This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Editor's note: Robert Kirby is off. This is a reprint of an earlier column.

The first club I ever belonged to was the Elwood Street Rangers. I was 10. It was the year I realized the necessity of solidarity.

The Rangers was a gang by today's standards. We called ourselves a club because the only concept of a gang back then was "West Side Story," and no way were we going to dance.

The club initially consisted of Leon Krygowski and me. Later, because numbers were so very important, we let Mike and Duncan and Duncan's dog Petey join.

We weren't your typical "boys only" club. Girls were welcome. It's just that none wanted to join, probably because initiation required applicants to wear their underpants backwards for a whole day. Except for Petey.

The purpose of the Rangers was protection from Elwood Street's resident bully. Howard was almost 12 but still in the fourth grade. He enjoyed waylaying kids walking home alone.

It wouldn't have been so bad if Howard had wanted money. Extortion makes a certain amount of sense, even in elementary school. We would have gladly paid him to leave us alone.

But Howard wasn't a capitalist. He was only interested in tormenting smaller kids until they cried. And anyone with a big mouth and poor impulse control (me) was a particular favorite.

Complaining to teachers and parents only made things worse. Howard would get into trouble for a while and then return with blood in his eye. Something had to be done.

At the first meeting of the Rangers, it was loudly suggested by someone who had just been ambushed and dragged through a pasture that we sneak my dad's .410 out of the closet and shoot Howard.

Leon, whose hair wasn't full of manure, wisely pointed out that murder likely meant reform school, where there were lots of Howards.

It came down to simple math. Actually, it was more like a story problem. If Howard was more than a match for one of us, and if he might even be able to hold his own against two of us, how many doctors would it take to remedy the effect of four guys, a dog, some baseball bats and a brick?

We never got a chance to work it out. A girl in our class got fed up with being teased and dropped her trombone case on Howard's head in a stairwell. It knocked him loopy and into another school.

The Elwood Street Rangers disbanded that summer after a chicken coop blew up, but by then I had learned a valuable lesson about the need to have someone who's got your back. I've been a gang member ever since.

I learned that some gangs are gangs only in theory: Sports teams, Boy Scouts, La Leche League, etc. And some gangs exact enormous dues for the benefits of membership: insurance companies, Mastercard, the U.N., etc.

Some big gangs have your back only in the abstract: book clubs, intellectual organizations, school, church, etc.

The toughest gangs may sound great but in truth provide physical security and not much else: police departments, the military, the WWE, etc.

Only one gang really does it all: family. There's never been a Howard in my life big enough to get around that one.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley