Kim N
Language Art 1
June 28, 1995
To many people, Rainier Avenue is one of the most dangerous streets to live on. It is a place full of violence and unsafeness, yet to me, Rainier is everything. Though I have not lived long in the area, Rainier gave me some of the greatest times and memories of my life. I'll be moving soon, and that makes me more than a little sad.
When people think of Rainier, gangs, violence, and bad images appear in their minds. It's true that there are gangs roaming the streets, drive-by shootings, fights, and many other bad things. These things are still happening occasionally on the street of Rainier, but the number of incidents have greatly decreased in the last years. As a resident of the area, I feel fairly safe in my neighborhood. I cannot say that I feel completely safe, because there is no place that is completely safe, but during the day, I have no fear of walking down Rainier. I would not want to walk in the street at night though, because of the people that hang out there. Then again, you should not be walking on any street at night.
Rainier has always been a place where my friends and I hang out. When we were in middle school we used to skip school and take the bus home, but instead of going home we roamed Rainier. There is this small grocery store at the south end of Rainier where we used to hang out. Some of the girls and guys would play video games, and others would just chill. Across the street is South Shore Middle School. There is a basketball court and a big field in the back. We would go over there and play basketball, or watch the guys play. When we got tired we would stop by my best friend's house across the street and just kick back. On hot days we would sometimes walk down to the lake, which is a couple of blocks east of Rainier, to swim. My best friend used to show me how to swim, because I didn't know how; I still don't know how.
Once in awhile my friends and I would meet other groups of people and we would get into a fight. I was not in a gang, but I was "down with the set" that my friends were in. I often got in trouble for skipping school, but my uncle did not know that I hung out with gang members. To him, gang members are bad kids who have no discipline and start trouble. He would kill me if he knew that I hung out with them.
Although I have only lived on Rainier for two years, I've always "hung" out there. It makes me feel sad to be moving, though I'm not moving that far away. The street of Rainier is always filled with noises, loud music from cars rolling by with their stereo systems on full blast, cars honking, and voices of people in the street. Every block of Rainier tells a story about my friends and I when we were young. Now that we have all grown up and most of my friends have split, Rainier still holds a special part of my heart that I'll never forget.