The Truck Gangsters - A Story by John Mickman

John V Mickman & Kids in the 1950s

Growing up in the suburban community of Fridley, MN in the 1950’s was a great way to get a start in life. Virtually every home in our two block neighborhood had a working dad, a stay at home mom and at least 3 kids. Our family had 5 kids; I was the oldest, then came Mark, Jim, Jody and Chris. All of us were 18 months to 2 years apart.

Brother Mark and I were 18 months apart, and although I was older, Mark was a pretty gifted kid and we were about equal in most physical pursuits. Whenever we did anything together, the activity ended up being a contest. We grew up to be extremely competitive. 

The family across the street, the Archibald’s, had two brothers that were exactly the same age as Mark and me, Brian and Cris. Brother Jim and sister Jody were about the same age as Becky Sue Archibald, and little brother Chris was a part of this younger group. When you’re only 10 years old, a couple of years makes a world of difference, and there were two distinct clubs that formed; the older ones and the younger ones.

Cris Archibald and I were best buddies from the time we were 3 years old; we did everything together. We lived at the brink of the valley formed by Rice Creek and we spend most of our days ‘down the creek’ exploring, fishing, building forts and sliding in the winter. All kinds of fun stuff. Our favorite fishing hole was ‘The 3^rd Spot’, a deep little pool at one side of a long peninsula formed by the winding creek. Although we mostly caught bullheads, we did latch on to the occasional Northern. Mr. Archibald showed us how to clean fish and, unless they were too small, Cris and I ate everything we caught – and we caught a lot. We spent hundreds of days fishing at the 3^rd Spot over the long, languid summers; two young boys sharing our hopes and dreams, discussing the wild adventures we planned to have during our lifetimes.

Our dad purchased a 500 acre farm near St. Francis and at a very early age Cris, Mark, Brian and I spent most weekends ‘at the farm’. Our dad’s idea was that he wanted to engage us boys in some sort of a pursuit that we could work and play together with him. Dad was a really great guy who loved us dearly and taught us much. He decided to grow Christmas Trees on his farm and this is the endeavor that we kids spent most weekends and summers doing. Dad was a full time aeronautical engineer, but all of his personal entrepreneurial pursuits were part time labors of love.

While we did work hard every weekend at the farm, we spent an hour or two at lunch time having fun. We swam, sailed and water-skied in Lake George and, in the Winter, hunted squirrels and rabbits. Dad taught us how to shoot our 22 caliber rifles and we became very good marksmen. The rule while hunting was that we could only shoot the creatures in the head; no body shots. Dad explained this pretty strict rule to us: ‘Any damn fool can shoot an animal in the body so that it dies a slow, painful death’, he told us. ‘But when you shoot an animal in the head he doesn’t feel a thing. And besides, you don’t want to spoil the meat’. To this day, if I don’t have a good clean shot to the head, I don’t fire.

 Mark and I did most of the squirrel and rabbit hunting and it was always a contest to see who would bag the most creatures and who had the cleanest shots. We ate a lot of squirrels and rabbits in those days and had a tall stack of hides in our basement to prove it!

During these years of going back and forth to the farm each weekend, the four of us big boys, Cris, Mark, Brian and I, started calling ourselves The Truck Gangsters. Cris and I even made up a theme song:

                The Truck Gangsters are a wild bunch.

                They’ll beat you up with a single punch,

                And if you get in to their reach,

                They’ll throw you to Wiami Beach.

Cris and I debated about if it was called Wiami or Miami Beach. For quite some time we thought the correct name was Wiami Beach. However, even after doing some exhaustive research (we asked my mom) and learned that the name of the city was really Miami Beach, we decided not to change the lyrics. Dad had a great singing voice, and we all sang song after song while driving back and forth to the farm in his old Chevrolet Apache panel truck.

At about this same time, Jim, Jody, littlest brother Chris and Becky Sue Archibald formed their own club; The Band of Mercy. Jim seemed to be the leader of the group with Becky Sue, and along the way he began to be called ‘Dr. Jimmy the Kid’. Jim’s title seemed reasonable, as their mission was to save the lives of as many creatures as they could. What this really meant was that they would do all they could to minimize the death and destruction of The Truck Gangsters. We were not bad boys at all; we just liked to hunt, fish and sometimes put out a leg hold trap or two.

One warm sunny morning Cris and I were exploring ‘down the creek’ and Rice Creek was bursting at its shores. It had been a very rainy year and the flood water was literally boiling down and around its winding course. Along the way we decided to cross the creek over a huge oak tree that had fallen across the wide creek some time before. We had been using this old log as a bridge for years. Most of the time this old slippery log was above the gently flowing water of the creek. But on this day, the huge log was actually damming up the creek, to an extent, due to the high waterline.

Although we were both excellent swimmers, if we had fallen in we could have been in serious trouble. But of course being young and dumb, we knew we would never get hurt and certainly never die. So we jumped up on the log and started across. When we reached the middle of the slippery log we stopped and contemplated something we’d never seen before. On the upstream side of the log, thick, cream colored foam had gathered into which branches and other forest debris were stacking up. To a couple of young boys, this seemed like it could be a problem.

“Cris, what do you think about all this stuff stuck in the creek from this old tree?” I asked my best buddy.

“Well, if it gets any worse, maybe it might stop up the creek and flood the valley”, Cris replied. “Maybe we should try to shove some of this gunk under the log so nothing bad happens. What do you think John?”

That is just what I had been thinking, so we retreated to the near shore, found a couple of good, forked sticks and went back out along the downed tree. While carefully balancing on the slippery log, we began pushing the foam and flotsam under the tree so it could float freely down the creek, down to the Mississippi River and onto the ocean. We agreed that we were doing good work and that the earth was going to be a better place due to our efforts.

However, this really was hard work, the way we did things, and we had to focus on keeping our balance. We stopped talking and concentrated on the work at hand. We had a big job to do and were resolved to get all this stuff down the creek so that we could save the valley of the certain destruction of the impending flood that we were certain was to follow. It was a good thing we both happened along to save the day!

After a half hour or so of concentrated effort, I was startled by a little red fox that had sauntered out on the log to cross the creek. Cris and I had been quiet for some time, and two young boys on a log across the creek was the last thing this fox was expecting. We both stood, stock still, and looked at each other. Neither the fox nor I moved, although Cris hadn’t spotted this creature yet. I didn’t know what to do – and neither did the fox. We just kept looking at each other. I was surprised at how small and thin he was. But his long red coat was lustrous and the white and black markings on his face gave him a wily, sly kind of a look. I could count each of his long white whiskers. We both were kind of scoping each other out, because neither of us had ever had a close look at a fox or person before.

After what seemed to be a minute or two, I whispered to Cris, “Hey, look at this fox Cris. He’s right here on the log with us.” Cris leaned forward to see the fox whose eyes left mine and moved over to Cris. At this point the fox decided he had had enough of us and jumped up, changed direction in mid air and started running the opposite way across the slick log. “Let’s get ‘em”, Cris yelled.

The race was on. I scampered across the log and into the thicket on the far shore with Cris right on my heels. I had no idea what we would do if we actually caught up to the fox, but at that moment the consequences were not important; we had every intention to win this race and catch the fox.

End of Part I. Find out if Cris and I caught that fox in next week’s conclusion to our story.