This may seem weird, out of line, over talked about but...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

…my prayers to the families, victims and friends of Columbine High School. It’s been two years today, 4/20.

I know that people probably don’t want to see this but I lived about 10-15 minutes from there. My friends/nieghbors had kids that went to church with kids from there and school there; with those that were injured and in pain because of the unspeakable tradegy that happened. For them I lean my head in prayer, even if I am not religious.

I remembered waking up in the middle of the day to see the events unfold on my TV in Colorado. The shock, the crying, the pain I felt for my friend’s kids and those they touched.

As a 32 year old, we never had to contend with such events, a fight was a fight, a hatred was never handled in this way. For our SDMB teens I wish you peace and if you can’t find peace within yourselves I wish each teen to find someone to talk to. Someone will listen, it doesn’t seem that way but they will. Even some of us on the internet. I helped talk a 15 year old girl out of suicide. You live different lives that we did, but that’s no excuse. Confront your fears and pains, talk to a parent, talk to a teacher, talk to a friend. For God’s sakes, talk to someone, don’t let it escalate to this again, not ever again.

It hurts to find out that 15 people had to loose their lives, even the gunmen/bombers, whatever. There is no one on this Earth that deserves to die in this manner. We all make mistakes, we all say shitty things, most of us grow up knowing that we all wont get along.

To my fellow Coloradoans, and those to whom have been touched by it in other places, please know I am thinking of you and praying that we can learn from it. For the rest of the nation and world take a moment to think. Please, if you see a teen in trouble, don’t push them away as being a bad seed, they could be headed off for serious trouble. Please try to take them in your arms and help them realize there is another path.

BTW, one of my best friend’s kids is going down this path of violence and pain…I am doing everything I can to be the adult friend to her son and let him know I have some understanding of being a screw up and hopefully he can take away the fact that you can take a better path. I am always there for him, 24/7.

Anyhow, if anyone cares, please bow your head for a minute at about 11:30 am Mountain Time (2 hours behind Eastern time) for all teens around the U.S. and even the world, please do. They are so living in different times than many of us did. For those teen Dopers on the board, please spread to your fellow classmates that it’s never okay to harm another. If you hear rumors of violence, please report it and in most instances you can do it annonymously (sp). But first and foremost, we all need to do our damndest to help stop this completely outrageous way to end pain that kids feel growing up.

I hang my head in shame for what happened. I hang my head in sadness for what happened. It wasn’t guns, it wasn’t anything other than two teens that were so freakin lost they couldn’t come back. It was too bad the parents didn’t see this, not that they could have changed it but at the same time I remember my parents were on my ass every step of my life.

< to the Columbine students, teachers and parents, my heart is with you on this day, along with students, parents and teachers all over our nation today >

2

Not weird, out of line or over talked about in my book. A wonderful tribute. Thank you for remembering, and for reminding all of us to remember, too.

3

A slight hijack, but I promise only for a moment.

My other MB has this thing where you can recommend a post. That post then becomes part of the “Best of” feature of that particular board.

This, techie, would get recced about 200 times if the option were there.

{Colorado}

4

I looked for the “WebRing” that had Colubine related material but it seems to be missing. Out of sight out of mind I guess. I am sorry this is one that will never leave me or my friends in Denver that were close to many that have kids that are a part of this.

I did remember one of the the teen’s tributes, Rachel Scott. Possibly you can you can talk to your teen and have him or her enter into the contest of kindness or how her life ended/her life impacted their life. Rachel Scott.

If anyone knows the web ring, I would appreciate it if you posted it. I have lost a lot of my “Favorites” in a crash in December, there was a wonderful ring and would love for those that care to see the incredible tributes to the people that were injured and died. Even people that didn’t know them created sites, it was such a beautiful tribute to them. I would so appreciate it. (looks like Yahoo took over the typical webring…grr)

5

iampunha,

Sorry I am a little lost…you said:

I guess this goes past my knowledge…I don’t know the word recced. Please explain my dear.

6

iampunha,

So I am dense, if you mean that it’s recommended reading, please by all means recreate it on the message board you are talking about…just give me credit. :wink: I am thinking I will copy and paste it elsewhere, in another message board I frequent.

So Post it if you care to, I am giving you official memmber “SDMB Permission” since I started this thread to post it elsewhere.

{{{{{To all my Dopers that give a hoot}}}}}}

I wish for our teens to find some common ground. They seem to draw lines we never did, they are nothing short of violence. Am I right? Did anyone my age ever encounter this in high school? I knew a guy who killed someone but this was after high school, not ever a mass killing, but we did have fights, usually with other schools after we won a hockey game…oh those were brutal, but not like this.

7

Thanks, techie. That wasn’t actually what I meant at the time, but right now on that very MB there is a discussion going about Columbine (more of a tribute like yours) and I think the folks there would like it. And of course I’ll credit you:)

Violence in HS . . . where to start. There was a bomb threat my senior year, though I don’t remember when (details from high school are, for the most part, hazy at best). There was the usual hazing, but the worst of what I got was the verbal stuff. There was physical as well, but people basically didn’t do a lot of stuff to me, and when they did they figured out not to, most of the time.

This is boarding school, though. 300 students total. Sort of a different demographic. In another demographic I can see things having been much, much worse. And much better, in some ways.

8

iampunha,

If you don’t mind I would love to make a comment about my post…and even post it myself. But that’s up to you…

I am all over the place these days!

Email me with the board if you are comfortable with it.

9

Techie, check your email. I sent the links.

And try not to get wrapped up in CF . . . it can be a serious drain!

10

Good tribute techchick. I’m glad you brought this up. I was thinking about it this morning.

IIRC, Isn’t it also the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing as well?

To any extent, I would ask all to remember the families on this day, and say a prayer for them.

Thanks again.

11

I would like to say…
a fitting and lovely tribute.

Thank you so much for putting the number 15 there.

12

Yesterday (4/19) was the anniversary of the OKC bombing. Here in Oklahoma, we remember. Everyday, we remember, especially when you drive through downtown OKC and are still jarred on occassion by the empty spot in the skyline.

For those interested, the memorial was opened last year and it’s a lovely thing. A walk through the Memorial Center will leave you with tears in your eyes, as does the lone remaining wall from the Murrah Building with the names etched into it. In fact, it’s difficult to get through the site with a dry eye. People still leave flowers and teddy bears on the memorial fence.

I have to go hug my kids now before they go off to school.

13

A wonderful tribute.

I’m a member of the generation that’s created Columbine and so many other tragedies and high school killings, and I don’t understand it any more than you do. Perhaps I’ve been lucky enough to live a sheltered life in that regard, because the community in which I live is very peaceful. Lines are drawn in my high school, but rarely with more weight than that of a stick pulled across the sand; they’re easily scuffed or even rubbed out. Those lines that are more steadfast, the ones that none of us will cross, we simply ignore and live around. Our social divisions (preppy vs. greaser, farm kids vs. hip-hop urban wannabes, etc) are there… but we don’t care about any of them enough to get violent. We have our violent people, but most of them are the “cowboys” who work on the farms, and they take out their aggressions by drinking and getting into fights outside of school. Our “outsiders,” the ones who would be most likely to commit a crime like what happened at Columbine, are ignored. It’s harsh, of course, but it’s better to be ignored than to be mocked daily. Believe me, I know. I’m just lucky, I guess.

Of course, even here the times they are a-changin’. This year’s freshmen, the class of 2005, are more violent than any other grade in the school. The middle schoolers are worse yet; each of the three bomb threats we’ve had in the past two years has been called in by students from the middle school. I just hope and pray that the tide can be stemmed.

And I mourn for the survivors of the tragedies that have already occured elsewhere.

14

I’d like to echo that. While I understand the anger felt by the parents of the other 13 students, it is important to remember that the families of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are hurting as well.

Thanks, Tech.

15

All I can hope for is that this thread is appreciated, that people look past what happened and know it was a tradegy that this world shouldn’t have, didn’t need to see, but it did and will learn something. I fear it isn’t something many will learn from. Some want to copy it and “succeed” where they didn’t…this scares me.

God, it was all over every news channel, it was horrific to see kids being escorted out of the school, it was horrible to know the many times I passed their school to go shopping, see a movie, to eat a dinner or to go party or to see my boyfriend and I never figured that something like that would have happened there. I didn’t hardly give the school a second look except for it’s “modern” look and wished I had gone to a school like that.

But in hindsight, I wish every kid in this world would look to someone, just someone and know that someone cares enough to help them with the hardest times in there lives…it all saddens me. It saddens me horribly.

16

Uhmmm, yeah. I did. We moved away just before things went ballistic. Yes, it was brutal. Sexual harassment before I was even sure what sex was, memorizing every exit from the school and varying which one I used, random rock-throwing, etc… etc… From the time I was six to the time I was thirteen. Yes, I was thirteen in Grade Nine, part of my problem.

I knew how to make napalm by the time I was eleven. We moved before I stepped over the line. The raging hormones of adolescence had negative impacts on my impulse control, and I was not a stable personality.

I understand what happened at Columbine. I don’t condone it. And in all this damn hysteria about the whole thing, everybody is blaming anyone and everything except themselves. Nobody is addressing the fact that these things get nurtured at home.

My parents tried to defend me - I was attacked by both those much bigger than I and by packs of kids. When they could get me to cough up names, and they tried to talk to the parents of these children, ya know what happened? Deny, deny, deny. "My little Johnny is such an angel, he doesn’t DO things like that, " [sub]yeah, your precious little Johnny is a budding psychopath and needs professional help[/sub] and “Well, she must have done SOMETHING to provoke them” [sub]apparently, breathing was a provocation[/sub] to a flat out “She’s lying!” [sub]yep, I put all those bruises on myself, and ripped up my own clothes[/sub] And then, of course, next time they caught me I got a worse beating - for being a rat fink. Oh yes, and if I defended myself, the kids would just pack up and go for me in multiples. Rarely, if ever, were they punished for what they did to me. That meant anything they could do to me was okay.

The school authorities? Hah. Only one or two ever really saw what was going on. A number of them classified me as one of those really annoying teacher’s pet types - not realizing that the reason I hung around the teachers because that was the only place I was almost safe. Some classified me as a whiner, since I tried following procedure and reported the incidents. They didn’t want to think that what was going on was that pervasive or that bad.

I eventually quit bothering to tell anyone about anything that didn’t leave a mark. Why? All it got me was more of the same or worse.

I was still deep in the fantasy stage when we moved. I dreamed of burning the school, while still inhabited, often. Sometimes the whole town. I have sometimes wondered if we’d stayed, would I have stepped over the line from fantasy to reality? I know I would’ve if the attempted sexual assaults (moved from harassment to assault when I hit puberty) had succeeded. Killing all of them seemed a much better idea than killing myself.

This was twenty-five years ago. The problem isn’t new. The scale of the reaction to it is. Oh yeah - twenty-five years ago, there were no video games or violent video movies to inspire the vicious little monsters around me. No real gangs for over 2000 miles. No drugs except for a little pot. No violent pornography in the hands of minors. I’d like someone to be looking for the REAL causes and answers, not the easy ones.

Aaaahhhh, this is something I’ve been studying ever since. I wanted to understand why. I’ve some ideas, but I’m not a behavioural psychologist or anything creditable like that. I’ll shut up now and quit hijacking.

Hnnnh. Maybe I should’ve posted this someplace else. But you asked…

{{Columbine}}

Ugly way to get a wake-up call. But nobody was listening until then. Trust me, people like me TRIED TO TELL YOU! (As in the great societal you.) You didn’t want to believe us. After all, it can’t be that bad. We’re just prone to childish exaggeration.
Sorry, I get worked up. Still dealing with remnants of the damage.

slinks away

17

My senior year of high school (which was 1992-93), we had a plain-clothes guard stationed in our parking lot. I went to an all-girls Catholic school in a “good” suburb. I don’t know to this day why they put that guy out there. I had never heard of anything dangerous happening in or near my school. That’s my closest experience with fear at a school (and the students weren’t all that worried about anything).
Last year, a co-worker mentioned that she was taking the day off to keep her kids (17, 15, and 7) home that day due to it being the anniversary of the Columbine incident. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to be a parent that has to be so afraid for the safety of their children at school.

{{{{{Columbine}}}}}