The View from the Hood

This is an old letter that was a long time coming. I have been out of school for a few months now and I find myself wanting to go back. Despite the fact you have to do mind-numbing papers the long lines at the bookstore and having to do business with anyone from Financial Aid; I miss the stimulation and energy that comes from that setting. It is a nervous energy with everybody striving not to be where they are but to be somewhere, anywhere else. And it is strange because when you are there you would give anything not to be. And truthfully it is miles different from the place I am now. when I started school I hardly looked at the enviroment I grew up in and to tell the truth I have never really been one of the Boyz in da hood. SO it has been a rude awakening looking at the neighborhood and at some of the people in it and myself. I don'tt want to paint a negative picture and I know that there are many succes stories in the hood, but there is something that festers here something that has created a void where the highest achievment is high school and a middle level service job. There has got to be something going on when you have a whole generation that has grown up to inhabit the small squares of cement that is either at the end of a street and in front of there houses. There has to be some reason there whole slews of people who are alcoholic and drug addicted. It is like anyone form the hood can get caught up in the corner and as I see it it is only thru the grace of god that I'm not one.