I grew up in a pretty tough neighborhood.
Americans overall may live better than medieval aristocrats could dream of, but that means nothing when oligarchs live in the neighborhood next door, flaunting their luxurious homes and top-quality private schools.
Dad has worked as a banker at the same firm in Boston, living in the same suburban neighborhood for over 50 years. Later in life, when I got out of graduate school and imagined myself living the life of a writer like Hemingway or Kerouac, his practical self inevitably encouraged me to get a steady a job and raise a family, just like he did.
The building in the Bronx where I grew up was filled with mostly Holocaust survivors. My two best friends' parents both survived the camps. Everyone in my grandparents' building had tattoos. I'd go shopping with my grandparents, and the butcher, the baker, everybody in the whole neighborhood had tattoos.
Soho is a gritty former mercantile area that has, of course, evolved into the most bourgeois neighborhood in New York.
I think I was probably that kid in the neighborhood who you could expect once or twice a year to be knocking on your door trying to sell you something stupid.
Well, when I was a little girl we had 17 cats once. They all lived outside, and they kept having more kittens. My mom made us put little ribbons around each kitten's neck, put them in a wagon, and go door-to-door around the neighborhood to try to give them away.
I grew up in a neighborhood that was surrounded by farms. There was a horse farm behind me and dairy farms on either side.
I felt like I couldn't meet a single rich person. Regardless of where I live, they don't want to talk to me. I threw a barbecue and invited the whole neighborhood, and nobody showed up.
Everyone is treating it like a Hollywood story. In Madison, it's a neighborhood story.
