Public had love/hate relations with Michael Jackson, even in hometown of Gary, Ind.

You wouldn't think a fortysomething journalist would have much in common with the late King of Pop.

But my life and Michael Jackson's have run along somewhat parallel lines for years, back to our earliest days growing up in the shadow of steel mills in Gary, Ind.

I still remember the day, more than 30 years ago, when my father pointed to a house a few streets over from my grandmother's home. The address: 2300 Jackson St., where the young Jacksons honed their performing skills and dreamed of something better.

The Jacksons were already gone by then, but their legend in Gary was massive — held aloft by a proud citizenry who were happy someone could scale the highest heights. Almost seven years younger than Michael, I watched him scurry across stages on The Mike Douglas Show and Soul Train, dreaming my own fantasies of escape and achievement.

"The whole city was striving to be somebody, just like they were," said Reynaud Jones, 59, a Gary resident known for helping the young Jacksons learn how to play as a group back in 1965. Later, Jones would sue Michael Jackson, claiming some of the star's biggest hits had been stolen from him, only to reconcile; a love/hate dynamic that would characterize much of Gary's relationship with its most famous sons.

Though I never met him, Michael and I shared a few more odd similarities. He was one of Motown's brightest stars; I eventually made a record for Motown in the '80s, just before legendary founder Berry Gordy sold the company. (Suffice to say, unlike Mike, I never found Gordy a champion of my group's work.)

In 1994, when Michael proved how little physical chemistry he had with wife Lisa Marie Presley during the most awkward kiss ever televised, I was just a few feet away, chronicling the oddest-ever start to the MTV Video Music Awards in the bowels of Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

Gary's love/hate relationship with the Jacksons swelled as Michael's fame grew in the late '80s. I still remember many in my hometown hoping the post-Thriller superstar might revisit the crack-ravaged city and lend a helping hand.

Instead, only Jermaine Jackson stopped by in an armored car. Even Gary's most famous sons were too scared to return home without serious protection.

Despite all our similarities, I felt the same connection to him as every pop culture lover of a certain age: His music was the soundtrack to our best moments. But our desire for bigger pieces of him — combined with his own drive to be the biggest star of all time — seemed to eat away at his life like acid.

Which leaves us all to wonder: Did we admire him so much that we helped kill him, even just a little bit?