Jim Rehg

Andy, Buddy, JD, and Jimmy, Landfill Gang members, are audacious boys who seek adventure in every corner of a South St. Louis landfill. Jimmy narrates the tales. Andy, a year older and the band’s Tom Sawyer, is the undisputed leader. Still, JD, the group’s cynic, vies for Andy’s top-dog status. Buddy is in every bully’s crosshair and can’t escape his jester’s role in the gang. The tales recount Jimmy’s personal struggle with dyslexia: his effort to build self-confidence and shed shyness through the gang’s exploits. The twenty-one loosely linked chapters randomly recount the boys’ lighthearted capers from their grade school years.

Grade School Boys Search for Adventure but Discover Trouble in a Midwest Dump.

The gang learns the three Rs at St. Stephen’s Protomartyr Catholic School. However, life’s real lessons come from their romps in the dump and treks around ethnic neighborhoods in the post-war years. There, street-schooling and antics in the 20-acre dump tutor loyalty and friendship as the boys face down bullies and overcome physical impediments.

The gang’s beliefs, crude practices, and off-color exchanges mirror youths from lunch-pail job families. Like the boys in Stephen King’s inspired movie, Stand By Me, the band bends the rules and stretches the truth when mischief demands without intent to harm or offend—just boys doing what boys do.

Movies Trigger Over-the-Top Adventures

Join the gang as they learn to shoot BB guns and slingshots, stand up to bullies, build forts and treehouses, invite danger, and unintentionally put themselves in harm’s way. The stories reflect how inquisitive minds look for fun but find trouble. The group’s Saturday matinee movies trigger stunts lasting for weeks. For example:

The Christmas Story puts Daisy BB guns on gang members’ shoulders for hunts in the dump.
Disney’s Robin Hood inspires a band that uses bows and arrows to hunt enemies in the landfill’s Sherwood Forest.
The Crimson Pirate leads to the construction of a model hot-air balloon, cannons that shoot marbles, and a dangerous explosive.

Jimmy’s Dyslexia Becomes His Superpower

Youthful turmoil forces kids to reexamine their values, priorities, and friendships, triggering the Landfill Gang’s coming-of-age transformations. However, Jimmy’s undiagnosed dyslexia and depressed self-confidence made his hurdle for change greater than the others in the gang. Although he struggles in school to compensate for his unique way of thinking, his dyslexia makes him the gang’s problem-solving wizard in their escapades.

Join the Gang—Turn Back Time

Adventures of the Landfill Gang is your initiation into the group. Order your copy and accompany them on an entertaining trek down memory lane to experience growing up in a distant era in America. Perhaps the tales will trigger your own childhood memories!