The Transformation of Robin Hood

Sometime around the late winter - spring of 1976, a group of us started hanging out on the back porch of the Knights of Columbus on the corner of Walnut lane and Houghton Street. It all started when walking back from the 7-11 you would cut through the yard at the “knights” and one day we just stopped and parked ourselves on that porch. It was like a secret hangout that was out in the open. There was a hedge around the property so you really couldn’t see us on the porch if you were driving by in a car. There didn’t seem to be much activity at the knights except the bar in the basement that was open weekend nights. So the stage was set for a great hangout. We figured if we didn’t make too much of a mess they might not ever know we were there. So what exactly does a small group of young teenagers do hiding on a back porch of a huge house? Not much at first. I remember my cousin and I bringing our old Evel Knieval ripcord motorcycles back there and making ramps out of broken tables and making small loops for them to jump through and lighting them on fire and after lighting a pile of leaves on fire and generally having too many things on fire until we melted them completely. Looking back it was obviously not the smartest thing to do with a Dixie cup filled with gas.

One really nice Saturday we are sitting there and a kid comes out of the house next to the knight’s property. He sets up an archery target and for the next few hours he was shooting arrows into it. The next time we saw him it was closer to nighttime and he was outside with his bow doing the same thing. So of course we were joking amongst ourselves about how “Robin Hood” was back at it. You know how kids are, joking about nerds, geeks, or dorks basically about anybody that was the slightest bit different. So we were laughing when this old guy came out of the house and yells, “Kevin, your mother says its time to come in”. Every time we see him over the next few days or weeks, or whatever the time frame was, either his Grandfather or Mother would almost always tell him when to come in. And only one time we heard him complain. I think that was a time there were a lot of us on that porch having a little party or something.

The details of when, how, who and why, the first contact with “Rob” (as he affectionately became know as) was made is not coming back to me. But it had something to do with Kevin being home by himself and somebody talking to him and the friendship began. You know how some boys have unbelievable growth spurts over the summer because of puberty, well that was something that happened to Kevin between the time we first saw him and a few months later when we started hanging out together. I will never forget going down into his basement for the first time and seeing his Grandfathers train set. This thing was huge and spread over 6 sheets of plywood platforms and had year’s worth of work done to it. And he also had an old-fashioned soda vending machine that you had to unlatch the top and push the plunger to get a bottle of Coke. They were returnable bottles of Coke. The second time we were in his basement we went through too many of these cokes and something got broken and he got in trouble and we didn’t see him for a week. That was the short-lived extent of our contact with Kevin Hay, Our friend Robin Hood.

My Mother tells me Kevin’s Mom was the mean nursery school teacher I had remembered being scared of when I was a kid. I wondered if that was why I felt really weird when she would come outside to yell at Kevin to come in. I was half expecting to get yelled at myself. I guess I didn’t have to worry about that anymore anyway.

Yeah, Right! Two weeks later Kevin is sitting on the knights porch smoking a cigarette. Needless to say we were a bit shocked. Kevin had a whole new attitude and it was a source of a bit of conflict with his Mom. I do not want to focus on any negative memories from this. Because the tragic ending is negative enough. We had a lot of great times on that porch. Then the summer was over. I got a new stereo for my birthday that year and had a few parties at my house in the basement. Only problem was I lived down Ridge Avenue and everybody else lived up within 4 blocks of the knights. So I did not have many more of them. And then winter came

We didn’t mess around setting things on fire anymore even though it was cold. Most of our hanging out habits changed over the winter. We tended to stay in more. I do remember acting like kids again and making a huge snowman and piling snow up on the wall that separated Kevin’s yard from the knights yard and trying to slide down it standing on a piece of cardboard. And then spring came around again and it was time for trouble. Not too much trouble really. But we did however steal beer from someone’s Father or stand outside the 19th hole bar and beg people to buy us beer or one of the guys older brother would get us a couple of quarts. This was way before 40’s so a 32 oz was all you got. That was probably the worst of what we did at the time. But we kept the place clean and any beer bottles got thrown in with the trash from the bar. But one day things got a little too rowdy and a piece of glass in the door that led out on to the porch got broken. It stayed broken for a few weeks and then mysteriously got fixed. And that same week we had a visitor, the bartender came walking around the porch and told us the party was over. No more hanging out back there. Right after that one of us was working for a relative at a party that was being thrown at the knights. Foolish kids that we were, he smuggled out a couple of bottles of some kind of alcohol. Sloe gin I think. Hid them in the bushes. The following week we found Kevin sitting on the porch with one of them half gone. Feeling no pain. But sadly, the cops were on the lookout for us being there and it was becoming impossible to spend more than an hour or two there without hearing someone yell “The Man!” and we would all scatter in different directions. Kevin, by virtue of living right next door had to be careful not to run directly to his house. But I think the cops did knock on his door once and his Mom got upset.

But little Robin Hood was not little anymore. Out of all of us, and at that point he was completely one of us, he seemed to be the most changed. Some of the guys, Like my cousin and Jackie and Steve, I grew up with from 8 years in school. We were all a bunch of post puberty teenage; um what word am I looking for here, Idiots, that’s it. Idiots. But I guess that is just a part of growing up. We started hanging out on the wall outside the nursing school a block up at Jamestown and Houghton. But every once in a while we would end up on the knight’s porch for old times sake.

One day we were shocked to see the porch had been turned into an enclosed porch. Our days of hanging out there were over. But by that time I had gotten a car. There was quite a bit of conflict at that point because I had strict rules about what I did with the car and no drinking or anything like that and that’s all most of the guys wanted to do. Things got a little serious with a few girlfriends and hanging out was at the bottom of the list. Life was changing. Priorities were shifting. We were basically growing up I guess. No matter what parents didn’t want us to do we did somewhat anyway. I am glad I got through it unscarred and without getting arrested.

About 2 years later I hear from my cousin that Kevin is “back” and I should stop by his house. I go over there and there were about a dozen stoned biker types lounging around in his back yard drinking beer from a big old keg on ice. Kevin had spent the summer at the shore or down in Delaware or someplace like that. I remember his Mom wasn’t too happy but I do not remember any of why that was. I do remember helping lighten the keg a little and one of the hippie chicks sat herself down in my lap and started kissing me, then looked at me and said something like, “You’re not Jerry” and then stumbled away to some other guy. From his yard I could see the knights porch and was hit with a little wave of nostalgia. I could remember 4 years before that sitting down on that porch looking up to where I was sitting and wondering who was that quiet little kid that was acting like Robin Hood.

The following summer I hear from my Cousin that Kevin was killed in an accident.

I have pictures from September 1976 taken in my basement of some of the people I hung out with. Kevin is one of them. Over the years I can’t help but wonder about all the What Ifs. Like what if we hadn’t made friends with him and just kept teasing him or had made friends without teasing him or stuff like that.

Things like this get me very philosophical about remembering my adolescence. So it was also time to get one of these thoughts written down. I hope this gets interpreted as a tribute. A tribute to the Memory of Kevin Hay, Kevin Hay, Robin Hood, Rob, man I hope you are in a better place. And if somebody hasn’t already done a tribute like this I am sorry it took 25 years.

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