When I was younger I was in a neighborhood gang. Its was not the typical gang you hear Briant Gumbel discuss on the 7 o'clock news, but rather just a bunch of inseparable mischievous 12-15 year old kids. We had rites of passages, secret passwords and all that jazz. Most importantly every member needed a bicycle. I mean, I guess you could have been in if you could run around Gibb's house 5 times in a minute and a half, but what was the point if you did not have a bike? The gang was all about hanging out while using our bikes to explore. We would do tricks, look for good jumps and find new places. Across the street, from the house where the kid was shot, was our favorite house to visit. You see our parents would not let us ride our bikes on major roads. So, if we wanted to go anywhere we would use our favorite house as a short cut. Besides for the gang and our bikes the next important thing was girls. At that time most of us had just stumbled upon their existence. We would sit up and talk about our 'Top Five' favorite girls or who we wanted to go out with or kiss. I was going out with Page Madison. She was one of the girls always on every one's Top Five list. If I ever wanted to visit her I always had a friend to accompany me. It just so happened that she lived in the neighborhood next to mine. Unfortunately a major road was separating our houses. This was about the same time my friends and I had discovered the shortcut house. The house sat up on a hill above a stream that was the gateway to our wilderness. After walking our bikes down the hill and through the stream, we would go through a wilderness path that led to the adjacent neighborhood. This is how I would reach Page. A treacherous journey, but well worth the effort. The day my mom snapped this photo I kissed Page....

submitted by David Callen
Ann Arbor, Michigan USA
September 1996