1992 Comments

It was 1992, just before the Watts riots, one of the family's on my cases invited me to attend Raymond's party. It was his eighth birthday. Many scenes from this party stand out in my mind, in a way such are in time capsules that expand in time while compressing it at the same time. Well the children, the girl children were playing in the small front yard in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the hood. I was amazed by the rhythm, the pure joy, and athletic agility of the young girls' double ductching with two long jump ropes. It was not one double duch going, but two or more going on at once with three girls jumping between the two ropes in each, most of them had their hair tightly braided in the fashions of the time, or in pig tails, or both. They still have not shed their baby features.

Then, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG all of the children hit the ground, rope stopped. Color plastic hair elastics no longer bouncing on the girls' heads in carefree innocent singing child rapturous wonder that seemed completely oblivious to all of life's darker forces; now they are covered with clenched hands. It is as we were in the middle of an air raid.
...
Read full text