Goodness, sounds intense. I had no idea you had such a childhood. I might have to read it. Jamie had a rough one growing up to - here's me with my idyllic coastal rural childhood with horses and surfing, haha!
Goodness, sounds intense. I had no idea you had such a childhood. I might have to read it. Jamie had a rough one growing up to - here's me with my idyllic coastal rural childhood with horses and surfing, haha!
It was more intense than I've ever shared publicly. Oddly, our neighborhood was largely idyllic until around 1983-4. It was lower middle-class but quiet and safe. Desegregation of the public schools in the late 1970s started the decline. Kids from some of the worst areas of the city started being bused into our neighborhood school and it went awry in short order. By '85 crack cocaine was rampant and some of the established west coast gangs (LA Crips and others) saw the opportunity to expand their drug operations into the Midwest. Columbus was a prime target for them and the authorities weren't in any way prepared. Columbus city leaders refused to admit there was a drug or gang problem until it got too widespread to fix. There was a mass exodus out of our neighborhood around 1986 but those people who couldn't afford to move were stuck there.