Nuts and Bolts

Here is a story that is not surprising.  It rates a Kansas City neighborhood as one of the dangerous places to live in the country.  I grew up within a couple of miles of it.  The area I grew up in was Northeast KC or back in the day known as “little Italy”, but once the Italians moved out, it became a war zone.  Growing up, I witnessed stabbings, drug deals, gangs, prostitution, and believe it or not, a couple of gun fights.  My neighbor kept a coffin in his house that he used as a cedar chest for his clothes, and he also had an army mortar he fired every Independence Day that literally shook our windows.  The house I grew up in burned down after we moved due to some suspicious activity.  It is a wonder I survived let alone am sane.  When my friends would come over they would fear for their lives.  The first time I brought my then girlfriend, now wife over to meet my parents for dinner, gunshots were going off.  You can read more about its reality here.