Growing up in Riverview Projects

This memoir is about the Riverview Projects, where I lived with my parents and seven brothers in a three-bedroom apartment in the North End of Springfield, Massachusetts. Many of my relatives and friends lived there with me in the sixties. This time was voted as the best decade in history because it was an age of change for the better-a carefree time of innovation, peace, fashion, and great music, and the airing of the Flintstones cartoons! There was also poverty. We were known as the Cisero family. The projects were where I had my fondest childhood memories. This is where I learned the meaning of family values, experienced losing loved ones, created lasting friendships, developed my faith in the living God, learned how to be grateful and appreciative of what little we had, and most of all, experienced our undying love for one another. It was under the watchful eye of Au'momma that we lived a simple life. We had everything we needed. Our lives were filled with laughter and a few tears. I will always treasure the memory of the Riverview Projects in my heart. It was a great community that had affordable housing that helped large families who were struggling while on the welfare system to raise their children. The stereotype of living in low-income projects did not apply. We were not lazy; we were not alcoholics or drug abusers. We cared about education, we had a great support system, and we had a village