Picture Me Rolling: A 19-year Retrospective

A family emergency recently put me on an airplane to my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the City in which I spent the first 19 years of my life.

Ironically, this trip comes upon my 19 year “home-anniversary” in Birmingham. My first day on my first job in Birmingham was August 15, 2000.

I have been sitting in a hospital room for most of this emergency visit, but family chores sent me back to one of the North Milwaukee homes of my youth. The neighborhood is different than I remember it. More blighted homes, roads much rougher, and the apparent pride and connectivity I experienced as a youth is greatly diminished. I can’t help but draw comparisons to what many have experienced for decades in Birmingham.

I can relate to the primal motivation to want to fix it. I think to myself, ‘This is what sets Randall afire every day back home in Birmingham.’ I feel you, Mayor.

Anyway, I finish my chores and step out of the house to head back to the hospital. I opt out of an Uber in lieu of Milwaukee’s reliable public transportation via bus.

I walk from 48th and Concordia to Sherman where I take the 30x to North Avenue. I transfer to the 21 and ride it through the North Avenue landmarks of my youth.

My sister, Yvette, and I grew up in a household with cars, but we still rode the bus a lot. It was reliable, affordable, and allowed us to have a significant sense of freedom and responsibility at an early age. In fact, Hip-Hop was forged as the soundtrack of my life because I had the authority to choose my own scenery via bikes and buses. I was the kid with headphones glued to his head, moving to the energy of “Excursions” by A Tribe Called Quest.

The North Avenue 21 bus rolls past 35th street, where I spent my Saturdays at the Wisconsin Energy sponsored Boy Scout Troop 250. Learning about really hard cases.

It rolls past Fondulac, where the now defunct uber-urban shopping center used to be filled with teens hunting for Filas and Skidz.

It rolls past the McDonald’s on 9th, where I found my former Unity in the Community choir director and hero of my youth working behind the counter after serving a prison bid for pedophilia. Pedophile activity in the same environs I spent many evenings at rehearsal. Lord knows I’ve been kept.

It rolls past MLK boulevard which looks exactly as it did 30 years ago. Like any MLK boulevard in America.

It even rolls past my Dad’s now gentrified childhood neighborhood.

I hop off the bus, hit the Foodiest Food Hall where I grab a quick meal and take 30 mins to consider and codify this reflection before walking to the hospital.

My experiences in Milwaukee — imperfect and challenged as the city is — have brought me to a place of gratitude and perspective for something that I took for granted as a youth — reliable, consistent public transportation that allowed me to explore myself and my city.

Now, I get to fight for and create the environment for this generation in my chosen home of Birmingham, AL.

Post-Script

Read my September 2015 AL.com article, comparing my two home cities of Milwaukee and Birmingham. I spent 19 years in both cities!

Ed Fields is a marketer and strategist. He currently serves as Senior Advisor and Chief Strategist for the City of Birmingham Mayor’s Office. Follow Ed on LinkedIn, Medium, or Twitter.