SU Basketball and one violent summer: Katie's Story

Raised in Syracuse, NY, Katie is an avid Orange fan who always roots for her boys. She grew up in the heart of Syracuse and is no stranger to the violence that can plague the city. But, while violence may draw the city apart, it's support for "the boys" that brings them together.

Description: Syracuse is a small town that wants to be a big city. We have a huge mall, a huge university, we are a big city, but you would never know it. You feel like you're in a small town because there's so much support for the boys. Everyone in Syracuse refers to the team as "their boys."

Positive: One of the most positive memories I have of Syracuse is in 2003 when SU won the national championship. You saw the entire city come together. There was orange and blue everywhere: in the streets, in the stores. Everyone was wearing blue and orange. People had painted their cars. They took markers and wrote of their windows "Let's go boys!" I was 11. 

I remember it because it was huge: in my school we were watching the games. If the game was on and we were in class, the teacher turned it on. We were a small town from upstate New York competing against these schools. For us, it put Syracuse on a lot of people's maps. Nobody thought we were going to win that year. We were a little city in upstate New York that nobody knew about until then. 

I think it changed the way our city viewed itself. We saw that our basketball team, that we could compete on this national level, that we weren't just little Syracuse, New York. We were Syracuse New York with Syracuse University. We gained a lot of national attention. All of our games are on ESPN and now we have our own local sports network: all the games are broadcast are there. I think we just inspired a lot of support for the boys.

Negative: Summer 2008 was just crazy. There was constant violence: constant stabbings, constant shootings. No one could do anything to stop it. I was disappointed in the city to a degree. We knew the police officers were doing everything they could, but there had to be something missing. There had to be 25 to 30 deaths that summer. It was really scary. 

There was a stabbing that happened four blocks away from my house. They were longer blocks, so it was little bit farther away, but it was still in walking distance. My parents were very scared. They pulled us in as soon as it started getting a little bit dark out. My little brother and I weren't allowed outside at night unless we were in our fenced in backyard with parental supervision. It was scary because there wasn't anything the police officers really could. They kept trying, kept arresting people, but there were still crimes. Not even the same people were doing it. It was just a huge crime wave that summer. I think we realized that as a city, you're going to have violent crimes, but they definitely cracked down. They put more officers out at night. Trouble areas were guarded more. In 2009, there were only eight deaths. 

I hear about violent crimes in Syracuse and I think about that summer, how scary that summer was. I'm definitely a little bit guarded at night. I have to drive by one of the most common spots for stabbings and shootings when I come from work. So if I come home at night, I take a longer way home to avoid it. I'm just too afraid to go past that place at night by myself.

Bottom Line: I love the city with all my heart, but that's not where I want to live the rest of my life. It's a great city to go home to, but it's just not the place I want to live in.

Bike riding and the loss of a student: Kerry's story

Kerry, originally from Queens, now makes Goshen in Orange County, N.Y. her hometown. She moved there when she was seven. These are her memories of her hometown, Goshen.

Description: Goshen is a small little Puritan society where nothing ever happens. Every knows each other, but doesn't, really. We have a lot of churches and there's no supermarket in my town. There are a lot of little cafes and small businesses that don't matter. If you don't live in the center of Goshen, you pretty much need a car or else you will be bored and resort to drugs. Basically we have a big drug problem in our schools. Whenever I ask people why they do them, they say "What else is there to do here?"

Positive: When I first moved there, the first thing that my parents did to distract me and my older brother David was to take the training wheels of our bikes to get us out of the house. I was seven and he was ten.  We learned to ride our bikes on our own. I didn't need any help, David needed a push and help stopping though. 

That's when I started to love riding my bike. First, it was just riding around my cul de sac in circles. Then, when they changed the railroad tracks that ran by my house into a bike path, it became my escape. 

You could go two ways from my house. If I went right, I could go to the store, get candy or ice cream, and my parents would never know. If I went left I could go as far as Chester which is what I did a lot with my dad. We rode a lot together when I was little. He used to try to teach me endurance by saying if we made it all the way to the pizza place we could get pizza. I would complain the whole way, but I would make it there. I think it was a good lesson for me. And it was really scenic. Sometimes we'd pass farms, sometimes we'd pass the highway or big, giant ponds. Before they put up fencing, you could just go get lost for awhile.

Negative: Basically, there was this kid that wasn't known for more than just being the quiet kid in high school. He went to high school after I had graduated, but I still heard about it. He committed suicide, left a note for his parents and everything. 

I don't know much of the details, but the biggest problem was how the school handled it. The administration wouldn't let students wear shirts that were in remembrance of him because they thought it would be promoting suicide and they sent letters home, I believe. They said that he couldn't even get a moment of silence on the loud speaker, which is what the students were demanding. 

There was another girl that was a senior when I was a junior who went to SUNY Oswego and died of meningitis. When she was at Goshen High School she was soccer player. she was very well known and popular. But being popular is vague, because to some of my friends she was a bitch. I think that's important, otherwise I wouldn't have said that. For her, they canceled Spirit Week. We weren't allowed to decorate the halls and we weren't allowed to participate in our clubs and activities. Every day that week they made an announcement for her. They even made bracelets for her. I have one.

I think it's just sad how one person's life is worth more than another just because of the way their life was taken from them. 

Bottom line: You have to make your own adventures to live there.

Awkward sex talks and stupid bullies: Sam's story

Sam is from a small suburban town in Hunterdon County New Jersey called High Bridge. The 3.5 mile town is filled with woods...and not much else. Sam didn't have the easiest time growing up in High Bridge. Kids were mean to her and teased her about everything from her short stature to the color of her hair. Her one escape was High Bridge's woods, where she spent time fishing in the lakes and streams.

Positive: The woods were my escape. There was always something to do among the various streams and rivers that ran through High Bridge.  My favorite place was Lake Solitude. On one side of it there's a waterfall that kids like to jump into, despite the signs saying they shouldn't. A couple of kids have died jumping into it. I never took the risk.

I also love to go fishing. There was one time, though, when fishing got a little awkward. In order for me to be allowed to have my first boyfriend in eighth grade, my dad took me to Lake Solitude to have "the talk." My family doesn't talk about sex. Ever. In my family, you literally have to sit in a car and lock all the doors to get anyone to talk about sex. My dad started "the talk" and I wanted to jump into the lake. It was so awkward. He kept asking me if I had any questions and I kept saying "I'm okay!" It was just so agonizing for both of us. And really funny. My dad talking about sex... I make sex jokes all the time and he can't flat out talk about it.

Negative: It isn't High Bridge itself that I have negative memories of. It  wasn't the town that bothered me, it was the people at school. Everything else was fine: I love the people at my church and my family. But school? The girls would gang up on my, beat me up. I was too short. Too ugly. Too weird. If it was one thing, it was something else. I didn't do my hair right. Wore my makeup the wrong way.

They told me no guy would date me because I'm too short. It's funny because right now, I'm dating a guy who's six-two and I'm four-ten. They used to tell me how ugly I was, how no guy would ever date me because I was a tomboy. Now I have burping contests with my boyfriend. He likes me for who I am and we've together two years now. 

The school system and the kids in the school system were just awful, but there was one positive: the middle school guidance counselor who was the only one willing to help out.

Bottom line: Beautiful town, ugly kids. (But Sam wants to clarify, the kids in her grade only. There are more good ones now.

Side note: Sam wanted to mention that most of her former bullies are now drug addicts and she is on her way to Army Officer Candidate School, as well as applying to the New Jersey State Trooper Academy.

Deep fryers and locker shoving: Matt's story

My little brother Matt also had the (mis)fortune of shared childhood memories in Mine Hill, N.J. Now 14 and going to high school in a different time, Matt takes a look at Mine Hill where he still resides.

Positive: I got my first job at the Mine Hill Beach when I turned 14 working at the snack bar. On my first day, the deep fryer overflowed. I was mopping up grease from all over the floor and countertops for what felt like forever. Then I went to the freezer to get something and a huge chunk of ice fell out and hit me on the back of my head. It didn't break skin, but it sure left a mark. I also got silly stringed by one of the lifeguards. The beach is relatively small. There's an area sectioned off for shallow water, but then there's also a few docks and a water slide in the deeper parts. I learned how to dive off those docks when I was 12.

Negative: At Canfield Avenue Elementary School I spent two of the most miserable years of my life. I was mercilessly  bullied for being smart and called a teacher's pet. It got to the point where I was being shoved into lockers. People also wrote threatening letters and shoved them into my books. I remember going to the principal and he said the only thing he could do was put them in detention. It didn't deter them and they kept on doing it.

Bottom line: Nothing stays private in this town, it's too small. I'm so happy my high school is in a bigger town where people don't treat you as an outcast just because you're smart.

We all have those places we love to hate and hate to love...

And that's what our hometowns are for. They're the places we can't wait to leave and can't wait to go back home to.

In November 2011, I came across an old middle school journal. In it, I detailed the actions of the peers that made fun of me for knitting in class and lugging around giant poetry books. There were also entires describing my plan for escape: get out of Mine Hill, NJ and never look back.

It's funny, because when the time came for me to actually leave, I had trouble holding onto those bad memories.

This blog is dedicated to sharing those made-me-want-to-leave and made-me-want-to-stay stories.