The Sunrise Gang

The world of my childhood is huge. And it is always Summer or Winter. My memories are surprisingly free of Springs or Falls. Winters had snow, snow, snowballs, ice, snowmen, one very memorable snowcyclops, snowforts and more snow. Summers were one long adventure, barefoot in the grass, playing in the fields behind my house, soccer baseball around the corner, biking two blocks over to the huge park they built just for us, hide and seek, cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, bike gang on Big Wheels, Star Wars, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica, SuperFriends.

We started out as a huge gang. My brother and I, the Girl Next Door, the Tomboy, The Cool Guy, The Brat and His Big Sister, my First Crush and her Little Sister, The Australian Girl and her Baby Sister, My Brother’s Buddy and his Baby Brother, the Tough Guy Down the Block, The Nasty Girl and her Tomboy Sister, the Foreign Girl, The Blonde Girl and her Funny Brother, the Cool Toy Kid.

Cool Guy moved away first, as I recall. Tough Guy went next, replaced by the Flirt. Flirt had my brother wrapped around her little finger, pissed off Tomboy enough to make Tomboy want to kill her, got between my brother and His Buddy. My First Crush and her Sister moved away next, the Brat and his Big Sister, Nasty Girl and her Tomboy Sister... one by one they all left. Sometimes they were replaced by New Kids. Sometimes, more often, not. In turn, I had crushes on almost all the girls on the block, even Nasty Girl. When Australian Girl left I had my first brush with true dementia, waking up the day after they’d moved away convinced, completely convinced, it had all been a bad dream.

Over the years that followed, I ran into some of them once in a while. The Flirt, to my complete lack of surprise, turned into a total Hottie. First Crush - the first girl I ever kissed - and I eventually had a date... which she cancelled at the last minute. Bro’s Buddy knocked up his girlfriend. Australian Girl wound up dating a race car driver. Tomboy wound up as a cover girl and Benetton model of all things. Girl Next Door got married, had kids.

They all went away, but they live forever in my memory. The Great Battle of the Sexes of 1979. Soccer baseball championships. The Tree Fort we built on the ground. The Marathon Weekend-Long Monopoly Game. Cool Guy’s Garage Attic Hideout. Playing in the Swamp, the Big Mountain, the Big Lawn, the Round Table. Spin the Bottle, where I got Brat’s Older Sister FOURTEEN TIMES. Mudsliding. Snowforts. Cardboard Box Rockets. Garage Shows. Pool parties. Birthday parties galore.

We were the Sunrise Gang. Summer was our Kingdom. Winter was our playground. Before the park was built the fields behind my house were all we needed. Imagination filled in the gaps. But someone got cable, and someone else got a VCR... and we grew up.

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