3 - The Ohio Life-Course Study

Summary

The following quote was drawn from interviewer comments recorded after the first adult follow-up interview with Gina, who was at the time 29 years old and living in Columbus, Ohio.

I actually went all over town looking for Gina. I was to one end of town and then back to the other. There's no way I would have ever found her, [but] her friend got me to Grandma, Grandma got me to the right building, and then I met the crack heads, and the neighbor got me to Gina. Gina lives in the basement of this huge crack house apartment. She absolutely lives in the middle of nowhere. In fact, I'm still kind of amazed that I even found her in this downtown building. I mean there's no mailboxes, there's no anything. You go down this pitch black hallway. I totally had to trust this woman I was with – that and trust that my can of mace didn't run out! (Laughs) Um, but no, it was a completely dark hallway. I had a flashlight with me but other than that, I mean, it was completely dark and, um, very difficult to see. And you were completely down in the basement where there were no numbers, no nothing. Just lots of doors. And this woman happened to know where she was staying.

But she [Gina] was glad to see me, obviously, with fifty bucks. So that's the first thing I showed her was the money, to prove that I was legit. […]