Life In The City - Part I...

New York is comprised of five boroughs: Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx. I grew up in the latter borough.

Not once did I take a bus to school, nor was I driven. For as long as I can remember I walked to school. My elementary school was just across the street from Mitchell Projects and that’s where I resided.

My Moms would safety pin the house key to my inside pocket (hmmmm I wonder why?) which wasn’t the safest thing being that I was very active in sports and that pin would come undone... ouch!

Junior High School (known in the south as middle school) was a 25-minute walk and that was in whatever weather chose to be in the forecast that day. But I was always well prepared, thanks to my mother.

I noticed here in the south people do not buy big coats. It can be freezing cold at football games and they may have on a hoodie with a blanket. In the city, we wore triple goose ski parkas like they wear at the skiing resort, combined with furry hats or scull cap of some sort.

There weren’t students driving to high school. Heck, unlike here, most people didn’t get their license until later in life. Owning a car in the city is more of a headache than pleasure.

I always get a kick out of how people here in Carolina get just a whiff of snow and they shut down everything and buy up all the bread and milk. I used to walk to school through snow above my knees.

Of course those days during lunch time outside fights would ensue because of snowballs packed with rocks were being tossed about.

Back in the day, you could get anywhere in the city by paying one fare. Then you would get a transfer to connect to another viable means of transport.

For instance, I may take a bus to Harlem and then get a transfer for the train for vice versa.

Living in the projects in the Bronx was full of love, but danger was always lurking.

You had a sense of family but enemies were always in the midst. The drug world was in full affect, but it became the norm, just like the kids that grow up in Iraq sporting an AK-47.

Mitchell Projects were made up of several buildings reaching 20 floors high. People relied on the elevator to move them up and down the building. But that reliability was suspect and at any given time you may have to get your cardio in.

I remembered we lived on the 17th floor and both elevators were out of order. To add to this dilemma, the water went out.

So we had to carry buckets, pots or anything we could and then hump 17 flights of stairs with almost 15-20 steps per flight.

Maybe that’s why I was so fast when I was young LOL.

Well, thank you for stopping by. I hope to do Part 2 of “Life In The City.”

Lord willing I will see you in about three weeks.

Happy New Year’s!