When I Was a Kid

When I was a kid we left the dirty streets of Brooklyn, New York for the quieter suburban streets of Connecticut. We moved into a large house in Norwalk, Connecticut. Norwalk is the sort of town that dreams of being a big city but will always be just another small port on the Connecticut coastline. Like out of some horror story, the south side of town offers plenty of frightening images: ghettos, drug dealers, prostitutes, graffiti, and even young urban professionals. The south end was a popular place to work, but when the day ended, these young men and woman got into their BMWs, Porsches, and other toys and drove to safe ground. Most found their way to surrounding towns: Westport, Wilton, New Canaan, and others. Other people, like my parents, crossed town through East Norwalk to our home in the northern end of town. Sometimes I would hear my father boast to far off relatives that we lived in a nice residential neighborhood (otherwise known as 'the good area').…