Oh, I can say that in Chicago I was mugged 3 times that I remember, burgled an equal numberof times, had my car stolen and trashed from the parking lot of the Conservatory -- and that was BEFORE I lived in Miami for 3 hellacious years -- where I suffered more violent crime than in my entire 17 years in Chicago.

When I first moved to Chicago I worked in a deli on 53rd St., swing shift -- in the fall, people refused to believe that I walked the 3 blocks home at midnight alone. (D-uh. dumb hick.) They said, to a person, I wasn't attacked for the $30 or so in my pocket because people assumed I would be "packing."

I think it was Stokely Carmichael who said "Violence is as American as apple pie."