A curfew for Central Falls? That just ain't right.

A teenager should be able to step off the tenement steps on Illinois Street on a warm night and "go down Dexter" to meet with his pals. It's a two-minute walk if you go straight up Sumner Avenue, but you'll probably go a couple of blocks out of your way just so you can drink in that sweet yeasty aroma wafting out of Gorman's Bakery.

And yeah, sometimes hanging out on Dexter can lead to trouble. Forty-five years from now you'll be remembering how glad you were you stayed home the night the guys all piled into a Rambler and ended up getting hauled into the Cumberland pokey for riding cows and then got grounded and worse from their folks over that, plus the empties in the back seat. You got less to laugh about without memories like those.

Yeah and there's violence on Dexter. I ain't proud of it, but I was involved in that name-calling between us at Debbie's and the across the street at Masse's. And there was that catfight between the two girls and the one ripped the other one's bra off and socks fell out. Everybody says so, anyhow, but I haven't met anybody who was there and actually saw it.

That was then. This is now. Saturday night a kid goes down Dexter and gets shot dead for his trouble. This happens two days after another kid gets shot dead at Jencks Park, the de facto city common. There's a feud going on, and a lot of people are going to be surprised if drugs and drug money aren't a factor, so the city's leaders don't want any unchaperoned under-18-year-olds on the street after 9. The curfew is a safe idea. It is maybe even a smart one. But it just ain't right.

I take a personal interest in Central Falls. A recent note from old friend Tom McAvoy tells the square-mile city's role in my life, and on this matter I like his words better than my own.

"The kid I grew up catty-corner from was named Pigman, not Flanagan. That kid disappeared into the black bowels of Central Falls and returned as 'Flanagan.' Now the Mark Pigman I grew up with was 5-10, 5-11 and had an Uncle John and an Uncle Warren. But the Mark Flanagan showed up 'post-CF' was over six feet tall and... different... yeah, different."

The short of it is this: Mark Pigman moved from Attleboro to Central Falls in 1962 and came back to Attleboro nine months later as Mark Flanagan. I kept up my ties with the square-mile city for another few years as an active member of St. George's Episcopal Church. CF holds a special place in my heart.

You can tell me that this isn't my Central Falls any more. And I won't deny that a vast and undesirable cultural leap has taken place between apocryphal bra-rippings and gunshot murders. But I still have to believe in the city.

Central Falls is a place where you can transform yourself. You can find a place to stand here that can help you reach a handle on the American Dream. And a whole lot of ex-Central Fallsers in Attleboro know exactly what I mean.

Our onetime hometown has to take itself back from the plagues of drugs and violence, but it can't do that by telling the kids to lock themselves up at night. That's like declaring a surrender, which ought to be unthinkable in a city that has run on the rich fuel of hope for most of its history.

MARK FLANAGAN (mflanagan@thesunchronicle.com) is Opinion Page editor of The Sun Chronicle. He can be reached at 508-236-0335.