by winstonburton | Sep 23, 2023 | Back in the Day
I was twenty five years old and the middle son of three brothers who were going out for a night on the town. They are both great musicians, but usually broke. My father stopped us on the way out and said, “You guys should do what we used to do in the 1940’s. We would...
by winstonburton | Sep 23, 2023 | Back in the Day
Last week, as I was reluctantly writing a $1,500 check to send my two kids to a Berkeley summer camp, I started to think of what my parents, uncles and aunts did in the 1950’s and 60’s to provide childcare for their families during the summer months when school was...
by winstonburton | Sep 23, 2023 | Back in the Day
It was a hot summer’s day in Philadelphia, 100 degrees in the street with 98 percent humidity. I came home with chocolate syrup and strawberries all over my white uniform after another stressful day of driving a Mr. Softee’s ice cream truck in the hood. My father...
by winstonburton | Sep 23, 2023 | Back in the Day
In the 1960’s, whenever I went to friends and relatives homes in West Philadelphia it seemed as if they all had the same two pictures on their mantel John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., and this was before they were assassinated. These were all predominately...
by winstonburton | Sep 23, 2023 | Back in the Day
When I went to the first meeting of the Alameda County Base Conversion Homeless Collaborative my wife was pregnant with our first child. I kissed her on the forehead as I was leaving and said, “Honey, I’ll be back in a couple of hours, this shouldn’t take long.” When...
by winstonburton | Sep 23, 2023 | Back in the Day
So people make things happen. So people watch things happen. Some people say, “What happened!” A ball rolls down a hill because it has no sides or angles and offers no resistance. People on the other hand have many sides and often have to choose sides. It makes us...
