Crabbing
Late 1940s - early 1950s
Contributed by: Larry
Many summer afternoons in the late 1940s and early 1950s were spent in South Park, not playing on the swings but crabbing.
As my friends and I would leave our 10th Street homes, our first stop would be Jeschke's Grocery Store on the corner of 10th and Rugby. A penny or two for a piece of liver and some free store string and we were all set to go.
With our trusty jack knives, we would cut off a piece of liver and tie it tightly to one end of the string. Holding onto the other end of the string, the liver was then thrown out into the lagoon. Very slowly, fingers over fingers, we would pull in the string with the hopes that a crab would have attached itself to the liver. The prize was being able to get the crab onto the shore. After playing with it for a while, we would watch it walk backwards, back into the lagoon, to be caught another day.
