7. Fork in the Road
“I’m from the Hill District. That’s where my roots are…Penn Hills is just some place that I, I live at now. But my roots are always gonna be in the Hill District. My childhood, I lived in a family with a father and mother. Up until I was 10 years old, then my father and mother split up. My dad died in 1961, and things got kinda rough when they first split up bc we found ourselves moving from Arcena Street up to the Upper Hill District, back down to the Lower Hill District. Back and forth til I graduated from high school. She was a strong old woman, my mother had five kids. She went back and got her nursing degree. She was a registered nurse so she had a good strong work (ethic). She did a very good job under difficult circumstances.
It will always be home for me because when I was coming up, the word community--that’s what it was. We had a lot of um, places like the YMCA, the K Boys Club, Hill City, which is now a part of the Hill House, Ammons, there was always some place to go. And being involved in sports gave you the opportunity to meet different people. It was just like a big family. Even your neighbors. Back then, it seemed like your neighbors had the authority to beat your butt if they saw you doing something bad. I see people now I grew up with, and we reminisce quite a bit about when we were children, and how it was.
Back then there was plenty to do. I mean I can remember, going back to when I was a preteen. Back then little league baseball was big. And we used to march, Memorial Day weekend we used to march down Centre Avenue with our spanking new uniforms. And then umm, we had a customary street dance at A. Leo Weil. We used to have that, and that was a real big event for the neighborhood. If you had any talent or thought you had any talent that was the place to be… I spent a lot of time selling newspapers, Ebony’s and Jet’s back then. My mother always told me, I’m working with a fixed income for the most part, and I’m not able to buy all those things you wanna buy through peer pressure. Because you see back then you couldn’t even come down on Centre Ave unless you was clean… you had to be sharp when you come down here.
I was down at the Savoy Ballroom in 1968. And uh, [The Spinners] sang two songs. And all of a sudden I saw them whispering on stage, and they said we’re gonna have to cancel the performance because there’s a disruption outside. I looked outside and Centre Avenue was on fire. I mean when you see a neighborhood as vibrant as ours, where you didn’t even have to leave to go downtown, to buy anything, food, clothing--I mean if you couldn’t get it on Centre Avenue you could get it on Fifth Avenue. So uh, that was really a big shock. But just to see the aftermath on the next day, it was still smoldering. You could see the smoke. And our leaders were out there you know, John Adams, Jake Milliones, and guys like that were out there tryna keep the peace. They were putting signs in windows saying, this is owned by a brother you know. But it was too late then.
I’ll never forget it was August, 1969. Told my mother I was spending the night over a friend’s house when in actuality I was out being mischievous--I think that’s the best way to put it. Through the process of that, we were all rounded up in this abandoned house, to my namesake Lawson, on Lawson St, and taken down to the public safety building. And I didn’t realize it at the time but that was probably the best thing that coulda happened to me. I wound up being part of their, what they call clemency program. If you had never been in any trouble or if you were trouble and it was miscellaneous, they were looking for bodies to send to Vietnam. And through that process I went into the army, wound up in Vietnam as a result. When I got out I got a job as a file clerk at the dept of Veterans Affairs. Eventually I went to school on the GI bill, went to community college for a couple years, got my associates degree… which helped me eventually wind up working 36 years for the government. So like I said, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.
I mean I grew up in this environment, and ‘til I graduated from high school and then I went into the military I always wanted to come back, but it just wasn’t the right time, you know. It was just too much negativity going on over here for me to feel comfortable coming back. I know it’s multicultural now, I see white folks walkin’ up and down Bedford Avenue. Back in the day we’d a been robbed them. Centre Avenue, it coulda been in daylight, we’d still had got them. [Now] for the most part I’d like it to be a vibrant, community where everyone can be proud to say I live in the Hill District.”