We Tell it Like It Is

I was having pizza with a childhood girlfriend of mine this past Saturday. We had such a wonderful time reminicing about growing up in the city 25 years ago: playing ball in the alleys, writing on the sidewalks with the neighbor's rocks (this was long before the creation of sidewalk chalk!), roaming the neighborhoods until our mothers yelled aimlessly out the door when it was time to come in for dinner, visiting Monroe's (the corner store 2 blocks away) to get the newest flavor in bubblegum, and going down to the park to see the breakdancers do their thing w/their boomboxes blaring. The good ol' days when -YES- us kids did all of that on our own...no parental supervision needed. Not only did we do this in the city, but specifically in the city of North Minneapolis. Yep, I was a 'ghetto girl' back in the late 70's/early 80's. Its pretty funny to say that because my memories of the first 10 years of my life do not contain gunfire, prostitution, robberies, poverty, gangs, and all of those things that describe 'ghetto' to most people. Was my immature mind just immune to all of that or was my neighborhood on 28th & Aldrich really a nice place at one time?!

My folks & I moved out of the inner city in 1985, when I was getting ready to start 5th grade. A "prostitution house" transformed across the street and 5 houses down from us and that's when my mother laid down the law. We moved to the suburbs after many months of market time to an investor for $30,000. I missed the 'hood and to appease me, my dad would take us for a ride once in awhile to drive past the "old homestead" as my mom would call it.  However, after only a couple of years, those rides began to fade as news reports scared us into believing it was no longer safe to do. Houses on our block began to decompose as all of our old neighbors followed suit and moved out & away. The media painted a new picture in my mind of a place filled with senseless & random violence, poverty and people that lived like pigs. I have carried that image in my mind for years....up until a month ago.