We grew up in a typical "Beaver Cleaver" type neighborhood in SW Atlanta in the 60's and 70's. The community was built mostly in the 1920's or so and each house was unique; no cookie cutter plans. The neighborhood had a cross-section of ages, with young families living alongside retirees and widows and such. Anything from tradesmen to professors lived there.
Pop picked our house up for a song in 1965 and renovated it himself, all the while dealing with a new job downtown and 4 young kids to fend for with mama.
View attachment 991248
With both sides of our family being from rural TN (pretty close to where I am now BTW),
our family venturing out to live in the "big city" was quite the thing then!
It was a wonderful place to be as a kid - school was always a walking affair; the neighbors all knew one another and looked out for one another (and God help you if one of them dropped a dime on you to your parents if you got caught doing something the next block over!).
Little League, after-school activities, all of that was a very local affair, as the ballfields were nearby in the city park and the schools were only a few blocks away.
I can't ever remember being afraid then - there was nothing to be afraid of!
View attachment 991251
(Both my late little brother Joey and I, along with Pop are in this pic - and no, I'm not
telling which one I am in the pic.
)
Saw my first muscle Mopar in those days, too - a quiet young fella with a lot of hair lived around the corner and bought a copper '69 Super Bee. I remember that car vividly - there was no stripe or anything, only had the white emblems on the rear quarters and dog dishes, but I loved it when I got lucky enough to catch him with it running.
I could hop on my bike and collect a few bottles along the way to the corner market, where they'd be turned in for deposit and I could get a little balsa wood glider plane or the latest comic book, maybe a new official Duncan string for my yo-yo or baseball cards - and of course, a fresh cold Coke or Mr. Pibb, since the HQ for Coca Cola was right there in town, too.
With us three boys (me the oldest), we of course got into Little League and Pop wound up being president of the local LL chapter and wound up getting the city to fix up the old ballfields.
Then by the mid 70's, the phenomena known as "white flight" was in high gear, born out of racial tensions (we never saw such a thing and I had as many black friends as whites as a kid)....
and they then started busing kids from the crime-ridden parts of town into our quiet little
neighborhoods out of whatever social experiment and it all went to hell in a basket.
Pop's job got transferred with the HQ of the USPS and we got out of Dodge, too, to the DC suburbs.
Thus my education into subdivisions, cliques, having to drive to go anywhere...and to how
judgmental and mean people could be as I attended HS there.
My sister and brother still live in the northern, more affluent suburbs of Atlanta. I don't
visit much, since that sort of thing turned out to NOT be my "bag" after I lived
that life for 20 years outside DC - and when my sister talked me into visiting our
childhood neighborhood in Atlanta some 15 years ago, I was genuinely shocked at how
bad it had gotten. Pretty much a crack neighborhood now.
It was truly traumatizing and I wound up telling her to "get me the hell out of here NOW!"
In my case, you really CAN'T go home, I suppose...
I really wish ALL kids could have grown up where and when I did; it was a blessing.
You were safe, you could be just a kid and explore and learn and just have a blast without all the external pressures kids go through today.
Those days are gone - and I think society suffers as a result.
