Thursday, April 20, 2006
High School Madness
Madness:
My small town high school didn't have much of an academic, economic, or athletic elite. We had snobs & cliques, but they didn't rule the place. I was aware even in the 60s that a lot of other high schools had really oppressive social stratifications. As a 110 pound high school freshman I was partially under the protection of my older sister's reputation. Her social circle included a number of varsity football players & wrestlers, genuine tough guys who had to shave every day & who didn't have a psychologcal need to be bullies. But I wasn't a pushover. Despite a stutter I was a glib talker. Also, for the first two years of high school I was a three season sports participant; even when you're not good you get a modicum of respect just for doing it, you'll never be considered a nerd, & I made some locker room alliances that served me well later when my interests switched to the school newspaper & skateboarding. I figured this out from watching my oldest brother safely navigate four years of high school with only modest athletic skills & an indifference to rock & roll.
So I was only afraid of several of the most borderline psychotic students, boys who combined exceptional ignorance with a deep, generalized rage. These were guys who would usually accost you when you were alone, or reach out of a crowd & attack you in a semi-anonymous way. Upsetting as it could be, you know you're just the temporary focus of their animosity. However, late in my junior year, one crazy kid did concentrate on me in gym class for reasons I could not fully fathom. When we were on the same side for a softball game, I hit an infield fly out that left him stranded on third to lose the game. No big deal to anyone else. But my failure infuriated him. Since the gym teacher was already halfway back to the locker room, the sociopathic runt stalked over as if to punch me out. What he didn't realize was that two tall guys I knew from cross-country & later skateboarding the same street every evening were in that class. They saved my ass. To break up a fight that hadn't even begun (I'd run before I'd fight), one grabbed me loosely around the waist leaving my arms free, while the other took the crazy kid in a bear hug from behind, pinning his arms - an arrangement deliberately in my favor - & this was out-of-character for me since I was known outside my family as an amicable person - but I was myself in a sort of crazed hypnotic state - I took the opportunity to pop the psycho twice in the nose, drawing blood. Up to that point in my life I thought you needed special skills to do that. Hearing the ruckus (mostly shouts of "Go Rix! Go Rix!"), the teacher turned & yelled at us to cut it out. I was released, so was the nutcase, but in a way that dropped him in the dirt. He jumped up screaming "I'll kill you mothafuckas!" which of course one did not take literally in that era. In an unfixed fight this kid, about my size, would have destroyed me. But although he glared at me in the hallways from then on, his paranoia planted in his mind the thought that I might be setting him up.
As for those two skateboarders, when I became Editor-in-Chief of the paper the following year (a position I didn't deserve but got anyway), I gave them the "Student Car of the Month" feature, a plum assignment.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
RIVERTON, Kan. - Five teenage boys accused of plotting a shooting rampage at their high school on the anniversary of the Columbine massacre were arrested Thursday after a message authorities said warned of a gun attack appeared on the Web site MySpace.com.There was a similar but less advanced plot afoot in a south Jersey school last month. There have always been teenagers with private neofascist death obsessions; in the 70s, after a suburban Jersey kid murdered his parents, a secret stash of Nazi paraphernalia was found in his bedroom.Sheriff's deputies found guns, ammunition, knives and coded messages in the bedroom of one suspect, Sheriff Steve Norman said. Authorities also found documents about firearms and references to Armageddon in two suspects' school lockers.
My small town high school didn't have much of an academic, economic, or athletic elite. We had snobs & cliques, but they didn't rule the place. I was aware even in the 60s that a lot of other high schools had really oppressive social stratifications. As a 110 pound high school freshman I was partially under the protection of my older sister's reputation. Her social circle included a number of varsity football players & wrestlers, genuine tough guys who had to shave every day & who didn't have a psychologcal need to be bullies. But I wasn't a pushover. Despite a stutter I was a glib talker. Also, for the first two years of high school I was a three season sports participant; even when you're not good you get a modicum of respect just for doing it, you'll never be considered a nerd, & I made some locker room alliances that served me well later when my interests switched to the school newspaper & skateboarding. I figured this out from watching my oldest brother safely navigate four years of high school with only modest athletic skills & an indifference to rock & roll.
So I was only afraid of several of the most borderline psychotic students, boys who combined exceptional ignorance with a deep, generalized rage. These were guys who would usually accost you when you were alone, or reach out of a crowd & attack you in a semi-anonymous way. Upsetting as it could be, you know you're just the temporary focus of their animosity. However, late in my junior year, one crazy kid did concentrate on me in gym class for reasons I could not fully fathom. When we were on the same side for a softball game, I hit an infield fly out that left him stranded on third to lose the game. No big deal to anyone else. But my failure infuriated him. Since the gym teacher was already halfway back to the locker room, the sociopathic runt stalked over as if to punch me out. What he didn't realize was that two tall guys I knew from cross-country & later skateboarding the same street every evening were in that class. They saved my ass. To break up a fight that hadn't even begun (I'd run before I'd fight), one grabbed me loosely around the waist leaving my arms free, while the other took the crazy kid in a bear hug from behind, pinning his arms - an arrangement deliberately in my favor - & this was out-of-character for me since I was known outside my family as an amicable person - but I was myself in a sort of crazed hypnotic state - I took the opportunity to pop the psycho twice in the nose, drawing blood. Up to that point in my life I thought you needed special skills to do that. Hearing the ruckus (mostly shouts of "Go Rix! Go Rix!"), the teacher turned & yelled at us to cut it out. I was released, so was the nutcase, but in a way that dropped him in the dirt. He jumped up screaming "I'll kill you mothafuckas!" which of course one did not take literally in that era. In an unfixed fight this kid, about my size, would have destroyed me. But although he glared at me in the hallways from then on, his paranoia planted in his mind the thought that I might be setting him up.
As for those two skateboarders, when I became Editor-in-Chief of the paper the following year (a position I didn't deserve but got anyway), I gave them the "Student Car of the Month" feature, a plum assignment.
Labels: growing up, in the news
