember it being a lot different than life at Civic park. The self-paced nature allowed me to perfect procrastination and develop the ability to create a great deal of work under deadline pressure — an attribute which has paid dividends my whole life.

I also wrote my first computer programs in 1976 because the Walker building was right next door to the administration building where a brand-spanking new PRIME computer resided. We could hook-up teletype terminals by making a phone call to the admin computer and plugging the old plastic handset into a foam receptacle. Instead of a screen, messages were printed on paper. We actually were taught the BASIC language and had programming assignments. I have worked in the IT field for about 23 years now, and each time I share this, no one can believe it happened in a rust-belt town with a fat slob socialist spokesmodel. I have not met anyone colleague of my generation who was offered an earlier start in the field.

Despite the fact that the distance from my Haskell Park neighborhood to Walker is less than four miles, we routinely faced 45-minute or more bus rides because we picked up fistfuls of kids along a route with 10-12 stops. One year I drew dreaded first-picked-up, last-dropped-off position on the route. We did get a brand new bus, #200. On the first day, a kid noticed the '2' looked like a 'Z' and it was then called the Zoo bus from then on. And we worked hard to live up to that name. We had a cool ‘70s dude bus driver named Bill who was not above a little hot rodding. The highlight of the trip was always a 'shortcut' from 5th avenue, cutting through on Forrest St. toward E. Kearsley. It runs right between the Sloan Museum and the Sarvis Center and then up by the courtyard in front of Whiting. There is a left-right chicane-like jog in the road, which rose maybe six feet in a short distance. Taken at even moderate speed, kids in the back of the bus were launched like popcorn in a hot pan. We LOVED it!

As we rose to be upper classmen (i.e. 6th graders), Scott Hiteshew, myself and a few other kids found an old dirty sock in the back of the bus. It became a running joke that no one ever cleaned the bus or removed the sock. One day Scott decided it was a Holy Sock, and we made a big joke over the course of that day's bus ride of constructing a faux religious history around the sock. But see NOW is where the ‘Gifted’ part comes in. We didn’t stop there. Over the course of the next few weeks, we start holding sock worship masses, with ceremonies, rituals, and sermons — the whole nine yards. Well, eventually word of this makes it to some of the 3rd and 4th graders’ parents, and naturally they freak the heck out. We were called into various meetings and lectured for what seemed like hours but in the end suffered no consequences, at least in the eyes of the school. I suspect readers in touch with the various faiths of the world can caution the that the consequences of our actions may yet come.

Warriors...come out and play

Smurfs Inc. — an eloquent Flint Expatriates commentator who's not to be confused with the old Flint gang of the same name — provides a rundown of local gangs, in no particular order, with commentary:

The Eighties
Top Dawgs
Bad Boys Inc.
Smurfs Inc. (No joke, a fairly large gang in the early/mid 80s)
Westside Warlords
Westside Rockers
Yellowjackets
Mexican Mafia
Acapony Stonyonys
Southside Boys
Greens (Saginaw)

"I seem to recall brawls at Playland and a melee at the IMA between the Top Dawgs and Greens. An all female gang on the east side?!? Numerous biker gangs. Blue monogrammed track suits that read: Smurfs Inc. A gang that wore novelty plastic batting helmets. I know this reads like a sequel to The Warriors but I swear it was Flint in the '80s."

The Nineties
Insane Spanish Cobra Nation
Vice Lords
Pierson Hood
Selby Hood
Merrill Hood
Voltron Posse (Again, a small but deadly crew.)
Aryan Nations (Northeast side)

And The Flint Journal, in true cornball style that just might be an embarrassing homage to James M. Cain, reflects on the days when Flint was known as Cracktown USA...by the reporters at the Journal anyway:

"The late 1980s also marked the emergence of organized street gangs in Flint. And drugs were only part of their activity. "Emulating high-profile gangs in Los Angeles and New York, Flint gangs began wearing colors and staking out neighborhoods as territory. "Police identified groups known as the D-Boys, P-Boys (or Project Boys), Six-Os, Selby Hood and the South End Boys. Gangs often recruited their mostly teenaged membership through coercion and intimidation and put them through initiation rites. They often cruised the streets better armed than the police; some crime scenes were littered with shell casings. "But it was the brutality of the crack-driven murders that often stunned hardened cops, prosecutors and judges."

Flint Portraits: Bernard Rosenberg

A guest post from an Alaskan adventurer, fishing guide, art teacher, author and Flint Expatriate...

"I am Bernard Rosenberg, son of Sherwin Rosenberg, and grandson of Edward Rosenberg. Our family business was Edward Rosenberg and Son Wholesale Fruits and Vegetables, Inc. We had a massive warehouse on West Water Street and serviced Flint and the surrounding communities for over four decades.

"Yeah, I'm ex-Flint. I grew up in it during my junior and senior high school years at Southwestern. My name opened just about every door in town. In the heyday of my family business if a cop stopped me during a moving violation all he had to was read the last name on my driver's license and he would let me go. Sure enough, I would see him the following Saturday morning helping himself to bags full of fresh produce, free of charge. Jesus! We paid off everybody from the Teamsters to the County Commissioners. I never waited for anything and just the utter of my family name would open closed doors. I knew just about every alley and kitchen backdoor there was. I serviced everything from the elite upscale restaurants on Dort Highway to the country clubs in Holly. I delivered all the way from the dead-end joints off North Saginaw to the lunch-stops on Fenton Road.

"I was a rich kid, but an unspoiled rich kid.

"I worked hard and had no fear. I shot pool with Terrance Knapp, who went on to form Terry Knight and The Pack and manage Grand Funk Railroad. I hung in the coffee houses of the early '60s and blew dope with Joanie Mitchell before she became a superstar. I was gang-stomped in that town. I was shot in that town. I was almost stabbed to death in that town. I survived.

"I graduated in 1967. I had no intention of going to college, but I did, simply following a high-school girlfriend who later dropped out. I didn't quit and graduated CMU in 1971. I migrated to Sarasota, FL and I'll soon end a 37-year career as an art teacher.

"I never planned any of it.

"I always thought I'd be taking over the family business in Flint. We were purveyors and sold produce to the community all the way from the '40s to the '70s. My grandfather was the founder and the millionaire. When he dropped dead in his office chair in the early '60s my father took over. By the time we reached the '70s everything about this business had changed. Though I tried to get my father to adapt, he wouldn't, and by 1970 he went belly-up.

"Our family business was nicknamed the 'fruit house' by all of us, and though gone, the name still endures. A lot of the back-end boys were hillbillies from the rural heartland and were quite vulgar. It didn't stop there. Profanity ran rampant and it continued all the way into the front office with both my father and grandfather. It was a rough business, and cursing was the norm. It got me too, and even to this day when I slip and let fly my wife will ostracize me and tell me to 'knock off that fruit house talk.'

"I have been a visual communicator during all these times and will end being a visual artist when I retire. I have traded the brush for the keyboard and microphone. I am a writer and publisher. I plan to enter the lecture circuit and will launch as a motivational speaker in two weeks. I also do wholesale and retail business in the USA using a Chinese manufacturer. I am soon to expand into the area of print brokerage.

"Obviously, I am now planning everything."

Calling Captain Bubblegum!

A mysterious figure going by the name Smurf's Inc left this intriguing comment that demands more information:

"Does anybody remember northside legend Captain Bubblegum? A crazed maniac who dressed as a super hero and terrorized school children for years? The last story I heard about him involved the good Captain chasing three teenage boys while wearing his trademark cape and mask... and riding a moped."

There you have it. If you can fill us in on Captain Bubblegum, we're eagerly awaiting your information.