THE GHETTO
When I was growing up, our house was on a corner lot, and it had the biggest backyard of ANYBODY. It was HUGE. There was a shed all the way in the back, and thick, tall bushes lined the back of the house. My best friend had recently moved away, and I was only sad for a little while because the new kid who moved into the house (2 doors down) quickly became my best friend. His name was Tim. I VOWED never to play with Tim or his brother Chris, and they were kind of like outcasts for a while. Then, one day Tim came over and said "do you wanna play.." catch? whatever, I said "yes" and we became quick friends. Tim was a year older than I (I was 9 years old), and I always found him very wise, and very intellectual. However, like the rest of his family, Tim was kind of a "bad kid". He smoked. Cigarettes. Pot. So you can probably guess it wasn't too long before I was smoking as well. Anyway, we used to go back in the bushes and sit and smoke, it was like a little fort. When I asked what we should call it, he replied "Let's call it the GHETTO.. that's a place where people go and hang out and do drugs, etc..". Sounded good to me! And so it became the Ghetto. We soon discovered another space between the house, a big red fence, and the bushes that was also very nice. And of course, we called that "THE GHETTO II". Then we decided to make a third fort behind the shed in my backyard, and, you guessed it, we called that "THE GHETTO III".
I remember one time I had a guilty conscience about something - I had stole something of Tim's or some shit, anyway I remember he called me into "The Ghetto 1" and real seriously said "Reggie, I need to talk to you." So I was like ah, man I'm BUSTED! Anyway, so I'm like "yeah, Tim, what?" and He was like "when you open the cigarettes, you always tear the foil clear off. I don't want you to do that, it dries the cigarettes out.." LOL..
Lots of memories were made in the Ghetto..
