As there is yet another report in the news today of a school shooting, I am reminded of a story. You see, a similar incident happened to me and my classmates in 8th grade, back in 1990. Yes, Salem, Missouri started the school shooting trend (not that we're bragging).
There was this kid in my class, we'll call him MC. He had a list of students/teachers in the school that he wanted to kill (it's true-I saw it), but why would you take that seriously? I mean, knowing what I know today I totally would have, but when you're 13 years old, do you really think another kid is really gonna kill someone? Anyway, MC was apparently serious. I remember the day as if it was yesterday (PTSD anyone?). We were sitting in class and I remember seeing MC take something out of his bag and point it at another student, JG. Yes, it was a freakin' gun. Once we realized what was happening, panic set in, I remember students running out the door screaming, students ducked underneath their desks (I was under the desk being protected by Denny Moore as I recall), and Mr. Lowes, our teacher, hopping up over his desk and literally wrestling the gun from this kids hands. That man saved our lives and we were very, very lucky that no one was hurt. Turns out, MC had yet another gun in his bag along with a whole arsenal of bullets. Yikes. I remember that the police were called but that no one thought to call our parents-WTF? They had to find out from us when we all got home from school. The whole situation got swept under the rug, there were no counselors on hand to help us deal with it, it just WAS and we dealt with it. MC got sent off to juvenile hall for a while. The whole incident was in the paper, I still have the article. Those of us that were there never, ever dared talk about it until our 5 year high school reunion some ten years later.
The moral of the story is twofold. One-be nice to the weird kid in class because you never know when he's gonna wanna blow your head off and two-ok, I guess it's really only onefold... (is that a word?).
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2 comments:
I remember that day too, but only because you told us the story AFTER school. did our school go on lockdown? no. Did they evacuate the school? no. Did they send teams of counselors in? no. Crazy how things have changed!
I remember that day too. The school totally dropped the ball on the whole situation. With the exception of Mr. Lowes of course. Your dad and I thanked him for his actions that saved a lot of lives that day. I wonder how he is doing these days?
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