06-30-2019, 01:10 PM
Buzz wrote:
As to the everyday thing. When I was a kid growing up near Oakland, I was walking down the street in a bad part of Oakland, and as I was walking, I heard some gunshots that sounded like they were coming from the back of the building I was approaching, and then a couple of louder shotgun blasts followed by a bullet riddled body crashing thru the storefront about 15 feet in front of me. Oakland being Oakland back in the early/mid 60's, my thought was, "I better walk on the other side of the street for now..." I was headed for the bus stop a couple of blocks further ahead. It pretty was everyday back then. Amazing what we acclimate to.
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That remindes me of an incident from my youth:
I grew up in Flushing, NY, in a middle - upper middle-class neighborhood.
i used to go to Hebrew school every Sunday. My dad would drop me off at the temple, and give me his care to get a ride home. If the weather was nice, I'd often walk, and save the money for candy or comics. If the weather was not nice, I'd start walking, since the wait some Sundays was (seemingly) interminable. In those instances, I'd walk along the bus route, and check at each stop for an impending bus arrival.I
One Sunday, when I was about 12, I had walked along Northern Blvd.,10 or so blocks. I stopped in front of Villa Bianca, a large, somewhat notorious Italian restaurant, that had an eponymous catering hall across the street. As I looked back (east) along Northern Blvd. for a bus, I heard a huge crash of glass breaking. I looked across the street in time to see a body count through the 2 plate glass doors of the catering hall, glass flying every where. The man's body sprawled on the sidewalk. Two huge no-neck guys in suits walked out after him, looked down at him. One kicked him. Then they looked up, and noticed me standing there.
I turned and started walking, fast, down Northern Blvd. They watched me for a couple of blocks, but didn't follow me.
I never told my parents about it - didn't want them to pick me up and lose out on the candy money, but I also never stopped at the Villa Bianca bus stop again.