I'm a bit melancholy tonight. The junior high that I attended 30 years ago - Sparks Middle School - had a shooting incident Oct. 21 that left one teacher and the 12-year-old gunman dead and two other students in Renown Regional Medical Center.
The motive for the shooting is not yet known, but reports are circulating that the boy might have been a victim of bullying.
According to CNN, the students had been shown an anti-bullying video Oct. 11 - the day before fall break. In the video, a girl brought a gun on a bus threatening a bunch of kids that had bullied her. On Oct. 21, the children returned to school. The gunman brought a Ruger 9mm semi-automatic handgun from his home. His parents are currently being investigated.
The flashbacks are hitting me hard. I was one of many kids who were bullied. I have worn glasses since I was 8 years old. I was the ugliest kid in school. I wasn't a jock; I was the last kid picked for teams at PE. In fact, I was just an overall dork. The bullies teased me relentlessly. In 6th grade, the main bully told me I was so ugly I should shave my face and grow a scar. That was the nicest thing he ever said to me. I have had the wind knocked out me, my shirt ripped off my shoulder, and a basketball thrown at me so hard that I couldn't walk for days.
In 7th Grade, the jeers and insults caused me to develop a spastic colon, a condition that made me miss up to three weeks of school at a time. I dreaded going to school. I barely passed that year due to my absences. I was too sick to go to class and my grades showed it.
In 8th grade, a girl threatened to kill me after an innocent joke I made during a field trip. She wouldn't let it go. It was just a joke. I apologized. She didn't care. She still wanted to kill me.
That's when I changed schools and attended Dilworth Junior High on the other side of town, only to meet up with Ms. Bully and the other jerks in 9th grade at Reed High School. She wrote on my locker, "I hate Gwen Bohdan" and accosted me in the hallway, again threatening to kill me - screaming it at the top of her lungs while a mutual friend held her back. A few hours later, we were called into the Vice Principal's office to talk it out, but she had already told the whole school she was going to kick my ass. Her excuse was I supposedly said some remark to her friends - a statement I never made - but she took it as gospel and didn't bother to diplomatically consult me on the issue. Her mind was closed and she wanted to kill me whether her friends were right or wrong.
Shortly thereafter, my mom made arrangements for me to switch to Sparks High School - the best move I could have made because SHS rocked. I had a great three and a half years there.
This was all during a time when my dad - a card-carrying member of the NRA - had guns in the house. I was raised to respect firearms. He tried to teach me to shoot when I was about 10, but the rifle was too heavy and my poor eyesight made it hard to focus on the bull's eye. Nonetheless, guns were locked up in a safe place.
As my teenage years progressed, music started influencing me greatly. I listened to all the hard rock/heavy metal groups, including Judas Priest - the band involved in a lawsuit over subliminal messages after the 1985 suicides of two Sparks boys who quoted their cover of Spooky Tooth's song "Better By You, Better Than Me" in the suicide note. The suit was dismissed, but the stigma attached to music and violence was right up there with Marilyn Manson being associated with the Columbine High School Massacre of 1999.
In 1988, I ventured into the field of Early Childhood Education, and taught preschool for the next two years. We were trained to teach our students to "use their words" when confronted. I have to say, that's the best advice I could give anyone: Your language skills will carry you further than any fist or firearm. In the real world, you can't beat up or shoot a client or coworker who wants to argue.
In the decades since, I have learned that bullies will always be around. Yes, it's important for us to teach our children not to be bullies, but you can't rely on someone else to educate their children. You only have yourself.
If you or your children are faced with a bully, remember you can't change the other person. Bringing a firearm to school only makes the bully a martyr and you don't want elevate the jerk to the level of innocent victim.
Firearms are great when someone wants to physically harm you, but using them against someone who teased you? Uh...no.
Blame the bullies. Blame the music. Blame the gun laws. But when it comes down to it, it's your finger that pulls the trigger.
I don't believe tougher gun control legislation is the answer because criminals will never obey those laws. We already have rules making sure parents store their weapons properly. I had lunch today with a friend who brought up a good point: If we arm teachers, will they have the muscle memory to use the weapon when a situation occurs? You can't just give someone a gun and expect him or her to fire it adequately.
Affordable and accessible mental health care would be ideal, but in the meantime, we are all stuck with doing the best we can with what we have. So here's my advice: Teach your kids to accept outcasts because we're going to grow up to totally rock this planet. We may not have the money, looks or social status, but we're productive members of society and we have mastered the arts of compassion and responsibility.
To the jerks who caused me so much grief over the years: Your time as a bully is short lived. I survived your petty little games, and now at age 43, I have an acid tongue that can verbally annihilate you or anyone else. Once we get to be our age, you all are has-beens. Success is almost the best revenge. Telling you off in a mass of $10 words comes pretty close, but not caring about you at all tops the list. Thirty years later, I'm happy now - way happier than I would have been if I knocked you all off and would either be dead or in prison. To quote the 1983 Martin Briley song, "You ain't worth the salt in my tears." And you sure as hell ain't worth the lead in my gun.
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