In the summer of 1967 I was eleven years old and living with my parents and siblings in Kearny, NJ., Newark was just about two miles to the west across the Passaic River. You could say I lived on Beaver Cleaver’s street. A peaceful, quiet ,tree-shaded street(Chestnut St.), until they had some sickness and were removed. We lived in a rambling 4 bedroom, two and a half bathroom beautiful Victorian home. White picket fence, milkman came around every morning with those cool bottles of milk, yup, it was as lily-white suburban as they came. And then on a hot July night the city of Newark exploded. I remember the grave concern of my Dad and the almost terrified look on my mothers face. Two young men, sons of our neighbors were in the National Guard and I remember seeing the two of them dash out of their parents home, in khakis , each carrying a web-belt that had a canteen on it and duffel bags. They had been called up. I was only 11 at the time and not really understanding what was going on. But the look of terror on my mothers face and those two young Guardsmen made me realize that this was something very serious. My Dad and Mom packed up some clothes for all of us(five boys, two girls), piled us into our ‘61 Valiant Station Wagon(with the ‘’Select-O-matic, push button transmission) and headed south to my aunts home in Belmar NJ, (on the Jersey Shore) and we stayed there for a week until it was okay to come back. The whole experience disturbed me. I didn’t understand what was happening and seeing my mother in the state she was in scared me. Funny how almost immediately after Johson signed the ‘’War on Poverty’’, Watts,in Los Angeles, Newark, Birmingham and other cities went up in flames. Boy, talk about stupid liberals and the law of unintended consequences. After over forty years now the city of Newark has never been the same. It has never fully recovered.
When high school was over most of the males went into the military, I choose the Army. A whole new world started to open up when I hit basic training with race starting to play more of a factor with peoples attitudes and I found it disturbing. I ended up with the 101st and was sent to Viet Nam in 1970, spent 11 moths on a muddy hill called FSB Bastogne right in the middle of the A Shau. It was back to what I had left in West TX, we were friends and we were brothers and we knew why we were there. 11 months later I was wounded and shipped out and officially discharged in 72. When I got back home I went to work for the Sheriff's department and it became quite clear this was not my little town I remembered. Crime rates were up racial separation was becoming more clearly defined and racial conflict were starting to show. The fathers of black family's were no longer present, low income housing was being built and slowly the blacks moved to a certain area of town and that area became more and more crime ridden.
The base has long been shut down and we now have 4 prisons to take it's place. Family's are moving in to be closer to their husbands, boy friends in prison and they bring their problems with them. We now have black gangs, hispanic gangs, aryan gangs and the drugs and crime that goes with it, it's a truly sad state. I miss my little West Texas town!