Remembering Neighborhood Characters - Guy Sommobeech

In the movie "The Boys in Company C", there was a character named Alvin Foster who was writing a journal about his Marine Corps experience during the war in Vietnam. Narrating the movie, Foster's character says something to the tune of "...but who would believe it" when pondering the content of that journal.

That's the way it is in South Philly. There are so many characters doing many strange things, it makes you wonder "who would believe it" if should you tell someone about it. Yet everything I write here is true. Maybe a few of the details are fuzzy, but it's all true.

One of those unusual characters we grew up experiencing was a person who came to be known as "Guy Sommobeech". Guy was an elderly man, maybe late 70s or early 80s when I first saw him on the street. He was always dressed in a long black rain coat, whether you saw him on a December winter's day or a warm one in May. His expression never changed, walking upright, face-forward and never a smile. You probably wouldn't have even thought twice about him if you saw him on the street. Just an old guy who walked his dog every night down the same few blocks. I never thought twice. Not until one evening when...

My first encounter with Guy was while we were hanging on the corner at 17th & Oregon, back when Uncle Virgie had retired and the abandoned luncheonette still stood around the mid-1970s. The owner turned it into an arcade until either neighbors prevailed in having it closed because of nuisance or Virgie's daughter sold it (depending on who's story was correct). One evening, sitting there with my brother, sister, a friend Kevin, and a few others, Kevin says, "Hey, here comes Guy Sommobeech". Now anyone with common sense just knows that this isn't the man's real name, so I had to ask why they called him that. As Guy and his aging mutt approached, Kevin tells me to reach out and pet the dog and I would see why. Alright, that seemed harmless enough. So sure enough, I reached for the pooch.

"Sommobeech! Sommobeech!" yelled ol' Guy. You would have thought someone had attempted to reach out and steal the man's life savings. With fiery rage in his eyes  (hey, his expression changed!)  he screamed those memorable words, swinging at me in a swaying motion, twisting his upper body in a right to left arc and back again in somewhat comic form. Most likely, the only person in danger of getting hurt that evening was Guy himself. He could have bruised his own ribs or did something else to his aging body. I've never seen a man swing in that way at someone before or since that incident.

If someone did that today, the other person might connect with him, and that connection would be physical rather than social. It doesn't take much to cause someone to throw a punch - or fire a weapon for that matter - even towards an elderly man. For a few years afterward, Guy would continue to walk the dog passed us. It was the same routine every evening +in the same black rain coat. Then, as all aging folks do, he disappeared; no longer to be seen again.

I was never compelled to bother with him again. Not that I was eager to the first time. If I wasn't egged on to pet the dog, he would be just another person walking down the street. After all, who wants to be responsible for an older man hurting himself for no good reason? I didn't feel the need to mess with him, but there's always someone. Take, for example, Kevin's nephew David.

Apparently, Guy did the same thing to David, swinging and screaming at him. Different people react in different ways. Me? I see an man who's at the least upset and at the most disturbed. David, I guess saw a man who had payback coming to him. One evening, he approached my brother and me with a heavy-duty extension cord in his hand with the head cut of of it. Just a plug at one end, and two bare wires at the other. David asks, "You guys want to come with me? I'm gonna electrify a fence and have Guy chase me into it. I'll duck, and he's gonna get jolted when he falls into it."

If I didn't believe it would fail, I would have steered clear of this craziness. David insisted it would work. Amused and curious, we had to see what he had in mind. So we took a walk to 18th & Oregon where the pipe company had a chain link fence on the Oregon Ave side before that land gave way first to the old Telesystems Cable TV building, and now the medical offices that have since replaced it. David took the cord, twisted the wires to the fence, and then ran the cord to the outdoor electrical outlet at the William Penn gas station on the corner. He figured Guy would be coming by soon, so now was the time to plug it in and wait. We watched. Having both positive and negative wires on the metal chain link, all he did was cause a short-circuit, and caused the lights in the gas station to go out. Guy would live to see many more days.

AND YOU MAY REMEMBER...

• The Sinclair gas station with it's green and white Dino the Dinosaur logo at 18th & Oregon (later BP, later William Penn, now a Dunkin Donuts).

• Various characters from the streets of South Philly including:
  Duck Lady, "Camoflage" Man, 40's Woman, to name a few. They'll make an appearance here sooner or later.

If you live in the city, I'm sure you had a few colorful character son your block or in your neighborhood, too!

Originally posted: March 27. 2006