In 1973, both the Vietnam war and draft ended. Unfortunately, the drug problem did not. Smoking marijuana had become a normal, accepted activity for many kids. No one questioned the practice at school, and parents seemed oblivious as to what was going on in their own neighborhoods.

No one seemed to know where the constant flow of marijuana came from; it was just always available. Drug dealers were deviously clever in their use of neighborhood kids to peddle their product. These carefully chosen kids were usually popular, friendly, and the least suspect. They were lured in and groomed as young as eleven or twelve. And what could be more innocuous than friends selling marijuana to friends? How easy it must have been for them to lure in customers from their school and neighborhood. These young kids couldn’t have thought they were doing anything wrong. After all, it was just marijuana, a simple recreational drug…or so they were told.

And so the stage was set. There was no evil stranger lurking in the neighborhood that parents could point to; no one to call the police on to protect their neighborhood and children. Unfortunately, the “enemy” was within, and the real dealers remained in the shadows.

But for me, one shadowy figure began to emerge when I graduated from high school and started my first job at a new family restaurant in town. It was there that I met the man who turned this small town into a major artery for drugs between Florida and Atlanta. “Dick” was from the northeast and came with his young girlfriend, “Jane”. He was about 33 at the time and she was about 18. She and I worked as waitresses, and he was her ride to and from work. He would usually hang around drinking coffee for a few hours after bringing her to work, and as time went on, he began to open up about his life and how he had met “Jane”. As it turns out, they met when she was underage, and dated until he was sent away to jail for a few years. When he got out of jail, they took off together and landed in the south. However, his time in jail was not wasted because he learned the fine art of leather-making.

While “Jane” was working to pay the general monthly bills, “Dick” was setting up his leather shop as a means to his real business of dealing drugs. He picked the perfect location for his shop; it was set between a large middle class suburban neighborhood and the elementary school. The junior high was just yonder west up the road. Kids walked past his shop every day to and from school. He was set up in a well established shopping plaza which included a grocery store and bowling alley. This area was a natural draw for kids. It butted the neighborhood and there were no major streets to cross. No one felt unsafe there, parents felt comfortable letting their kids hang out there, and everyone knew of each other from school, church, or the surrounding neighborhoods. This was the same area where I grew up and was very familiar with. The grocery was somewhere to go with my siblings or friends for candy, soda, or chips and the bowling alley was a fun setting for bowling & video games.

He opened his shop in 1977 and changed the landscape of our neighborhood forever. In just nine short years, the senseless murder of a 13 year old boy would take place directly in front of where the leather shop used to stand.