Christine,
Yup, that was the key. The people of the street knew who they would probably meet up with, one way or another, because most did find themselves in the ER as patients at some point in their careers. They knew better than to mess with the people who would be tending their wounds. BTW, from time to time, there was a strong female contingent among the gangs. And yes, many of Fun City's gang members were third to fifth generation. In reading this, it should be noted that in the gangs a 15-year-old is considered a senior citizen. Some gang members even bragged that their ancestors were featured in police training films because they were baddest of the bad.
For the sake of accuracy, Holt is more famous for another business venture than it is for drug deals or being gang turf. The drug of overwhelming choice in Fun City was PCP (phencyclidine, angel dust, dummy dust, etc.) PCP being the official Fun City drug notwithstanding, Fun City was a walking pharmacy and all drugs were represented by a cross-section of users. In fact, I can't think of any drug that didn't have a respectable number of faithful followers.
Believe it or not, when I attended there, Baldwin Park HS was tame and civilized. It also enjoyed a well-deserved excellent scholastic reputation. At the time, we were one of a few HSs in the State that all but assured its graduates admission to the college of choice. Of course one's grades had to be up there. In looking back over my school stuff, I see that a large percentage of our faculty had Master's degrees and some had PhDs. I think it interesting too that after all these year, most of us show up for the reunions.
One of my co-workers in the ER had graduated BPHS only ten years after I had. Sometime in the early 1970s, the school had really sunk to bottom and sounded a lot like what you say about Ganesha HS. My co-worker said she had absolutely no desire to go to any of her class reunions and really just wanted to forget she'd ever been to BPHS. I thought at the time that it must be sad to feel that way and that my memories of the school were mostly happy.
Merit badge? Nah. I had a good time there, and it was the perfect job for someone who tended to stay up half the night anyway.
Funny, but when I interviewed for the job, the personnel director asked me if I thought I would have a problem staying awake all night or if I'd find it difficult to be out of sync with the rest of the normal world. I reassured him that I wouldn't and then launched into a litany of what I could do during the days and evenings that other people couldn't do because they were at work, and how perfect the hours would be for me. He just sorta looked at me and didn't say anything for a while. Then he grinned, and said that after listening to my reasons for wanting to work graveyard, he was thinking he'd be happy working the graveyard shift, too.
Holly |
