Harris Avenue Old Crocks

The Harris Avenue Old Crocks are a loose, informal, and largely male social group of elderly Derry residents who gather at a small, shaded picnic area near the service entrance of the Derry County Airport, close to Runway 3. Their name, bestowed by Ralph Roberts's friend Bill McGovern, captures their status as the city's overlooked senior citizens, a community that exists in a parallel, slower-moving world beneath the notice of the hurry-to-work, hurry-to-play mainstream. The picnic area, which at night is a teenage hangout, is their daytime domain, where they play chess and gin rummy, or simply "shoot the shit." Most are "old-school Yankees," raised to believe that a man's private business is his own, and they offer Ralph a comfortable, undemanding companionship during the terrible summer of his wife Carolyn's final illness, when he walks out to the Extension to escape the ticking of her deathwatch.

Identity and Gathering Place

The Old Crocks are defined not by a formal charter but by their shared territory and pastimes. The group includes men like Stan Eberly, whom Ralph has known since grammar school; Faye Chapin, a retired carpenter and cabinetmaker who organizes the annual "Runway 3 Classic" chess tournament; Don Veazie, a garrulous and opinionated presence; and Doc Mulhare, a retired veterinarian. The most enigmatic member is Dorrance Marstellar, a man in his nineties who carries books of poetry and speaks in cryptic, oracular phrases, often watching planes take off and land with dreamy intensity. The picnic area itself is a place of engraved carvings—names, initials, and obscenities—a palimpsest of the young people who take it over at night and the old men who claim it by day. For Ralph, the Old Crocks represent a secret city within Derry, a submerged geography of retirement and diminished expectations, where one's "real life" is considered to have ended.

Role in the Plot

Ralph's connection to the Old Crocks is established early, as he walks out to their picnic area during Carolyn's illness. It is on one of these walks that he first becomes aware of Ed Deepneau's violent transformation, witnessing Ed's road rage attack on a pickup truck driver. The Old Crocks also serve as a sounding board for the community's anxieties. As the controversy over Susan Day's visit to Derry escalates, the normally apolitical group becomes divided and inflamed. A heated argument about abortion between Faye Chapin and Harley Pedersen, whose wife died from sepsis after childbirth, nearly erupts into a physical fight, demonstrating how the issue has poisoned even the most mundane social spaces. Ralph's own place within this group is cemented by his participation in Faye's chess tournament, a ritual that connects him to the rhythms of his retired life even as his insomnia and the supernatural events surrounding him pull him into a far stranger reality.

Narrative Significance

The Old Crocks function as a chorus, representing the ordinary, grounded life of Derry's elderly that Ralph is gradually leaving behind. Their presence provides a stark contrast to the escalating supernatural and political crises. The group's mundane concerns—chess tournaments, health problems, the weather—anchor the story in a recognizable reality even as Ralph begins to see auras and encounter the little bald doctors. The picnic area itself becomes a liminal space, a place where the ordinary world of the Old Crocks overlaps with the extraordinary. It is here that Dorrance Marstellar, the most mysterious of the Old Crocks, delivers cryptic messages and acts as an agent of forces beyond the group's comprehension, bridging the gap between the Old Crocks' world and the cosmic struggle in which Ralph is embroiled. Ultimately, the Old Crocks represent the community Ralph is fighting to protect, a community of people whose lives, however diminished they may seem, are still precious and worth saving.