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I grew up in Dolton, just south of Chicago, about a 20-minute drive from old Comiskey Park.

We slept in the park before we had a house, and eventually we shared a home - my parents, my grandparents and five uncles, my family, all of us - on White Oaks Street by Magnolia Street near the railroad. Those were hard times, but I loved living there.

I grew up in western Oregon, just outside Eugene, on 27 wooded acres that served as my playground.

I grew up in New York, and for the first ten years of my life, we lived across from the Metropolitan Museum. When I was an adult, I moved back to that neighborhood and lived there again.

I used to live in the Bronx, then I lived uptown on 106th St. and Broadway, and finally I moved to Harlem right before it became gentrified. I lived on 120th St. between Fifth and Lenox Aves. in a little brownstone. I knew the neighborhood was changing when they started putting trees in the middle of the block.

I was very active in the Parks and Recreation department. I recall a lot of the things we had to do, from the trips for the department to organizing a Little League, those sorts of things.

When I grew up, we went to Coney Island and Central Park. We'd find our way to the water and watch the fireworks.