Things Done Changed

OK, I admit it, I confess, I have a very macabre habit or maybe it's a macabre hobby. I don't know when a hobby becomes a habit or a habit becomes a hobby. But I digress. When I get on the Internet, invariably, the second or third thing I do is click on Philly.com to see the latest bad news in the decidedly violent East Coast city that's next to my home town. I either do this because I have been conditioned by the media or because I have an innate unexplainable desire for knowledge of mayhem and chaos. Unfortunately, I am never disappointed because as you know Philly's homicide rate has been drenching the national media in blood for several years now. It's seems that the city's criminal element has been determined like Marlo from The Wire to make the city's name "Ring out" as a very dangerous and risky place to be. But, on September 15, 2008 I clicked on the web site and was shocked to see the headline "Yeadon Man Killed in Early Morning Robbery". Hey, I'm from Yeadon, WTF?

The borough of Yeadon, Pennsylvania is a suburb that sits on the southwest hip of Philadelphia. It is the home of William T. Kerr, the founder of Flag Day, the Nile Swim Club, the first Black owned private pool in America, and Holy Cross Cemetery, burial place of Angelo "The Don" Bruno and Phillip "Chicken Man" Testa, the last two Philly mob bosses to get wacked. I would testify before any grand jury that growing up in Yeadon was perfect. Everybody knew everybody, it was safe, and we had basement house parties that people are still talking about today. Yeadon, like most of the Philadelphia metro area was segregated. We (Black people)lived on one side and White people lived on the other. We both knew where the line was and we only crossed it to go to school or participate in sports. (Well maybe some folks crossed it to get their jungle fever on). It was way cool and nobody had a beef because we were separate but equal. Then, around 1980 a few of my friends moved to the other end of Yeadon and White Flight jumped off in a "Yeadon is now going to hell in a wave cap", kind-of-way. The demographic went from forty percent Black in Nineteen Eighty, to seventy percent Black in Nineteen Eighty Four. Again, I didn't think anything about it because I could still walk anywhere I wanted at any time of the day or night without worrying about not making it back home. New Black faces popped up in the stores, at school, and on the basketball courts. Most were from Philly and most were cool. But that was Black America B.C. (Before Crack) and by the time I moved out of Yeadon for good in 1996, it was a different place. It was all Black or at least it seemed that way from the many young brother's choosing to spend most of their non-school, non-work hours striking gangster poses on the main thoroughfare. I remember thinking if I saw this in Philly, I would think they were slinging drugs, but they couldn't be doing that here, this is Yeadon. In the Fall of Two thousand and Six I got a terrifying call from my in-laws, they had been car jacked right in front of their house, in Yeadon. They wasted no time in selling their house and moving to what seemed like the other side of the world. I doubt that they have ever been back and if asked they would say "For what?" and who could blame them? Then on September Fifteenth, Two thousand and Eight, a man gets killed early in the morning in his driveway in what is said to have been a hit. Nobody has ever been even brought in for questioning for the crime.

Maybe it is me being simple, but growing up in Yeadon I figured that it would always have that Black Mayberry RFD feel. I would always ride through the streets with my horn constantly beeping and my hand constantly waving because I would always know everyone. But, it never quite goes that way. You move away, your friends move away, and all the people who were older than you pass away or move themselves. It's a shame but when these transitions occur it is never for the better. I mean when was the last time you heard that people from the city moved in somewhere and that place got safer? But, it still feels strange when "Home" becomes the "Hood". When all your memories seem threatened by the reality of the now grim place where you used to feel safe and hoped to one day return so that your kids could have the same pristine childhood that you did. Sadly, my last familial connection to Yeadon, ended when my grandfather passed away two months ago. I still have friends there but it's no longer home. But even sadder still is there's something deep in me that says I don't want to go back because it's dangerous there. It's yet another place where anything can happen at any time, and no one will answer for it. That is sad beyond words.