The rap music drama 'Straight Outta Compton' debuted last weekend to $60.2 million, making it the sixth most profitable August opening weekend ever. The film focuses on the group N.W.A. which popularized gangsta rap in the '80's. Compton (CA) was known as the 8th most dangerous city in the U.S. Well, Compton has nothing on my old neighborhood where I grew up. You see, I am..............
Straight Outta Rainier Beach! Not only that, but my old house was just two blocks over from what is considered the deadliest intersection in all of Rainier Beach. All around my old neighborhood the bullets fly, making it unsafe to even drive through in broad daylight. But when I was growing up, Rainier Beach was a nice place, all along the shore of Lake Washington, middle class people, family-oriented, neighborhood schools, and then came school bussing projects, first voluntary, then involuntary. My parents bought our house abandoned for $5,000 in 1950 and lived in it, fixing it up inside and outside, over time. In 1968 the Seattle School District basically condemned all the property in my neighborhood (including the beautiful German Lutheran Church next door to our house), purchased up everything, evicted the families, all in order to build a middle school. That's a subject that remains painful to me 47 years down the road. My high school (Rainier Beach) is still there (first picture). Not that long ago it was recognized as the 'worst high school in the state of Washington,' but they are working to turn things around. My house was torn down in 1968. It took less than an hour to reduce it to rubble. My church, Dunlap Baptist remains, but just the building. The congregation is long gone. It is now Medhane-Alem Evangelican Ethiopian Church. (See the old picture of inside the sanctuary? That's where Jimi Hendrix' memorial service was held.) The pictures below are of is of what was then my mom's new pine tree, and then looking up my street, Donovan Street, looking up from in front of my house to my elementary school, Dunlap Grade School. Dunlap School is still there, but Donovan Street is no more. The middle school was built about in the middle of all of this, and it is surrounded by a playground for the school complex. All the houses from my neighborhood are long gone, but still standing, almost like a beacon of light for me, is a very tall pine tree. Yes, my mom's pine tree. Thank you, Seattle School District, for saving this 'token' from my childhood. I'm glad I have these old photos to sharpen my memories. Yes, I'm 'Straight Outta Rainier Beach,' but it's too dangerous to drive straight back into Rainier Beach. Crime is dramatically down in Compton, CA but dramatically up in Rainier Beach. There will be no hit movies about my 'hood.' Maybe I should be saying thank you to the Seattle School District for making my family move out of Rainier Beach. We couldn't have foreseen what was going to happen to our previously wonderful place to grow up. Being forced to move out was, I guess, a BLESSING IN DISGUISE. We just didn't see that coming. That's why I love this quote from Christian writer Philip Yancey: "I have learned that faith means trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse."
