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| KYAC Radio May 1975 |
Diamond, originally of New York and now living in California, expresses his feelings of displacement or of not quite belonging:
"L.A.'s fine, but it ain't home, New York's home, but it ain't mine no more."
Today, while I was out job hunting, I went back to my New York: Seattle's Madrona district. It seemed smaller, different, almost foreign. I had become an outsider to the place that had shaped my very attitude toward life.
As I walked along those same streets, I thought back to the way it was when I was about twelve:
Young, super cool Black Panthers strutted down the streets full of pride and hate, showing off their black leather jackets, their black caps and their rakes. [A type of metal hair comb].
I was attacked on the street for being white.
One of my white neighbors, a girl, sicked her dogs on kids on their way down to the beach for being black.
A Jewish man died soon after his cleaning business on the corner of 34th and Union was fire bombed.
Members of my class walked down to the beach with our teacher, who referred to us as young men and young women, not as boys and girls. On New Years Eve, we listened to KYAC [a radio station] & did the funky chicken in the street to the rhythm of the music. Our Christmas time presentation of "Laugh In" for our talent show was done to the sound of soul.
At home, we were always moving - always doing something.
Life was great.
And then our house was bombed with dynamite on the roof of our Seattle home. No one, however, was hurt.
During a school function, in our undersized gym, rocks came flying through what was left of the windows. Our druggist was driven out of business after several armed robberies.
Life was tense.
Of course, this all happened a long time ago in the eyes of a child. Things have changed. We moved away, My new friends were somehow different. I didn't fit in.
North Seattle is my L.A. -- It's fine but it just ain't home.
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