Remember when?

[marv2]

OH OF COURSE,I HAVE FRIENDS IN THE HOOD AS WELL AS FRIENDS ON THE GOLD COAST[yes D.C.has one]ONE THING I'VE ALWAYS FELT GOOD ABOUT WAS LIVING IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE CITY GROWING UP[UPTOWN-DOWNTOWN-IN DA HOOD OUT OF DA HOOD]YOU LEARN THE CITY AND YOU LEARN PEOPLE...ONE OF THE SADDEST MISCONCEPTIONS MADE BY FOLKS WHO ARE FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO HAVE NEVER LIVED HAND TO MOUTH IS THE ALL FOLKS IN THE[GHETTO?]ARE NOT TRYING TO DO ANY BETTER,I'VE HAD SOME HEATED ARGUMENTS ABOUT THAT...I LIVE IN THE GHETTO,THE GHETTO DOESN'T LIVE IN ME,AND I REMEMBER AS A KID THAT WE[GHETTO]KIDS MOST TIMES HAD BETTER MANNERS THAN SOME OF THE UPPER CRUST KIDS BUT FOR THE MOST PART KIDS WERE KIDS AND WE GOT ALONG.

Exactly! My father got his job the year before I was born, my mother taught school, but my dad would take us to relatives that had it ROUGH! Sometimes we'd spend the night with them. We didn't care because we were kids and having fun. I had an Uncle that lived in Cabrini Green in Chicago in the sixties and we would go visit them. We had fun playing with all the kids. My grandmother use to say "you'll never know where you might have to live before you die" and "if a place was as bad as people say, then the people that live there couldn't"! These sayings stuck with me as I got older which is why I had friends in all kinds of living conditions good and bad. I have been to the roughest areas in America even the ones in D.C.!