Where Da Hood, Where Da Hood, Where Da Hood at...

I now have the answer to DMX's question. It is right here, in our neighborhood, in Roanoke, VA. Over the years I have been familar with hood. Growing up in Newport News, aka Bad News, I lived in a nice non-hood area of the city, but I attended 3 formative middle school years in the heart of Downtown Newport News at Booker T. Washington. Lots of hood kids, afternoon dances instead of night dances because the neighborhood is sketchy, etc. In high school there was gangs, but you knew where they were and didn't go around there (like when they stand outside the cafeteria in the morning, don't go there) and things were cool. We had lots of security guards, and I only mention this because I got to college and found out this was not normal everywhere (because to people reading from NN you're probably saying "yeah, and?" because it is the norm)They jacked up a few kids that messed with them, but that is it. Later, when I was 19, I even had a gun pulled on me while walking because people wanted to know if I was in a gang, but that is another story for another time.

Sarah and I moved to Elizabeth City, NC when I went back to school at Roanoke Bible College in 2004, and the Bible College is in a sketchy part of EC. We are in our own bubble, but our neighbors then were pretty hood. They would stay up on their 2nd floor balcony getting drunk, yelling, etc a lot. Once I had class the next morning and it was 2:30am so I manned up, went outside and asked them to please be quiet. They did, though as a went back upstairs into our apartment I heardone girl say, "He just don't like black people." Way to play the race card...I actually just don't like loud people at 2:30 in the morning outside my window. Either way I decided it was good to keep peace so I went over there the next morning handing out rootbeers and saying, "look we got off on the wrong foot, my name is Chris, and if you ever need anything just let us know." Blessed are the peacemakers. My wife worked at the middle school near by and would walk to school. The kids found out she walked to school and made fun of her saying she lived in the hood. When they were annoyed with her they would threaten to follow her home (never happened, but whatever, I could take some middle schoolers). I drove a few blocks away one time and got stopped by a group of about 10-15 guys that were taking up the road. They asked me what I wanted, and I said I just was trying to drive through. They got real annoyed and said "you don't come driving around here unless you want something" then let me pass. Guess they were not real worried about keeping their dealing low profile...

I tell this to show I am familiar with hood. Anyway, after all that we move to Roanoke, VA and move downtown in a rough area thinking, well we've lived in the hood before. Little did we know what we were in for...

Since we moved here a little almost a year and a half ago here is some of what has happened, that has caused me to consider that only now do I really see hood life:

1) We moved our stuff in and stayed with Sarah's parents, the plan was to spend some time with them so we could unpack our stuff and get everything set up. The next day we went to the house and found we had been robbed. I won't go into too many details, but $15,000 of stuff was taken. Bikes, tools, CD's, DVD's, TV's, DVD players, and lots more. I want to add here that God looked out for us here. 1- we weren't there, nobody was in danger 2- nothing personal/irreplacable was taken like pictures, etc 3- we had insurance to cover the losses and what it didn't cover our church generously covered

2) The house next to us was full of hispanics that didn't speak English and worked at a painting business owned by people in our church. About a month later we find out that they had someone break into their house and rob them at gunpoint. (we got a security system after we were robbed. This new incident caused us pause but we figured it was a personal thing. They didn't have much stuff, and there was a lot of people in that house. There was a lot of houses with easier targets like old ladies and more stuff if somebody just wanted to steal. Plus someone could just wait till they were gone and avoid confrontation). They moved out soon afterwards and left the house in disarray. New neighbors have since moved in that seem to want to keep the place in disarray, including keeping the newspapers over the windows.

3) Our neighbors on the other side of the house were like the neighbors in Elizabeth City, but times 5. There was the head to toe tattoed guy (prison looking tattoos like spiderwebs and tear drops, not artsy), his obese wife that seemed to have no problem with coming outside with nothing but a bra on her top half (shudder...), the 13 year old daughter that had all sorts of older teen friends that would come to the house and stay outside yelling, cussing, laughing, etc for house late into the night, the little kids who looked to be like 4 and 6 but would cuss each other out, and the pet pitbull. These neighbors would get drunk outside routinely, and get high. The cops were called on them many times by various neighbors. They would often have friends over doing this as well, so many that we weren't really sure exactly who all lived there. One night one friend came driving in and talked about getting jumped down the street and trying to go get them back. I speak of them in the past tense because they lived in the house but it was owned by the lady's grandma. One day the 13 yr old was at her grandma's, outside causing trouble, and the police arrested her and found her to be drunk, high, and having painkillers in her system. They told the people they either had to press charges on the grandma since the girl was in her care at the time or they were going to take their kids away. So they pressed charges. The grandma, furious because she was not the reason the girl was like that, kicked them out of the house. Here's hopeing for better neighbors next time around, the grandma is fixing up the place, and it looks like she might live there again.

4) One night we are watching TV and a boy comes screaming out of the house across the street, talking about how they are fighting and he is going to hit her and he is scared and crying. Neighbors, including us, open our doors to see what is going on. The man comes out and tells him to get in the house, no one is going to get hit, and the boy and is scared, like OK, I'm sorry!...The police were called and the man was arrested.

5) The neighbors two doors down had some stuff stolen off their porch. Last week someone vandalized their truck by spray painting on it.

6) The neighbors in #3 were broken into and had a TV and some tools stolen. They later found out it was a friend of theirs who did it.

7) We live just a couple blocks from the Rescue Mission in Roanoke. Homeless people routinely walk by our house, which is no big deal. I try to help them out when I can, give them food or a drink while driving on my way to work (no money). However, one evening we came home and their were two sitting on our porch. They left when we got there. That is a troubling thing, because part of me wanted to tell them to stay off our property and part of me wanted to ask them if they needed any help. I went in the middle and said nothing, just watched them walk away.

8) We just started a neighborhood watch and heard our street is actually a lot better than some of the surrounding ones in the area. There lots of neighbors have reported people jumping other people and beating them up. Hopefully the neighborhood watch can help clean things up...

9) About a mile away we saw a guy get hit by a car in a parking lot on purpose. That isn't technically our neighborhood, but it is the same city area, and pretty crazy.

10) Sarah has had the police come to our down in riot gear asking if we have seen people around while I was at work.

Point it, we live in the hood. I must admit, I am looking forward the time when we can afford a house in a different neighborhood, but until then we feel safe, especially with the security system. It has just been an eye-opening experience, and I felt like sharing it with you.