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My name is Shyheim Banks. I’m 15 years old
My name is Rashaud Foster. I’m 16 years old
My name is Israel.Higgins, I’m 16 years old.
I interviewed…
I interviewed…
I interviewed Homer Craig on June 27th, 2012.
My name is Homer Craig. I was born and raised, Monongahela St. That’s the same street that, for years, the library in Hazelwood was located on. Now it’s located down on 2nd Ave. and Flowers. I was born in 1939, June the 29th, and my father was a steel worker and my mother was a housewife, and I was one of the fortunate kids in the neighborhood. Both my mother and father were there in the same household and… I was police sergeant for the City of Pittsburgh for 27 years, combined active and inactive duty almost 13 years in the military. I served in several southern States and most of the service I performed after training and such was in Europe, mainly Germany.
I said, in certain aspects, the old days were much better, but you can’t go back. You have to move forward in life and there were drawbacks in the old days. Some I can remember, some I choose not to remember. For one thing, even though Hazelwood was a unique community, racism was a problem. Now it might not have been a problem to the majority community, because they weren’t seeing it from the same viewpoint that we were seeing it, but being shut out of jobs just for your skin color, being shut out of educational opportunities just for your skin color, that wasn’t a pleasant thing, but that’s the way life was then. And you strove to work your way out of that.
If you start here at Hazelwood Ave. and go out Second Ave. to the Glenwood Bridge at one time we had 67 or more businesses, including thriving businesses, including at least three pharmacies, Fisher, Elizabeth Pharmacy, and Mazarrus. We had a jewelry store down in Glenwood. We had two movie theaters, the Hazelwood and the Grand, and we had a bowling alley. We even had our own Co-op before they had the milk stores. That was spearheaded by Charlie Foreman, who lived in Glenwood. We, together as a community, got together and we would buy milk, eggs, and meat and vegetables at a discounted price directly from the farmers and producers, and we were selling it right down where the Rite Aid is now. It was like a club membership for $5. You could get a bag for groceries. That’s meat, eggs, milk and bread. I mean, this was always a mixed community. We even had some Hungarian freedom fighters that had escaped from Hungary that went to school here.
My ideal for a good community is of harmony. I know the thing is overworked. It takes a village, but it does take a village and unfortunately, at the present, we don’t have the village that we had when I was growing up. When I was growing up, our schools were in our neighborhood. Our teachers knew us as individuals and not just numbers. And our parents and neighbors knew us and it was a matter of respect. If you messed up, not only would your parents discipline you when they found out, but any neighbor, any teacher could do the same thing, any older person. But it wasn’t something that was misused or cruelty. It was done with love and kindness and toward the target of making a better person.
The greatest achievement in life, besides marrying the lady I did, is raising my children and coming back to my community, I think that everybody should define themselves. You can call me any name you want to, but I know who I am, and I define who I am, and I tell you who I am. I tell you that by saying words, but also I tell you who I am, by the way I carry myself. If I allow myself to descend to a certain level, then that’s who I am. But if I’m always striving to go higher, if I’m on the top floor, I’m thinking about adding a story. Then that’s defining too, and then be the person you want to be, even if you aren’t now, strive toward it.