Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Hey, Found Something to Write About..



From the Onion Comedy Site:



LITTLETON, CO—On April 20, when two students at Columbine High School opened fire in a brutal shooting spree that left 12 classmates and a teacher dead, many feared that this affluent suburban school would never be the same.


Members of Columbine High School's popular “in” crowd, who, more than four months after the tragic shooting at their school, have finally begun to exclude losers again.


The atmosphere is optimistic. Slowly but surely, life at Columbine is returning to normal.

Thanks to stern new security measures, a militarized school environment and a massive public-relations effort designed to obscure all memory of the murderous event, members of Columbine's popular cliques are once again safe to reassert their social dominance and resume their proud, longstanding tradition of bullying and tormenting those who do not fit in.


"We have begun the long road to healing," said varsity-football starting halfback Jason LeClaire, 18, a popular senior who on Aug. 16 returned to the school for the first time since the shooting. "We're bouncing back, more committed than ever to reject anyone who's different."


Added LeClaire's girlfriend, pretty cheerleader Kellie Nelson: "A school where the jocks cannot freely exclude math geeks, drama fags, goths and other wash-outs without fearing for their lives is not the kind of school I want to go to."


On Sept. 6, amid a pep-rally atmosphere of marching-band fanfare, cheerleaders and mass chanting, a group of jocks wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan, "We, Not You, Are Columbine" were escorted by armed guards into the school for the first day of the new semester. Approximately one hour later, anyone not in the right cliques were allowed into the building through a side door.



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“The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel it's warmth.”



A proverb I never heard before...



I have no answers to this, nor anything meaningful to say either, and I ain't getting onto the issue of gun control, but just a couple of stories I remember from then when I was a teen.


I've written about him before, Steve, a congenital dork, dweeb, goober, nerd who rested on the bottom rung of the social ladder of St Rays high school. The one sad story I told you about was when he admitted it was he who sent a “Valentine's Secret Introductory Rose” to one of the prettier girls in our class. Each year boys could buy single roses, send them anonymously to a girl they liked and if they were brave enough, reveal themselves later in the day. Steve tried that, but the popular girl out of either protection of her social status, or perhaps out of a true “not feeling that way about him” rejected him as easily as she could in front of 30 of his peers. THAT little show got around the gossip circuit within an hour for the whole school and because Steve was a loser-troll, the magnitude of his crime was made all the worse. “How DARE you...YOU! Make an attempt to ask out one of the Top Ten girls!”


Steven never returned with an AK 47 to pour out 12 years of revenge for the bullying, shame and abuse that was heaped on him daily. Had he done so, I don't think I would've been too surprised. But that wasn't Steve's personality. He turned the pain onto himself by moping about his school day and keeping in the shadows.


He never showed up for any of the reunions and who could blame him? Many of the kids he knew then were his enemy via the exclusion from the fun teen friendships, mileposts kids achieve at that age and all that the other joys the teen world has to offer. Why meet again those who kept you from all the fun?



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When I was a young teen, Soldier of Fortune magazine was the only rag, and perhaps Guns & Ammo then, where you could order para-military items, “How To's” and the “Anarchist's Cookbook.” Occasionally I'd paw through it as we kids just burned up summer days at the mini mall near my house. There was sometimes nothing else to do but hang out inside CVS for their a/c and read the mags till we got the annoyed look from the manager.


His real first name was Wayne and he lived not more than three blocks from me and I didn't even know it. He was about three years younger than me and his existences was a surprise to me when I finally met him. My buddy M, knew of him because the kid routinely wore Vietnam tiger stripe camo when he went to jr high school at Goff. If not that camo, than any “utility” type of clothing you could get in 1979. On top of his head was a regular issue Army cap. I was told he had no friends and was avoided by others because of being “weird.”


One day, M, I and Wayne run into one another outside the same CVS and I start to goof on his apparel as it seemed a bit too much for a hot July day. The kid just gave me the meanest, most hateful stares you ever saw. It's a stare that usually only worn out, cynical adults give after a life time of having to make compromises to get along. This kid was probably 12 then.


So, to ease the situation I steer the conversation over to the Soldier of Fortune magazine Wayne just bought and talked about those tactics the Green Beret's have to kill you with their little pinky. He gets annoyed still because I don't know what I'm talking about and he corrects me when I get it wrong. I then ask him if he knows any of “those moves” and he says he does and I ask him to try one on me. I regretted that pretty soon.


He gets behind me and in a flash and with some power too, uses his left hand to compress my throat and his right hand slides up and over my scalp and with a claw like motion, digs his fingers into my eyeballs. He wasn't faking it.


Know what you feel when you can't breath AND your eyeballs feel like their going to squish out? You don't know where to defend yourself first, your throat or your eyes? You tend to reach for both and in doing so, you are an uncoordinated mess. This goes on for, I guess 20 seconds when my buddy M steps in and has to literally bash Wayne on the top of his head to stop it.


As I spun around and saw M toss Wayne onto the ground, I see Wayne's face. He's excited! He's focused! He has a shit eating grin from ear to ear.


He LIKED doing this. I bet his heart was racing too.


You know those moments in your childhood and teens where you experience the real, ugly side of life? Either it's a person or event you are witnessing and it leaves you feeling the ABOSLUTE creeps after it happens? It's called “growing up” and your innocence is forever altered. If you're lucky, they're don't maim you nor are lethal. They're just learning experiences you managed to get away easily with.


Wayne was one of those experiences and not so much about what he did but that look on his face that creeped me the hell out. If there was anyone who would shoot up his school because he was weird and excluded, it would be him. He never did. From what I learned he joined the military right after high school. He probably begged to be sent as part of advisory command when we were training the CONTRAS who were causing all sorts of trouble in Nicaragua. If he did get to go, he found a real home for himself.


Those two, Wayne and Steve, were probably the worst social misfits I knew as a kid. Neither shot up anything (but I wonder if Wayne fantasized about it) and apparently made something of their lives, even with their impoverished social networks.


And we keep cranking out more of these kids daily I hear...

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