I live on the lower west side of town. When I was growing up on the upper west side, the neighborhoods were different. We had a solid middle class on the west side, with the lower middle class and poor making up the lower end, and the higher middle class and solidly middle class bringing up the higher end. To an extent, the higher up the hill you lived, the better off you were, at least until you reached the goat path section.
We moved from California back to my hometown in 1999. In 2000, we found a magnificent massive and elegant home with four bedrooms and six inch crown molding, hardwood floors in two of the bedrooms, a full basement, expansive rooms and lots of windows in a tranquil, established neighborhood on the lower West Side. The rent was less than we were paying for a two-bedroom apartment in the lower South Hills area, so we were pleased.
The first month we lived on the upper lower west side, two of our bicycles were stolen from the front yard, and someone tried to break into a front window. We noticed groups of people standing on the nearby corner, and cars stopping often where the people stood. Most of the older homes near us were occupied by elderly widows. During our first winter here, nearly all the elderly widows died or moved away.
The homes started housing transient rental occupants. My children would start a relationship with a new neighbor's children, and on their next visit the home was empty and the family had moved away - sometimes in the middle of the night. Abandoned household possessions began piling up on the curbs.
One family who stayed for a year was Gina and her son Donte. Our oldest son and Donte were the same age and quickly became fast friends. Gina's utilities were frequently disconnected. Her husband had left her and their son and refused to support them. Gina is ill-educated, and a former crack addict. Gina contends she has been off crack for seven years and will never go back. She knows it is certain death.
Gina sells pot. Gina hooks. She has learned she cannot take care of her son and herself on minimum wage. There was a stream of men coming and going from her apartment at any given time of day or night. At least once a month there would be three or even more police cars parked wildly in front of her door. Eventually, the state took Donte from her and placed him with Gina's mother.
Gina talks about moving to North Carolina to make a new start for her and her son. She speaks about the drugs and the alcohol (but never the prostitution) that make the west side such a problem. She speaks about the lack of opportunity here, the minimum wage, part-time employment that is rampant. She speaks about having no hope here in this town. She wants more for her son.
When Gina was ill last winter and had no heat, we helped with her gas bill and took her hot meals. Before that, she staggered out once a day and used her money to buy something at Kroger's to eat. Her food stamps had been stopped since her son was no longer living with her. She went all winter with no electricity.
If I've learned anything from my neighborhood, I've learned that people are basically the same. People want more for their children, they despair of the economic climate. They know West Virginia cannot grow based on service industry jobs. The people in my neighborhood know rich white kids will continue to come down here to buy crack and pot and then climb back up their hills.
Folks in other neighborhoods cluck their tongues and breathe a sigh of NIMBY relief. The three west side murders this past week seem far removed from their world. But I've lived in both worlds, and I am here to tell you that they are not so far apart. Drug dealers aren't selling all their wares to one another. Maybe to some of you, as well. I understand crack is an amazingly devastating, cripplingly addictive drug.
As long as you keep up with the Joneses with overextended credit, as long as there is no real job market in West Virginia, if you don't have an overt drug habit you are probably supporting another just as insidious -- your credit.
I was taught when I was growing up that we had a diamond economy: at the top was a small group of wealthy, and at the bottom was a small group of poor, with the vast majority in the middle being middle class. Today the news media implies that the economy is a bow-tie shape, many with money and many without with few in the former middle class.
What we truly have is a pyramid scheme. The majority of Americans believe they are living the American dream, but its been funded on credit cards and mortgages, and it isn't real. The truly wealthy want you to believe you are well off, because it keeps you identifying with them and voting for their causes, and it helps you feel better about your situation. You have been lulled into believing you are "living the life."
In reality, you may be working to support your habit - your credit. You may be addicted to your possessions and beholden to the few truly wealthy. You may be sacrificing family relationships to keep up with your habit, just like crack addicts, except that a credit Jones is socially acceptable. Welcome to the lower west side!
Ginger Hamilton Caudill is a writer, photographer, painter, sculptor and polymer clay artist currently residing in Charleston, West Virginia.
Recovering from a five-year battle with 'terminal' breast cancer, Caudill is reaffirming her creativity and will to survive by reviving her writing and sharing it with the public.