Chill In Progress….
Where the house once stood…
In the fall of 1993, a few of my closest friends and myself, packed up and headed west in search of our dreams… When I say west though, i am not referring to the California dream, I am talking about Ft. wayne Indiana, a small city of a quarter million about 550 miles west of Ithaca Ny, where Mike Tag, Magilla and myself had spent the better part of our youth… Prior to the Indiana experience of course.
Right before moving to Indiana, we started FBM, we printed t-shirts and traded zines with other riders in the seemingly obscure underground world of bike riding. As unique byproducts of a failed magazine, (Freestylin/Go), we had new ideas for personal progress different than our adolescent counterparts. We didn’t want fame, glory, college dorm rooms, fancy cars, or much it seemed, except time. Time of our own, to pursue a dream of simply riding BMX, and exploring the unknown world we had imagined of hidden backyard ramps, trails, and skateparks.
Through trading Zines, we had met Stew Johnson who lived in Ft. wayne. There was also a group of wild punk rockers from that same town, who did something called Monkey Lust. They disappeared before we showed up, but they too also seemed to be affected by the ideals an notions printed in those magical magazines, that mainstream media seemed to shun. Creative, artistic, funny, and with a complete disregard for what we were all expected to do.. as far as society seemed to place on us anyway…
So here we go, we head to Indiana, to live in a warehouse with a future skatepark.
One problem…. We never lived anywhere but with our parents, and this warehouse was totally illegal to live in, in an industrial park you couldn’t enter without talking to a security guard, it had no amenities, and 2 ramps. Perfect. It lasted one glorious month, before we were evicted an had to look for a place to live.
We had spent all of our money getting to Indiana, so finding a house was a bit of a task. Luckily, Ft. wayne is another one of those cities in America that has suffered post industrial stress, meaning the ghetto was obvious, and an affordable place to live would soon be ours. I remember seeing gangsters drinking 40′s and rolling dice in an alley way when we work looking for the spot, and seeing shiny Caprice Classics with gleaming spoked Dayton Rims. Prior to that, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre were the only dudes i’d seen rolling like that, and that was on TV.
The house was perfect, cheap, and spacious, with utilities included. Our upstairs neighbors were a family of drug dealers, who loved the Album “It’s On (Dr. Dre) 187um Killa” by Eazy E. I Know this because they played it at peak levels constantly. We were soon residents of the early 90′s wild wild midwest. A revitalized Drug and Gang culture in the midwest, with a network of Drug running, and criminal Activity, between bigger Cities, Like Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, and the Cities south, Like Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Louisville, Put Ft. Wayne right in the Middle, acting as a hub so to speak.
What did this mean for us? No one cared what we did. Total freedom. Well Sort of, but when a cop has a choice between some wild teenagers partying on bikes or stealing plywood, and collaring a gun toting gangster with drugs and priors, we were left pretty much unnoticed. It was like having a substitute teacher, forever.
One by one, the upstairs neighbors went to prison for shootings and such, I think that was the case, and at least one in that family was put away for murder. They always seemed nice… Anyhow, eventually the house was soon taken over by filthy BMX kids and skateboarders, complete with a Backyard mini, and at one point 15 inhabitants, mostly without jobs. Loving Life. It Became know as the Fat House, and amidst all around us, between the ramp, the dirt jumps, and a City of hoosiers, The Porch became the epicenter of the next several years.
Every day we would roll out of bed, each ending up on the porch, some with a bowl of cereal, some with soda pop bottles from the Amoco 3 houses down, and me, almost every day, a pot of tomato soup, with crackers. A 1 dollar meal. Most of our mornings were spent just “Chillin”, the whole neighbor hood seemed to do the exact same thing. All different types of people on the same street, all watching the stranger than fiction reality unfold in front of us. It was constant entertainment.
The people that were not on porches were like fish in a fish tank as we all watched, victims of Bad Genes, bad drugs, or bad choices, it was amazing, and eventually, it all blended together in one big landlocked sea of weirdness and insanity. In the mornings we would slowly come to life, and congregate, before spending the day seeking out adventure, new experiences, and often times, simply just time in the woods building and riding dirt jumps. At night, it was the mornings counterpart, dinner on the porch, music creeping from inside the living room, out the front door, and a neighborhood of people that seemed to get crazier and more vivid with each hour.
The list of bizarre and unbelievable occurrences that happened while we chilled on that porch, is too long to list, especially after 15 years…
Maybe some other Time, But I will never forget the times when we lived in a neighborhood with 3 different junkies with 1 leg, a car harboring a runaway drove the wrong way down the one way street we lived in, and right up our porch, the time Mike Mchue started a neighborhood riot by picking a fight with the neighbor hood drug dealers, The night I got arrested for streaking to the Amoco for a buck, The hours spent drinking 99 cent forties of Falls City, the friends, and the time we spent together, and all the laughter.
This past spring, I rode up on motorcycles with some of the same buddies, to the exact spot, we spoiled years prior. The House had burnt down, and it was just an empty lot, so we parked, got 40′s and relived a few small moments of our history. Amazingly, and for one night, over a dozen of us, reconvened in the same spot, and pretended time stood still, in the glory and irreverence of our youth.
Tread Magazine layout, by former resident Chris hallman
The porch circa 93-94 ea
Same exact spot, 15 years later, Same dude, bike, and brown bag scenario…kenpic
