Bomont
I've talked about mass shootings before but I think this week's episode of Glee was extremely emotional and powerful, and I'd like to discuss it.
In my four years of high school, there were several bomb threats and students used to periodically throw stink bombs down the back stairwell when everyone was trudging up from the cafeteria. We never had a shooter or any guns in the schools though. We are your average little town, a lot like Newtown.
I live in such a small town that is shaken to its core when tragedies occur. When I was thirteen, a boy named Ryan was struck and killed by a driver. The twelve year old had run across the road to grab the mail for his mother while he waited for his bus. The town spent a month mourning, the school devoted itself to ensuring the memory of this boy was not forgotten.
During my sophomore year of high school, a man fired several rounds near the center of town. The school system, all three schools only a few hundred feet from where this man made his stand, descended into panic and chaos. The man managed to fire one more shot before the SWAT team rushed him, killing himself. This man's children were people I knew by reputation but not personally.
The following year, a high school boy from my town committed suicide. He was known for being somewhat of an academic slacker and a bully, specifically of a boy with Aspberger's. The school offered grief counseling and held a memorial candle lighting ceremony. The victim of this boy's torments posted a Facebook status about how much he disliked the boy, how the boy made his life a living hell every single day, how karma finally caught up with him. The boy finally removed the post but the town was definitely split between the grief of the loss of a young life and the sad reality of this boy's true nature toward his classmates.
There have been others: a young girl who accidentally drowned in a pool, whose parents run an annual walk in her honor; a young woman who tragically lost her life when she was hit with a rubber bullet to disperse the crowds at the Red Sox World Series; a classmates' father who was fatally crushed when the mechanic's jack failed and the car he was working on fell on him...
I'm sure you all heard about the shooter at URI that turned out to be a simple misunderstanding of the Humans Versus Zombies game. When I saw the tweet about the shooter threat at URI last week, I felt myself getting anxious and my heart beating faster. My best friend goes there and she was the one who had retweeted the school's tweet about the lockdown. My phone's text messaging system was glitching so I was forced to resort to tweeting her to make sure she was okay. She told me she was safe, but the entire school was in lockdown and she was hungry (without a snack machine to be found). In my mind I was calculating how quickly I could drive down to get her. In the end it would have taken me about an hour and a half, plus I wouldn't have even been able to get onto campus once I got there. I was relieved when I heard the threat was simply a misunderstanding.
This week's episode of Glee brought me to tears, as I'm sure it did all viewers. It dealt with the threat of a school shooter. The glee club kids were trapped in the choir room, one girl safe but locked out of the school entirely. Another girl, Brittany, was hiding in the bathroom, crouched on a toilet. Brittany is known for being somewhat of a naive girl who isn't the brightest, but has a heart of gold. Heather Morris, who plays Brittany, is an incredible dancer but her acting this week literally floored me. She heard footsteps in the bathroom and I realized I was holding my breath as she did. The other glee kids were filming their goodbyes to their loved ones on someone's cell phone and I realized I was sobbing. Will Schuester, glee club director, said it best: "I will never forget the look on their faces when those shots went off. They had something taken from them: their innocence."
We (of E.B.) think we are safe because we live in a small town, a tight community where everyone knows each other and everyone knows everyone's business. Because we all know each other, there is no possible way that anyone we know could ever be someone violent or sadistic. This town is a bubble, and it will swallow you whole if you let it. The people of the fictitious town Bomont of Footloose were like us, or rather we are like them. The cute white picket fences and identical suburban houses are a front, a facade, meant to fool the outsiders and the ignorant. In truth, we are no better, no safer, than anyone else. We fool the outside world and we fool ourselves into thinking that these violent acts could never happen here. We say it could never happen here, but I'm sure that's what the people of Newtown said, and the students of Columbine and Virginia Tech, and the people of Aurora...and so many more.
We unfortunately now live in a world where guns and violence are part of our everyday lives. Will Schuester is right, no child is innocent anymore. We think that they are naive and ignorant of the daily threats we face. They know that there are bad people on the internet, that there is a reason why it takes an extra two hours to get through airport security, that it's not safe for them to walk to a friend's house two streets over alone. That old saying "Kids these days" now has a different meaning. "Kids these days" may "spend too much time online", "do not play outside enough", "are losing the ability of simple human interaction", and are "growing up too fast". It is not entirely their fault. They live in the world that we have created, a society and a world that glorifies violence. Can we honestly expect anything more or less from them?
I am one of "those kids". I am a child. I am an adult. I am the product of this tormented, twisted world. We as Americans mock the North Koreans' threats, because we are overconfident and proud. We are all children though. We are all adults that were once children. We have forced ours to grow up faster than they are ready to.
Why can't children just be children? Why can't they sing songs? Or dance in the rain...play with their dog...color outside the lines...laugh too loudly...climb trees and scrape their knees...make mistakes...fall in love...fall out of love just as quickly as they fell in...be free... Our time here on Earth is fleeting, never quite long enough it seems. So we hold hands and trudge along, hoping that in the end we have said and done all we wanted to:
In my four years of high school, there were several bomb threats and students used to periodically throw stink bombs down the back stairwell when everyone was trudging up from the cafeteria. We never had a shooter or any guns in the schools though. We are your average little town, a lot like Newtown.
I live in such a small town that is shaken to its core when tragedies occur. When I was thirteen, a boy named Ryan was struck and killed by a driver. The twelve year old had run across the road to grab the mail for his mother while he waited for his bus. The town spent a month mourning, the school devoted itself to ensuring the memory of this boy was not forgotten.
During my sophomore year of high school, a man fired several rounds near the center of town. The school system, all three schools only a few hundred feet from where this man made his stand, descended into panic and chaos. The man managed to fire one more shot before the SWAT team rushed him, killing himself. This man's children were people I knew by reputation but not personally.
The following year, a high school boy from my town committed suicide. He was known for being somewhat of an academic slacker and a bully, specifically of a boy with Aspberger's. The school offered grief counseling and held a memorial candle lighting ceremony. The victim of this boy's torments posted a Facebook status about how much he disliked the boy, how the boy made his life a living hell every single day, how karma finally caught up with him. The boy finally removed the post but the town was definitely split between the grief of the loss of a young life and the sad reality of this boy's true nature toward his classmates.
There have been others: a young girl who accidentally drowned in a pool, whose parents run an annual walk in her honor; a young woman who tragically lost her life when she was hit with a rubber bullet to disperse the crowds at the Red Sox World Series; a classmates' father who was fatally crushed when the mechanic's jack failed and the car he was working on fell on him...
I'm sure you all heard about the shooter at URI that turned out to be a simple misunderstanding of the Humans Versus Zombies game. When I saw the tweet about the shooter threat at URI last week, I felt myself getting anxious and my heart beating faster. My best friend goes there and she was the one who had retweeted the school's tweet about the lockdown. My phone's text messaging system was glitching so I was forced to resort to tweeting her to make sure she was okay. She told me she was safe, but the entire school was in lockdown and she was hungry (without a snack machine to be found). In my mind I was calculating how quickly I could drive down to get her. In the end it would have taken me about an hour and a half, plus I wouldn't have even been able to get onto campus once I got there. I was relieved when I heard the threat was simply a misunderstanding.
This week's episode of Glee brought me to tears, as I'm sure it did all viewers. It dealt with the threat of a school shooter. The glee club kids were trapped in the choir room, one girl safe but locked out of the school entirely. Another girl, Brittany, was hiding in the bathroom, crouched on a toilet. Brittany is known for being somewhat of a naive girl who isn't the brightest, but has a heart of gold. Heather Morris, who plays Brittany, is an incredible dancer but her acting this week literally floored me. She heard footsteps in the bathroom and I realized I was holding my breath as she did. The other glee kids were filming their goodbyes to their loved ones on someone's cell phone and I realized I was sobbing. Will Schuester, glee club director, said it best: "I will never forget the look on their faces when those shots went off. They had something taken from them: their innocence."
We unfortunately now live in a world where guns and violence are part of our everyday lives. Will Schuester is right, no child is innocent anymore. We think that they are naive and ignorant of the daily threats we face. They know that there are bad people on the internet, that there is a reason why it takes an extra two hours to get through airport security, that it's not safe for them to walk to a friend's house two streets over alone. That old saying "Kids these days" now has a different meaning. "Kids these days" may "spend too much time online", "do not play outside enough", "are losing the ability of simple human interaction", and are "growing up too fast". It is not entirely their fault. They live in the world that we have created, a society and a world that glorifies violence. Can we honestly expect anything more or less from them?
I am one of "those kids". I am a child. I am an adult. I am the product of this tormented, twisted world. We as Americans mock the North Koreans' threats, because we are overconfident and proud. We are all children though. We are all adults that were once children. We have forced ours to grow up faster than they are ready to.
Why can't children just be children? Why can't they sing songs? Or dance in the rain...play with their dog...color outside the lines...laugh too loudly...climb trees and scrape their knees...make mistakes...fall in love...fall out of love just as quickly as they fell in...be free... Our time here on Earth is fleeting, never quite long enough it seems. So we hold hands and trudge along, hoping that in the end we have said and done all we wanted to:
Have no fear for giving in
Have no fear for giving over
You'd better know that in the end
It's better to say too much
Then never say what you need to say again
Even if your hands are shaking
And your faith is broken
Even as the eyes are closing
Do it with a heart wide open
"Say" - John Mayer
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