It is disgraceful how the rich idiots are moving out to that God-forsaken Grand Prairie area, which I find to be dismal, super commercial, and boring as hell.

For our city to have wretched slums and gunshot alleys, while the rich play their mind games in palatial mansions is repugnant and foolish.

The poor will eat the rich, one way or another.

I’m aware of the firing range, but I was on the 16th tee box, which is along MLK and as far from the firing range as you can get- the shots definitely came from below the hill in the Manual area. If I had any doubt, the squad car sirens quashed it. Just another signal to my northside-ass to stay on top of the bluff. Right or wrong, that’s the way people feel, and believe me, I really don’t want to feel that way.

Heck, I know someone who won’t cross over the interstate into the West Bluff because it’s so unsafe, and she lives on MacQueen and does nothing but talk about the struggles with the crack houses around her!

There are some bad streets in the southend and there are some quite neighborhoods also. The only gunfire I have heard was from the firing range which sits just below Madison Park Golf Course. I have had vistors here say; “Oh my gosh! Is that gun fire?” Why yes it is but it’s just the police firing range a few blocks away.

I will tell you this. In all the years I have lived here the biggest problem was a crack house, which was dealt with and garbage or litter on some un kept properties. That is always a fight. Still, you couldn’t pay me to walk on Nowland, McQueen, Thrush, or McClure at night and even at some times during daylight. Last I checked, those streets are well on the bluff in the heart of the city. So to each their own.

I used to live across the street from Glen Oak Park on Prospect and then moved onto Virginia. Granted it wasn’t the south end, but many of my friends would ask “Why don’t you move?” I really liked living there and never had any problems. There was just something cool about that neighborhood. It felt more like being in the “City of Peoria”.

Everytime it gets warm, I think of the days of picking up a 12 pack on the way home from work, sitting on the front porch with friends and watching the traffic go by on Prospect.

But I digress.

The “great divide” is alive and well in this city, and I don’t really see anything changing in the future.

I was never specially told that those looking down at us from up on the bluffs were any better than us, we just knew they were.

Sort of like your generic christian knows he/she is better than your generic muslim/buddhist/jew/atheist/anything else, without ever haven been told so, well not outright anyway.

Those of us from below the bluffs didn’t move out of town, as expected, when the bulldozers came. We just moved into your house, while you fled further north.

As I grew older and more older, I still see the great devide, it’s just more spread out.