As a child, the start of every spring signifies that summer is around the corner. Bicycles, lemonade stands, running through sprinklers and streets covered with canopies of lush green trees are visions that every boy and girl should have. Reality is harsher and brutally took away The Brady Bunch, Leave it to Beaver dreams of the perfect life at home and leave your doors unlock suburbs of America.
My adoptive neighborhood in the Humboldt Park area of Chicago was a harsh guardian often teaching lessons with her cruel tapestry of crime and violence. Men were not born they were made by grit, willpower and the ability of never backing down from a fight even if it meant defeat. You were either part of a gang or you fought not to be part of one. On a really good day nothing happened, an average day you survived to tell about it but on a bad day you were surrounded by your family crying for your loss.
The melodic sound of the ice cream truck always broke up a good game of softball in the alley. The asphalt melted underneath our shoes. With every breath the lungs were punished by the heat. The only relief came from the inner city water park otherwise known as an open fire hydrant with a wooden plank in front of it held by a car tire. Cars drove slowly by the makeshift waterfall as kids in their bicycles rode by fast and skidded out of control.
The high pitch sound of ambulance sirens and the far away pops of gunfire made up the ambient sound of the summer. Kimball Avenue was very busy during the summer nights. Two lanes heading in opposite directions and cars parked bumper to bumper yet you would think that it was a major highway by the amount of traffic. What could have easily been a great neighborhood was now masquerading behind a facade of empty lots, a couple abandoned houses and a few scattered old trees.
There was always a smell of fear and danger. Each day never ended how it began and uncertainty always lingered. We could start the day playing baseball behind the school and at night and unexpected shoot out will have us indoors way before the enforced 10:00 pm curfew for minors. Some nights the cops were friends and would warned us of impending danger and some nights they would do random stop and searches and treat us like the rest of the criminals.
Prostitutes, junkies and drug dealers walked the streets looking for a way to use supply and demand to make it to the next day. Temptation always had his arm around your shoulders, walking side by side and softly whispering in your ear.
We were wild, barely educated, tough and unapologetic children of the streets that raised us. Among the chaos and instability we thrived through the cracks of the concrete sidewalks. Through games and laughter we would put away our fears. Veterans and soldiers of a war that claimed you as a casualty and it didn’t matter if you were dead or alive. Every summer we adapted, we persevered, we were children.