Growing
up in St.Louis Mo hasn’t been easy. My name is James. I grew up on the west side
of the STL. I am a 29 yr. old father. The neighborhood I grew up in is called
the ‘’trax’’ which is known for drug sales and violence.
At the age of 13, I started to do what I
witnessed others doing in my neighborhood: selling crack, smoking weed and
carrying guns. My choice for doing these things was voluntary and I thought it
was the right thing to do because I saw that and worse on a daily basis. My
lifestyle choice started to catch up with me around the age of 16. At 16,I
started getting expelled from school and making regular trips to juvenile detention.
The older I got I didn’t care too much about the trips to juvenile because the
trips were short and quick and usually ended with my mother picking me up after
30 days or less.
