by Treasa Lascola

Created on: August 25, 2009

I only wish the story of my wonderful hometown were just a collection of amusing anecdotes, and not just nostalgia and regrets. You see, my beautiful neighborhood was sold out in a back room deal by a couple of politicians, some hustlers posing as the city housing authority, and possibly the Devil himself. The bottom line was money. They emptied out the projects over the hill from my city neighborhood by promising those folks a pipe-dream that they would never follow through on, you see. The politicians sold the land that the projects were sitting on for a seemingly dirt cheap price, the city or county housing authority promised the tenants of those properties that they could be home-owners at little cost to them, (which was nowhere close to true), and I'm thinking Satan laughed all the way to the bank after setting up a new condo deal on the cheap property he just bought, (knowing full well that those new tenants would pay through the nose to live in the gated community to protect themselves from the previous tenants, who are killing themselves to become home-owners!).

When I was growing up in this incredible city neighborhood, I didn't have a care or worry in the world. I was allowed to play on my front street, and the two alleys that came with it. This afforded such freedom that I never realized that I had taken for granted. My friends and I would play a game called release, where two teams of five would compete, one hiding and running, one chasing and catching, If someone could sneak onto the home base without the other team members catching them and release all of those caught, you were free to hide and run some more. I only wish that I could release the people caught up in this lie dressed-up as democracy. The place looks like a ghost-town in places, and like a war zone in others.

I was raised in this great place to treat people with the respect that I would want for myself. And so, we welcomed our new neighbors and then we became friends, This made it all the more difficult to look someone in the eye, nod, and smile when they talked of how low their mortgages were, but how high their gas bills were. The truly scary part is that the same devils will find a way to get my new friends out of the way to repeat the process all over again! I rattle my brain for a way to catch them at it before it's too late this time. If I do nothing else on this earth, wouldn't it be nice to kick those deviant monsters in the teeth, make them pay to beautify the old neighborhood, and to help my new friends and neighbors with those inflated utility bills. It sure sounds like home to me!

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