Most of my 30 Blocks of Squalor articles were accidentally deleted in 2019. Avalon stumbled upon this classic from 2017. She read it to me out loud and I laughed at a number of pithy observations. West Philly did bring out my creative side. If anything, Philly is worse seven years later. Enjoy this throwback to the good old days of TBP
“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.” ― Thomas Sowell
Over the last few weeks there have been a couple mornings where the Schuylkill Expressway was jammed and I had to take my alternative route through the 30 Blocks of Squalor. I hadn’t had this inspiring dystopian experience all summer. There is nothing like West Philly when the punks, punkettes, and future prison convicts finish a summer of not working, not reading, and not picking up the trash in their neighborhoods, go back to West Philly High and not learn again. The observations will be rehashed in a stream of consciousness format, as West Philly is a smorgasbord of squalor, sordidness, filth, apathy, crime and epic government incompetence.
Continue reading “OLDIE BUT GOODIE: 30 BLOCKS OF BACK TO SCHOOL”