Finding the Gang That Fits

STREET GANGS, (BLOODS, CRIPS, MS13 et al), QUILTING CIRCLES, online associations, interest clubs, all form and cohere for the same reason. Man, said Aristotle, is a social animal. Collectively, in concert, dues are paid, goods and services are rendered and distributed, quilts, drugs, bowling, violence. All value judgments aside, a group is a gang is a cohort is a herd. Members of the Aryan Brotherhood call their membership by invitation only "the family". A certain chat room, once upon a long lost time, filled up with the same people very night, scattered across America, yet together on computer screens, and called itself "the family", just like the Aryan brotherhood, just like most gangs and families. Long ago we went our separate ways, as all groups eventually do. That was in the year 2000, when chat rooms were the gangs of choice. I wonder where they all went, and where they all are now. I hope they're still alive, prosperous, and happy. Quilting circles are normally much less prone than street gangs to regard each other as siblings, and to call themselves a family. Quilting circles are less affectionate, more judgmental than the Aryan brotherhood, far less prone to adhere with affectionate appellations. The church ladies don't wear as many tattoos as street gangs, unless they hide them, unseen, beneath corsets, petticoats, and ankle length dresses with flower patterns. What could they possibly say anyway, other than "Jesus"? Church ladies tend not to spend as much time locked up in prison cells, hanging out on urban street corners beneath burned out street lights, or busting ass on Harleys. Quilters do their fighting with rude facial expressions, missed phone calls, and turned backs. The boyz in the hood are somewhat more likely to resolve their disputes by mixing it up behind the bar with chains, knives, guns, and expressions of profanity, and far more likely to be open and honest about it. Fighting is fighting, the means a mere detail. The emotional pain is the same everywhere. Government intervenes sparingly, only when great bodily harm is done, property is damaged, destroyed, or stolen, like a quilt or bag of dope which comes up missing. Specific gang affiliation reflects not so much the nature or temperament of its members, as it does specific personal interests. A loner is a lonely person who has not yet found a gang which fits, but with the grace of god, soon will. I hope my long lost online family of a gang still remembers me, wherever they are..........THANKS FOR JOINING US! SHARE.