When I was growing up, I wasn't what you'd call one of the "wild ones." Much to the surprise of many of my friends, I was one of the quiet ones. I generally kept to myself and spent a lot of time in the library. By the time third grade rolled around, I could give you the details of a good number of Greek and Roman myths. At least once, I got in trouble for calling a classmate a name she had to ask the teacher what it meant.
I had to explain it to the teacher too.
When I was growing up, we would get into the kind of mischief that little boys would get into. We would run around, tease the girls on the playground and sometimes break into a rousing game of "Oak Cliff" freeze tag, which requires a great deal more rock throwing than regular freeze tag.
I got tagged an awful lot.
When I was growing up, I spent way too much time daydreaming. I'd sit in class everyday wishing I was someplace else. Specifically, behind the wheel of the Mach Five or the Batmobile. The only time I didn't daydream was during Language Arts class. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Tillis, would put pictures up on the chalkboard and we would have to pick one to write a story about. I wrote stories about cowboys, about divers, about old men sitting on benches. And aside from a grade
from the teacher and maybe some comments on my grammar, my writing drew very little attention.
And it still does.
When I was growing up, badly written Halloween stories were a dime a dozen. Everyone tried to put their best frights into tales about Frankenstein or Dracula or any other number of favorite monsters. It was always a "dark and stormy night" and your friends were always with you.
Today, there are scarier monsters that any we found in the movies then. There is a mindset that has turned kids into killers. Today, the mischief kids get into is likely to be shown of the evening news accompanied by pictures of of the blood-stained crime scene. Scarier still, it's never who you expect. Never the wild ones.
It's always the quiet ones.
Today, there is a mindset that has turned rest of us into the victims, fearful of what waits around the next turn. Today, we are willing to sacrifice our freedom and our children to try and beat these monsters. We have turned into the angry mob, storming the castle with pitchforks and torches.
And now everyday is Halloween.
But, when I was growing up . . .
©1999 shut up & dance.com
