Reply #123: No, my parents believed the teachers. [View All]

They were of a generation that had total confidence in them. The fools.

And it was the University City, Missouri school district. A fairly well-off suburb of St. Louis, next to Washington University, largely Jewish and upper middle-class. A school district considered, by educators of the time, to be a "progressive" and "vitally experimental" district. Which meant that the teachers simply sat by and allowed the punks and the lunatics to do whatever the hell they wanted to, to kids who couldn't fight.

Oh, and of course, to fight back and try to defend yourself (something a weak pussy like me could never do properly) got lectures about how "violence is never the solution." Well, it wasn't for me, but it sure was for the football players and thugs.

And yes, that has become the standard for education in the United States.

It would have made me mad enough to burn down the school. Unfortunately, some New Left kids did it before I could get up the nerve, and in that year I was one of fifteen kids in a classroom that were caught on the upper floors, as an auditorium on the lower levels burned.

ON EDIT: Please don't tell me "get help." I have help. I could have used help when I was sixteen. It's way the hell too late. My only comfort is that I believe most of those punks are being raped in prison or died early from drug abuse.