"Idle time is the devil's workshop"

Though crime was still an issue when Mike was growing up, it was different to the kind you might see today. “Back then, there was some kind of honor amongst thieves.” He says. “You don’t mess around in front of the church. You don’t bother mothers with their kids. You don’t bother the elderly--you know, they’d help the elderly. These crazy people, like gang members and everything, they would help. But when it came to the street hustle at night, forget about it. And it was almost like an unwritten rule, ‘Ok, everybody in the house.Time to go in the house.’ Cause you know the crazies are out at night.”. Now, Mike says, “the crazies” are out all time. The old rules of the game have changed.

Mike believes this is a result of the lack of trust or understanding between some people today. Of the projects, Mike says, “People don’t even speak to each other. People walk right by, don’t even look at you…it’s all getting in elevators and holding their purses and carrying on like that because you don’t know who’s who. That’s why, when they talk about the projects I think about how I grew up. Younger people, they talk about when they grew up, how they see it—people fighting and shooting each other, this side of the building hates that side of the building, this side’s fighting that side—we didn’t have none of that. We had basketball tournaments, where our project would play other projects. It was called the City-Wide. And you’d get trophies if you won.”

Tournaments like the City-Wide were the type of community-nourishing activities Mike grew up with. He laments that younger generations weren’t provided the same type of stability and friendships that these programs allowed him to enjoy. “I lived through the era when they cut everything.” Mike says. “I enjoyed it because I experienced it myself  but I saw that that next generation didn’t have access to the things that we had…and it was sad, because that’s when a lot of kids were on the street doing things that they ain’t got no business doing, ‘cause they had nothing to do. “Idle time is the devil’s workshop”—that’s what my grandmother always told me.”

Next, we'll look at why and how such programs were cut and how it affected the community at large. 

"Idle time is the devil's workshop"