The Eastside All–Stars 
By Joe Harris

In the last scene of the movie "Stand by Me, "the narrator writes, "I never again had friends like I did when I was 13 years old, but hell, does anybody?

When I was a boy living on the east side of Indy, I had five best buds. We were together constantly. I recently spoke with 3 of them, as one has been gone for some time, and I have lost contact with the other. I thought about those days, some 58 years ago. I sat down and wrote the following memoirs of it. It is called: "East Side All-Stars".

I watched my grandchildren as they played, a fascinating thing to see, for they are masters at their games of electronic wizardry. But as they touch, tap, and scroll, their fingers darting like a bat, I thought, good Lord, how kids have changed since I, Clarence, Roland, Bobbie, Earl, and Billy played together. Our years together were too brief, and all would go our separate ways, but oh, the times we had back then, the magic of those yesterdays.

We did not have a gang, and we did not call our streets the hood, "just one square mile of older homes, a little area bound by 13th Street to 16th Street, from Bellefontaine to College Ave., we knew every nook and cranny in the neighborhood that made our youth special. We owned the streets and alleyways and called ourselves the "The Eastside All-Stars" because we formed a summer basketball team to play in a league at 17th & Broadway. We did it all from ages ten to sixteen and wanted to do more.

There was no tree we could not climb, nor any fence we could not clear, the rooftops we would scale with ease and do without thought or fear. The "cable TV "was us playing basketball in the alley behind my house for hours, even when it was cold, or throwing horseshoes in the summertime. We played cowboy and Indians making bows out of tree limbs, walking miles to swim at Douglas Park. We played a card game called knuckles, which was brutal, and played softball and football at the school's ten playgrounds. Late-night raids on the local neighborhood fruit trees were always fun.

Going to Omar Bakery Outlet Store was a special treat because, on certain days, they would sell cookie pieces for a nickel a bag. We had a little old lady on 13th & Bundy Place that sold the coldest homemade snowballs.

If we wanted a dollar or two, we would roam the alleys for junk that we might take up to Bryant's Junk Yard to sell, and we would search for bottles to sell at Regal Market on 13th & Bellefontaine. Rarely did we need money; the world around us was our toys, and we pushed the limits daily, for the great adventure of us being together was our joy. We did not do it all unscathed, and those feats went awry, with bumps, scrapes, cuts, and breaks; we had our problems by and by. Poor Roland had a nasty encounter with the flagpole at School 10 while playing football, and I took 19 stitches to the head after being hit with a steel pipe by Howard.

We jumped, dove, and climbed without thinking of hurt or harm. At a later age, we learned to shoot dice using the ones we took from the Monopoly game. One Saturday night, we were all in the basement of an empty apartment on Carrollton shooting dice when a bunch of detectives busted in, guns drawn. We were scared shitless, but they let us go after keeping the little money we had on the floor.

Sometimes on Saturday or Sunday, we would walk downtown to the Ohio Theater to enjoy a movie for 10 cents. Most of the time, we just spent time together. We were, indeed, the "Eastside All Stars, "the superheroes of our day, and we did what other boys could not and loved it all.

Then suddenly, the I-70 highway tore our little neighborhood apart, ending the good times. They say you cannot go home again; sadly, that is true, memories of wondrous things we used to do. And now, in my retirement, the "golden years "and all of that, I would trade for one more yesterday of me, Clarence, Earl, Billy, Roland, and Bobbie.

Joe Carl Harris, Clarence Randolph, Earl Adams, Billy Daniels, Roland Richardson & Bobby Gaddie

"The Eastside All-Stars.