Hillbilly Elegy

believe it was really poor.
Across the street from our house was
Miami Park, a single city block with a
swing set, a tennis court, a baseball
field, and a basketball court. As I grew
up, I noticed that the tennis court lines
faded with each passing month, and that
the city had stopped filling in the cracks
or replacing the nets on the basketball
courts. I was still young when the tennis
court became little more than a cement
block littered with grass patches. I
learned that our neighborhood had “gone
downhill” after two bikes were stolen in
the course of the week. For years,
Mamaw said, her children had left their
bikes unchained in the yard with no