“He’s been waiting on the snow for the longest,” Chris Ware said as he watched his 4-year-old son Christopher Jr. play Sunday afternoon in front of their Parkway Gardens apartment.
“He thinks snow means ‘open presents.’ “
With just a few weeks left until Christmas, Christopher and several neighbors alternately made snow angels and tackled each other in the first snowfall of the year. After his son took a snowball to the face, Ware helped him wipe away a brief burst of tears and play continued.
“Just doing what kids do,” Ware said.
Across the 6300 block of South King Drive, Sammy’s Grill was open for business with four fresh bullet holes in the front door. Twelve hours earlier, a 23-year-old man had been killed and two others wounded inside the restaurant. By the afternoon, two employees cooked behind thick glass and customers trickled in.
“Some days it’s safe, some days it’s not,” Ware said of the neighborhood on the border of Woodlawn and Greater Grand Crossing. “You got to make the best of every situation you’re in. It’s all up to you.”
Ware said his son’s Christmas list includes “everything he sees on TV,” and he’s especially into dinosaurs this year.
“We’ll make it happen for him one way or another,” Ware said.
“I’m cold,” Ware called to his son after an hour of play. “Come on, in the house.”
(Yesterday, these blocks were homicide scenes. The day after a fatal shooting on their block, police tape is gone and residents live, work and play. Annually, more Chicagoans are shot and killed than there are days in the year, but there’s a lot going on in our neighborhoods around the violence. Visit The Next Day collection for more.)
