t’s late Sunday afternoon. My teenage son and his friend aren’t yet back from shooting hoops at the park. My sonplays on the freshman basketball team at his high school. He plays pickup games at the park to work on his game, to experiment with new moves his coach would glower at in league play. So my wife, who doesn’t like them to hang out alone for too long down there, prods me off the couch to bring them home. I put on my old sneaks (just in case my ball-handling skills are needed) and jog the few blocks to the park.

    The wide open, grass-covered square block isfilled with families and teams of amateur athletes, playing softball on the diamond, soccer on the grass, and basketball on the courts. Frisbees fly on air smoky and sweetened by barbeques. Friends eat in groups at tables and on benches. Kids swing on playground swings, ride razor scooters on walkways, and run zigzag everywhere. But as I near the b-ball courts, another sweet, familiar fragrance wafts past me. Three young guys—late teens or early 20s—share aburning roach on the sidelines of the court under a sign which reads: “DRUGFREE ZONE—Increased Penalties for Drug Use or Possession.” One guy—with tatts and scars—looks like a gangbanger maybe; the other two are just a couple oftight-eyed knuckleheads. No one says anything to them, even though we all know it’s not cool to smoke around kids. But why start trouble? Or risk acting uncool.

n late fall, 1968, I worked a route for the evening paper in Los Angeles, TheHerald-Examiner. An apartment route on a residential boulevard on the monied Westside, it began in the lobby of an elegant 12-story apartment building with doormen/valets and a formal receptionist (not security); it ended at theSanta-Glen Market—what we would call a “boutique” grocery store today. I would toss my last newspaper on the corner of Beverly Glen & Santa Monica Boulevards, then cross through the store’s parking lot and walk down the long ramp into the store to buy a Butterfinger or an Almond Joy or a Rocky Road candy barfor 15 cents, or maybe a half-gallon of milk and a pound of ground beef if Mom had made a request.