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Posted by: Lee Shake (leeshake@novagate.com) on 5/21/1998@01:49hrs:
In Reply to: 2 Articles from the Advance posted by: Miriam on 5/20/1998@12:49hrs:
Hi Miriam,
Nothing negative to say. Youse did good, Gal. S.I. was the kind of place where our Mom's could turn us loose on our bikes and not worry about us getting lost (how far can you go before you hit water)?
We went camping in vacant wooded areas and never got hassled, we caught and ate crabs, harvested wild blue berries, went anywhere and explored to our hearts content. I'm sure there isn't as much "free space" anymore, but I'd bet that most of the things we did as kids are still available to kids today, and Moms don't have the worries on S.I. that Moms in other places have. S.I. could become a "City" in time, if StatenIslanders wanted to bad enough, but just because it has a "City" form of Gov't doesn't make it a City like those others that were named. There are still creeks and woods and fields to explore unlike Brooklyn or Manhattan. I live 45 miles West of Grand Rapids, MI. My present town (City) has about the same population as Great Kills, about 12,000 to 13,000 souls. We seldom lock our doors or our cars. We had a police officer shot and killed here two years ago... first time in over a hundred years. The women-folk take their walks after dark on our streets without fear. I haven't seen a man dressed in a dirty white robe carrying a sign that says, "The end of the world is at hand," since the last time I rode the I.R.T. Life is so dull here that you can hear the peepers and the whip-poor-wills after sundown and know that "Life is Good." I could move back to S.I. but never back to the other boroughs and as for Grand Rapids? Forget it.
Cheers, ~Lee