11. Aerial view of downtown Newark, Delaware

Date: June 5, 1978
Age: 12 months

This is a picture of the south side of Newark--your first home town.
Love, Daddy

Hey, it's my hometown! Neat! My parents were living in Miami, and then my dad took a job with the U of D in 1976, and I don't think he ever expected to be living there for the next twenty years. I think the plan was to stay for a couple of years and then transfer to the University of Miami. My dad never has anything nice to say about the U of D, at least its administration. However, because of the grants he pulls in for it, the university lets him do pretty much whatever he wants, or at least it looks that way from my perspective. He's still employed as a professor, but he works out of Miami. I'd say that's giving him a lot of freedom, no?

While Newark, like most suburban locales, has suffered from over-development, but from the looks of this photo taken at least thirty years ago, It's not the worst of the worst--I think Newark has retained a lot of the green that's seen here. I do see a large, vacant lot that is now a three or four-story indoor garage. More academic buildings have been built on the campus mall, but they were fashioned in the same architectural style as the ones built in the 19th(?) century. I can see my high school, and across the street from it, the smokestacks of an old factory, which was abandoned and a favorite haunt of high schoolers to visit while stoned. The factory has been torn down and replaced with student housing.

I think the greatest difference is in the upper right-hand corner, just beyond my high school: that green is gone. there's a sprawling shopping center, a busy, 4-lane road, and neighborhoods.

My dad hates Newark.