guppies and murder

at the bottom of Argonne drive was a row of homes that, like most houses around the factories were all the same and quite primitive.  I remember one grade school classmate who had guppies, fish that give live birth instead of laying eggs. When the mother fish was close to giving birth, a funnel-like plastic piece was put in the water.  "Mom" could stat at the top and the babies would fall through tothe bottom into the main tank, or in this case jars. otherwise, the mother, after her hard "labor" would eat her young and she was to big to fit through the bottom of the funnel.  This kid would buy a glob of aquarium greens for oxygen, and buy a few guppies, which were cheap-and bred like crazy!  He had large jars all over the house and would give away one to anyone who wanted one.  like me.  He had so many glass jars all around the house it drove his mother nuts. I don't remember what happened to my guppies: they eithe died from over feeding(a common mistake) or I got tired of them and threw them in the Brackenridge pond which was in the park and located across from our house, The pond had a fence all around it, about 20' x 20' with a towering, natural stone fountain in the middle and four spray fountainhead around it.  At night it was lite up with colored flood lights in the water.  looked really cool at night.  It had gold fish-about 8' long, which were really nothing more than carp.  Of course, if the fish population dwindled, any gold or regular colored carp we caught in the river were hastily tossed in the pond.there was plants growing around the pond and plenty of moss and no one in their right mind would go into he pond.  but there were times we were not in our right minds and went in. or went fishing if we were not catching anything in the river.  Side Note:  ALL fish, mainly carp and catfish caught below the dam were toxic from the industrial waste dumped in the water.  There was-one old man who fished the bank of the river all nigh and would go up to 4th Avenue, the "Color District" with about 200 small carp which he would go door to door and sell them for ten cents each-how he made his living.  One of the men on 4th Avenue told my brother, Bill, they grind up the entire fish-head and all, and fry with grease in a skillet.  About made him puke on the spot. But, then again, Gumbo is made with fish heads down south. This man's wife became Breckenridge's first murder victim, when she was killed with an iron pipe. the murderer was going to try and pin the blame on a co-worker he did not like, but he finally confessed and the whole thing made the front page of the newspaper from deed to trial.  She was walking home in the evening from the store on the side walkway off of Morgan Street.