July 4, 2020:
I find no surprise in the fact that the white-collar kids loved those programs. They were designed for them, after all.
It was really about your milieu. Their parents valued learning and kept books in the house. So did mine — that's how I got there. But at home in the street life was all Truth or Dare and model glue, while my sense from visiting a handful of the others is that by and large they didn't engage with the street.
After all, they had houses, with yards. We had the street, and the park, and the canyon.
I valued athletics where of twenty-ish kids only two or three besides myself could throw or catch. I took drugs and I believed in rock and roll. They did what they were told and listened to Billy Joel.
The programs were not designed for me, and I was not a comfortable fit.