Friends Turn Herman Away from Revenge

In 1953, when I was about seventeen, there was a ferocious rivalry between Moline and East Moline guys. This reached very dangerous proportions for my best friend, Herman Nelson, and myself when we got East Moline girlfriends. We heard these guys were looking for a fight with Herman because he’d stolen some hood’s girl. Herman, who was very tough acting, (and had a real DA haircut and wore real Aviator sunglasses and black engineer’s boots) stepped right up to it and walked into the Chocolate Shop in East Moline and announced himself. He was immediately escorted to the alley and beaten up. The three other members of our gang—Sig Eckburg, Jerry Edlund, and Bill Adams—and I were waiting outside in my car when Herman came running out with a bloodied nose demanding we speed directly to his house where he got his .22 pistol. He said he was going to go back to shoot the guy who, “broke my freaking nose.” We were on the way back with the gun, when we all talked Herman into going to the hospital to get his nose fixed so it wouldn’t heal crooked. That did it. His vanity about his looks was much stronger than his need for revenge. We never went back to the Chocolate Shop and Herman dropped the girlfriend, though the guys came looking for us at the Hasty Tasty, our hangout in Moline. I remember, one night, we had to hide under Herman’s car until they stopped cruising around waiting to catch us.