Thanks for the insight. As I said, I never met the guy. Alton was and is a pretty heavily travelled hub for them in the St Louis area, and several trickled down through the Illinois side of the river, and I spent alot of my late teenage years through early 30s surrounded by these guys. Good guys too, although you had to look to find it sometimes. I think you said it best "some were less than bright and some were pshycotic or damaged. A few were incarcerated at a young age and unable to see their way to getting out of the system." That pretty much describes them. Still, those guys were like an extended family for me when it seemed like nothing I could do would go right. They never asked anything of me (well, except for "another beer" lol) and I never asked anything from them. There was always someone around though if you needed a place to stay, or someone to work on something, whatever. My mom always did tell me I had strange taste in friends.
