When I was growing up, I was not raised in a home with a white picket fence and two cars in the garage.
I did not live in a rich neighborhood. I couldn't afford some social clubs or sports travel teams. And among my peers, I was considered a poor white kid with a single mother.
My mother worked three jobs to pay the bills. We lived in a small apartment in a mixed neighborhood. I became what was known as a "latch key kid." After school or in the summer, I looked after myself as my Momma worked full day shifts as a nurse to make ends meet. I am proud of my Momma. Despite our challenges, she loved me and made me a happy kid. She made me the adult I am today, and I will forever be grateful for the sacrifices she made for me.
But during my childhood, I was an only child who could clean after myself, prepare my own supper, complete my homework on my own and do my own laundry. I had to because my Momma was giving blood, sweat and tears for me at her job in order for me to live happily.
Having said that, I had plenty of opportunities to get in trouble if I wanted to.
There were a few kids in my neighborhood who rode their bikes through the area, completely up to no good, as the adults would say. They vandalized buildings. They threw rocks in the windows of cars. Eventually, they resorted to theft and burglary.
I could have easily become one of those kids. It was tempting to throw the rules out the window. And why not? I was free to roam my neighborhood. Momma was at work most of the time, and she wouldn't find out unless I got caught.
But I didn't.
In the summer, I would grab my cracked bat and a worn-out glove that had lining so thin you could almost see my fingers under the fake leather, and I would walk to my neighborhood park.
My friends and I spent our summer days there playing sandlot ball behind the nicer fields that the little league kids would use to practice and play. My friends and I couldn't afford the little league registration fees, so we would use the fields behind the "fancy fields" to play ball. With hand-me-down equipment, we played until our heads were wet with sweat. The concession stand man would give us free Cokes and popcorn at the end of the day. And my friends and I would walk under the streetlights home, talking about baseball and how we felt about school starting that following fall.
I went to bed tired, happy that I had dirt under my fingernails and a group of friends that I thought I would know forever. We were boys and girls. We were white, black and mixed, and we even had a Cuban kid who moved in the neighborhood with his grandmother. We had some kids who never went to church, some Baptists and even a Jewish girl.
And I would have never met them had it not been for a park. Parks eliminated the segregation of genders, races and economic status.
And I would have probably never made such great friends if we did not meet in that park. We were mostly from single-parent homes with nothing but lint in our pockets. But as we watched the little league kids play, we knew we wanted to play too. And with worn equipment that we had to share, we played our hearts out...maybe even better than the little leaguers.
There are kids like that now in Yazoo City. There are some kids whose parents can afford to take them to Madison or join a travel league. They have shiny new equipment, coolers full of snacks and drinks. Parents to cheer them on.
And there are kids like how we were. Kids whose parents are busy working or not even around. They have no way to travel to other towns to play ball.
But they can grab a few friends and play in an open field in a Yazoo City park. They might save up enough money to join the little league, but they have to walk to a Yazoo City park every day to get there. They may return to an empty home that night. But for a few hours, those park lights are their stage and they are heroes, even if it is just for a moment.
But those kids can't do that in Yazoo City because the parks are closed. And politics are, in my opinion, the reason behind that. Blame it on miscommunication. Blame it on COVID. But COVID doesn't seem to be a problem when certain politicians are getting what they want. And it baffles me that with many parents contacting community leaders about the future of the parks, they are sent down a rabbit hole with no clear direction of who to contact. A simple phone call, knowing there are citizens with questions, could eliminate the communication problem.
Riding past both Wardell Leach and Campanella Park, there is nothing but emptiness. But if you listen hard enough, you might hear the crack of a bat and a child yelling in victory.
Nevermind...that was the crack of a car windshield and a child screaming for his friends to grab the gun inside. That child could have been at a park, playing, heading home under the street light with laughter about a day with his friends.
That kid could have been at a park playing a game. But he has to wait on adults to quit playing theirs first.
