growing up in the 'hood

random dinner conversations with friends on saturday night sparked the idea for this post. here are some things we've learned while growing up in a not-so-pleasant section of philadelphia:

::   the cockroaches prefer walking on sidewalks as much as you do after dark.

::   even in a "good school" people still got their asses kicked at the end of the school day. chains, pipes and bricks made for good entertainment.

::   most girls learn to fight. the ones who don't, raise tittie-twisters to a whole new level.

::   most girls who learn to fight will fight a guy at least once who is not a sibling. although they may learn to fight by sparring with older brothers.

::   low-grade-but-edible cheese fries, soft pretzels with cheese and/or chocolate-iced donuts counted as a meal.

::   'haute cuisine' at our school was the not-quite-Elio's pizza on no-meat fridays.

::   the priests were checking out the boys. (my high school ranked as one of the top places for touchy-feely priests to be "relocated" to. if you count the priests in my parish -- wahoo! -- we were the number one stop on the pedophile underground railroad that the archdiocese put in place.)

::   most friends who didn't live in the area were not allowed to come into our neighborhood at night. although those same well-intentioned parents thought nothing of letting three girls find their own way back to that bad neighborhood.

::   septa -- and all of its inadequencies -- becomes a way of life.

::   everyone drinks in high school. some neighborhoods just special in 40s, not keggers.

::   only the best parties get raided by the PCLB (pennsylvania liquor control board). only the luckiest sons of bitches don't get caught (moi!)

::   in any group of friends, round-table dating was bound to occur. by graduation, you should have hooked up with each of the guys in your group at least once. and sometimes some of the girls, too.

::   everyone knew the friendly neighborhood pimp.

::   everyone knew the crazy, red-headed kid; his poor, suffering mother and his delinquent (probably-because-everyone-knew-of-the-family's-shit) brother.

::   most kids would steal the $1 or $2 from the church envelope to buy candy. only the dumb ones would leave the torn envelope in a jacket to get caught.

::   we got out of having to sit through the weekly class mass when drug dealers broke into the church to steal the gold chalice in second grade. we thought it was sooo cool that there was blood left behind on the altar by the thieves.

::   we would get woken from our sleep by the sounds of cars driving into the pharmacy's front doors and setting off the alarms that alerted everyone but the cops as to what was happening.

::   even in first grade there were girls who left their panties behind at recess in the ladies room.

::   it was not uncommon to hear of eight-grade girls taking pregnancy tests... of freshman, sophomore and junior year girls getting pregnant... or of having about-to-pop girls walk down the aisle at graduation.

::   now, at reunion's talk is less of who got married and is starting a family but more about who is a grandparent (which scarily enough, is entirely possible).

::   even within the neighborhood, there were still levels of class distinctions. (as kids, we never really knew how poor we ALL were.) "oh, you live on that side of the park, well..."

::   you never ever went into the park alone. if you had to walk 15 miles in the snow, uphill, barefoot, blindfolded and gagged, would still be easier for you that if you dared to cut through the park without all of satan's army in tow.

::   in a neighborhood of rowhomes stacked this|close to one another, everyone's parents knew each other. the unfortunate part was it killed a lot of good parties.

::   parents really do remember which way the car was facing and where they parked it last.

::   the smart ones got out at the first chance they could; the stupid ones are dead or in jail. the unfortunate ones are still there, stuck in the misery they created for themselves or just weren't strong enough, smart enough, or committed enough to release themselves from its grip.

::   the really lucky ones get to tell the tale.