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17/
Back home, I was learning a different set of lessons about money. We lived in one Detroit’s nicest suburbs. Dad was as an administrator at a big hospital downtown. He had passed on better paying jobs at for-profit hospitals. He viewed working at not-for-profits serving poor neighborhoods as a way of giving something back. He also wanted to provide the best opportunities for my brother and I. Each day he drove over an hour each way to cross the gap between the suburb where we lived, and the inner-city where he worked.
He would often take us into the city on weekends. Sometimes we would go to an auto-show or a race or to the zoo. But other times he would take us to buy illegal fireworks out of sketchy warehouses. One Halloween he took us to a haunted house in a neighborhood that looked like a war-zone to me. That still ranks as one of the scariest experiences of my life.
Even though I spent most of my time in the cushy burbs, my memories of urban Detroit stand out. They didn’t make Lego sets that looked anything like those neighborhoods, but maybe I could approximate something by using the base from the moon station and the gray rectangles from the Castle sets.
It was the constrast that really struck me. The utter lack of green things. The intimidating alleyways. The industrial dirt and grit was entirely different from the organic dirt and grit I was comfortable with.
I would sometimes see black kids my age on those outings. On the few occasions where we made eye-contact, I have to admit I was very uncomfortable. On one hand I felt guilt; I didn’t want to live where they lived. On the other hand I was scared of them. White kids were mean enough. Those kids seemed even meaner. I have no idea if that was true. I’m just telling you my fear.
At one point my Dad was talking about taking me to the Emergency Room on Saturday night so I could learn something about the gang violence going on in Detroit. But Mom did not like that idea one bit. They let me watch the movie Robocop instead and I couldn’t sleep in my own bed for a week.
I guess Mom and Dad wanted us to grow up privileged, but not too sheltered. They thought it was important for us to know that not everyone enjoyed the same support system as my brother and I.
