• Bopping- Fighting against a rival gang.
• Humbug – (Chicago) same as bopping.
• Burn – To bop, especially with weapons.
• Bust – To beat up. Also to disperse, as, “Man, the cops busted us and we wasn’t Doing nothing.”
• Call it on – To arrange a rumble.
• Clique – The gang.
• Cool it – To call off the rumble.
• Crew – Same as clique.
• Debs – The girl friends of gang members. Sometimes the debs are loosely organized as an auxiliary of the gang.
• Down – Bad; tough. A gang member might say admiringly of his gang. “Man, we’re way down.”
• Down kiddie – A tough guy. He doesn’t punk out; he’s not chicken.
• Fair one – A fist fight, without weapons, between one or more representatives of two rival gangs. A fair one may occur when individuals members of rival gangs have personal grudges to settle, or when it has been decided to settle gang grievances without resorting to a rumble. In many cases what starts as a fair one, with the rest of the gang watching, ends in a rumble anyway.
• Go down – Same as a burn.
• Job man – the social worker, usually from the Youth Board, who tries to help gang members. Gangs often like tp have a job man assigned to them because it shows how tough they are.
• Jump – A dance or social event. Also, as a verb to attack rival gang members without warning.
• Pad down – To search or “frisk.” The cops padded us down and then busted us.”
• Piece – A firearm; usually a pistol, but also a rifle, perhaps cut down. “The heat’s on, man; I got to hide my piece.”
• Pot – Marijuana.
• Pull a jap – Make a sneak attack. From the attack on Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese “burned our guys.”
• Punk out – To behave in a cowardly manner; to run away, as from a fight or a threat.
• Rank – To taunt rivals with threatening or insulting looks or words; a form of challenge. Probably from the Army expression “to pull rank,” meaning to make use of one’s higher rank to bulley a subordinate.
• Rep – Reputation, prestige, status. One of the major reasons for joining a gang.
• Schemer – The shrewd member of the gang. A schemer might take over the gang leadership by subtly playing one faction against another. Also, the one that thinks up things to do.
• Session – Same as a jump or dance.
• Shank – to stab, particularly in the leg.
• Sound – Same as to rank.
• Tight – Close, in the sense of close friends.
• Turf – The neighborhood territory ruled by a gang.
• Waste – To defeat thoroughly; to annihilate.
• Chickie – The Cops. “Hey Chickie,” warning the Cops are coming.
• Hack - Cop; Man on the walk.
• Rolled - We rolled that Flake.
• Throwdown - Fight; That cat can Throwdown.

It all started in the fifties: gang lingo, gang jargon, greaser slang. The words from the list were used from the 1950’s through today. Some of the words have been modified to fit the times, but their roots are the 1950’s.

Rising Up Angry

Throughout the 1950s until the early 1980s, Chicago's youth were divided into two cultures: the Greasers and the Hippies. Greasers tried to hold on, or imitate the Greasers of the 1950s. The Hippies imitated the Hippies, or Freaks that most people remember from the 1970s before the disco era. Hippies were known for their parties; Greasers were known for fixing up old fast cars, drag racing, motorcycles, and joining gangs, though being in a gang wasn't a greaser requirement.

They say that the Greaser era died when Doo Wop and President John F. Kennedy was killed in 1963, but there was an underground Greaser culture that existed in big cities around the country like Chicago, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens, Staten Island, Philadelphia, and the New Jersey Shore (Jersey City, Newark, and Perth Amboy). It wasn't uncommon to find Chicago Greaser gang members in the mid 1970s Doo Woping on their corners. Some of the Greasers evolved into the motorcycle clubs of the 60s and the Punk scene in the 1980s. The Greaser era never really died out. Today, the garage group Rockabilly crews on the East Coast have brought the Greaser style back to the shore, though Greasers have alway existed in New Jersey.

In Susan E. Hinton's novel/Movie "The Outsiders", she covered the period of the late sixties where there was a rivalry between the Greasers and Soc's in Tulsa Oklahoma. It has been reported that there were many Greasers still around at Tulsa's Will Rogers High School into the early 1970s. The movie did a great job of showing the two different groups fighting for position in society at a time when most of the country still had a large population of greasers still around. Susan E. Hinton's followup novel/movie "Rumble Fish", did a fantastic job of showing the transition period where the Greasers lifestyle was being replaced with the drug culture or the hippie/freak culture. Rumble Fish showed how the Greaser, or Greaser gang member, lost all loyalty for his friends and culture replacing it with drugs. The remaining Greasers in this period, were considered out of style or a throw back to the fifties. To be accurate, the Greaser Culture disappeared at different times in different parts of the country, and in some areas never disappeared at all.

The The term "Stone Greasers" was borrowed from the Greaser gangs from Chicago who use to called themselves "Stone Greasers" because they could trace their legacy back to the gangs from the 50s. We felt that was a good term used to describe Greasers from all era's who live the Greaser lifestyle. This website was put together to honor all Greasers, from the originals from the 50s to the next generation Boppers of today, and for everyone who enjoys the lifestyle - we honor you!

A Greaser from the 1960s/70s had this to say about "Stone Grease":

"The term 'Stone Greaser' didn't originate with any one club, or even in a club at all, and was never used to identify someone exclusively as a club member.

Back in the sixties and seventies, 'stone' was a common ghettoism meaning 'extremely', or 'absolutely', sonmthin on those lines. 'Stone to the bone' was the common full version of the saying.

To say 'StoneGreaser', or the more common 'Stone Grease', simply meant that you were a hardcore Greaser."

In the 1970s, Chicago had an organization/underground newspaper called "Rising Up Angry" which would feature Gangs and Greasers in their "Stone Greaser Grapevine" section.

In Susan E. Hinton's book "The Outsiders", she described a fictional story about the Greasers verses Soc's situation which took place in Tulsa Oklahoma back in the 1960s. This novel described many such conflicts between poor and rich, Greasers verses Soc's, across the country.

Two examples straight out of the novel could be found across the country from Tulsa in East Lansing and Saginaw Michigan.

Towar Gardens in East Lansing, and the Sandhill in Saginaw could easily pass for the Greasers depicted in the story. Though in different parts of the country different names for Soc's were used, the same living conditions existed for the Greasers.

Today, both Towar Gardens and the Sandhill have been transitioned into upscale neighborhoods.

Towar Gardens was a Greaser neighborhood located in Meridian Township but was considered part of the City of East Lansing Michigan. Towar Gardens was named after James DeLoss Towar, and was a subdivision filled with post WWII starter homes built for the returning veterans. In the 1950s, these houses became home to many low income and working class poor. To many residences from the wealthy Michigan State University town, Towar Gardens was an eye soar.

Towar Gardens, being located on the edge of town, was located next to White Hills the wealthiest subdivision in East Lansing; therefore, giving Towar Gardens the notorious reputation of being the poor tough neighborhood next to White Hills. Lake Lansing Road divided White Hills from Towar Gardens, and a large brick wall was built on the White Hill’s side of Lake Lansing Road to make the two subdivisions even more divided.

To drive down Lake Lansing Road in the mid 1970s was like a scene from the movie “The Outsiders”,

with the Towar Garden Greasers living on the North Side and the White Hill’s Soc’s living on the South Side. The Contrast between the two neighborhoods was like night and day! You would see the Greasers fixing up old cars and hanging out in their hood, while the White Hill’s crowd was driving brand new family cars. Both White Hills and Towar Garden teenagers attended Middle and High School together, played on the same football teams, even though both lived worlds apart. One former Towar Garden Greaser stated, “It was hard to attend school with kids whose garage was as big as my house.” He also said, “We did not have a gang in Tower Gardens. We were just a bunch of guys who banded together to cover each other’s backs! They did not like us, but we were in their school district.”

There was some limited fighting that went on between the two neighborhoods, especially when the Greasers walked through White Hills to get to East Lansing, but major gang fights have never been reported between the two neighborhoods.

The Sandhill Area is located on the border of the West Side of Saginaw and Saginaw Township surrounded by West Michigan Avenue on the south and Burrows Street on the North, and Superior Street on the east and Albert Street on the west. Most of the Sandhill is located in Saginaw Township, but a small portion of the area is in the City of Saginaw.

The Sandhill was known as the poorest neighborhood on the West Side of Saginaw. Most of the homes in the Sandhill were built as post WWII starter homes. In the 1950s, the Sandhill became a landing for the West Side’s area poor. Like the Towar Garden’s area, the Sandhill bordered one of the richest subdivisions in Saginaw called Golfside. Burrows Street, the New York Railroad tracks, and large fences divided the Sandhill Greasers from the Golfside Soc’s. There is no better example of “The other side of the tracks,” as the railroad tracks divided two extremely different ways of life.

At South Junior High and Arthur Hill High Schools, saying someone was Sandhill meant they were tough. The Greasers that lived in the Sandhill were simply known as Sandhill or the Sandhill Gang. The Sandhill did produce its share of good fighters in the 1960s and 70s, as there was a tough set of twin brothers and a set of Mexican brothers who carried heavy reputations, both on the football field and in the street. The Sandhill Greasers got into some brawls with Soc’s from The Village – which was a rich subdivision next to Golfside and the Saginaw Country Club – and were always victorious, since The Village never produced any good fighters. The Sandhill Greasers had to cut through The Village to get to the shopping centers on Gratiot and Center, which always lead to confrontations. Most of the kids in The Village were to scared to challenge the Sandhill Greasers when they cut through their sub.