The scene took place a short drive from the University of Pennsylvania campus, but it might have been worlds away.
Glen Casey, then 10 or 11 years old, watched in fascination as his father sat in the bedroom cutting up cocaine for resale.
“He was just sitting on the bed, just chop, chop, chopping it up,” recalls Casey. “Because, when you first buy it, it’s hard, and you want to smoothen it out.”
When it was time to pick up the cash, Casey was there, too.
“A lot of times when my dad would take me to his clientele, they were really friendly, so I didn’t understand the dangers,” says Casey, now 20.
“I knew I was with my dad, and we were going from place to place, and I saw what I saw. … I didn’t understand the whole reality of the situation.”
The saying “It takes a village to raise a child” holds as true in West Philadelphia as anywhere.
Many people helped Casey on his journey from some of the toughest streets in the city to the University of Pennsylvania’s class of 2017.
His mother, Wilhelmina Casey, was too ill to work, but still determined to create a better life for her son.
[For more of this story, written by Paul Jablow and Dorian Geiger, go to http://thenotebook.org/blog/15...childhood-ivy-league]
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