If you haven’t seen the movie Four Brothers starring Mark Wahlberg, I suggest you watch it because this story is pretty close. My brother George and I grew up on Theresa Street, and right behind our house was Steinway Avenue.
Well, wouldn’t you know, two brothers lived directly behind us on Steinway, and they became our brothers. We were the original Four Brothers.
Jamel Craig was the oldest, my blood brother George was the second, Peyton was the third, and I was the fourth. We were all two years apart, and we did everything together! Our backyards backed up to each other, and we would hop the fence and just walk into each other’s houses unannounced.
Before we got a little older, my brother and Jamel used to throw a ball over the fence back and forth to each other. Peyton got older and joined in on the ball-throwing. One day, yours truly showed up, probably about two years old, and Jamel said, “Wait, where did that guy come from?”
My brother said, “That’s my little brother, Donnie.” That’s where our journey began. I don’t remember much about being two years old—or really any age until about eight—but I always remember my blood brother George and my other brothers Jamel and Peyton always being there. Jamel and Peyton’s mom, Dolly, quickly turned into my second mom, and my mom turned into their mom.
Christmas mornings are what I will always remember the most. My brothers would come over with their brand-new pajamas, and we would play the new game on the new gaming system. Peyton went to a different school than the other three brothers, so he was driven to school, but Jamel, my brother, and I used to take the bus to Incarnation.
Every morning, Jamel would walk through the back door, and the three of us would walk to the corner of Broad and Theresa and wait for the bus. It wouldn’t be funny if I wrote out our inside jokes when cars drove by, but Jamel would sing a song for every brand of car that drove by.
A Chevy drove by, and we would hear, “Chevrolettt, hey, yeah!” It was funny to us and still is. When we were not in school, the four brothers used to walk down Broad Street and over the “footbridge” to get to Golf Land and spend all of our quarters playing the arcades. If you are a “Ewingite,” as my mom called us, you remember Golf Land and the Pizza Hut right next door. Locked doors were not a thing for us. I would walk into my second mom Dolly’s house while she was making dinner and say, “Hey, Mom, what are you making?”
My brothers did the same at my house. They would walk right through the back door, say hi to my mom and dad, grab a glass of my mom’s famous iced tea, and go play a video game with us. When it snowed, you better believe we were all out shoveling our parents’ driveways, but then we were looking to make money—four brothers with four shovels charging $20 a driveway to spend it at Golf Land. When “work” was over, we would get a ride from one of our parents to the Municipal Building Hill. We would sled there for hours.
Jamel recently texted me and said, “If you write a column about the four brothers, make sure you mention Municipal Hill.” I got you, bro! It snowed a few months ago, and that’s all I thought about. Are Ewing kids still utilizing the Municipal Building Hill? I hope so because it’s a great sledding hill.
Fast forward, and we ended up going to college and going our separate ways. My second mother Dolly ended up selling the house on Steinway, and my brother George and I moved out of our parents’ house. Just because we aren’t “neighbors” anymore doesn’t mean we aren’t still “brothers.”
When I saw the trailer for the movie *Four Brothers* back in 2005, I texted my brothers and said they made a movie about us but didn’t include us. To finish this up, I saw a quote that will help explain this column: “Blood doesn’t make a family, love and friendship do. You’re my brother from another mother.”
Donnie Black was born and grew up in Ewing Township. He currently works at radio station XTU in Philadelphia as a producer, on-air personality, and promotions director.
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