This is an email from Matt in Ohio and this is terrifying.

I had a horrifying experience when I was 14.

I live in Youngstown, Ohio where I grew up on the north side of town and it was surrounded

by old steel mills.

My buddy lived directly across the street from those mills and for us it was a wonderland.

A massive playground of dilapidated buildings and vagrant lots where most of the businesses

were shut down.

There were certain buildings that we frequented more than others and one of them we made our

home base.

We spent weeks building walls and strengthening spots so that no one could get in especially

the vicious wild dogs that ran in packs through the area.

Our home base didn't have any stairs so we had to jump up to get in and it made things

safer for us.

It was right next to an active railroad that brought supplies to one of the mills that

was still in operation.

We used to build massifiers in the middle of the first floor of our home base around

which we would erect a wall of big metal U-shaped things to give us privacy and safety.

If anyone saw us from the railroad they would have called the cops and we would have been

in trouble.

Well, it was Youngstown, Ohio in the mid-90s, also known as Murder Town, USA.

We carried guns because there were plenty of gangs around, even the floods and the

crypts, and that justified our behavior.

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