Woke up this morning feelin’ fine.
There’s somethin’ special on my mind.
Last night I met a new girl in the neighbourhood, whoa yeah.
Something tells me I’m into something good.
She’s the kind of girl who’s not too shy.
And I can tell I’m her kind of guy.

It was 1964 in Cleveland, Ohio. I was just 10 years old. And the group ‘Herman’s Hermit’s’ had just released the song, I’m Into Something Good.

We were living in a new housing projects in the middle of a mixed ghetto: whites, blacks and Puerto Ricans. It was full of all the things you’d hear about on the news: drugs, knives, guns, suicides, homeless bums, the smell of poverty, and fighting, everybody fighting. Wives with husbands, neighbours with neighbours, drunks with other drunks, children with children – a by-product of the stress and despondency that thrives in poverty stricken neighbourhoods.  (more…)