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February 22, 2006
The Things You Remember (Or Perhaps Just Don't Forget)
I was recently reminded of an event in my last week of high school. Our whole class was assembled and read the riot act by the headmaster about something I had no clue about. He seemed particularly pissed at me, and made it a point to vent his spleen about how I should count myself extremely lucky that he didn't just expel me on the spot and leave me to explain to my parents why I wouldn't be graduating. Which would have gone something like, "I woke up this morning and got expelled, and I don't know why!" [Say that like Robin Leach and it's funny.]
In a flash I was in Bizarro World. It was one of those situations where the "adult" is convinced that the "child" is lying about "it" and nothing the child can say or do shy of admitting to whatever the hell "it" is will get them off the hot seat. In situations like this, it doesn't matter that you don't know what they're talking about. They are convinced you know and are just lying about not knowing. We've all been there. ...I lost a lot of respect for the principal that day.
Even at his retirement banquet years later he would have precious little to say to me; whatever "it" had been still colouring his image of me after all that time. And I never did learn what sacred trust he seemed so certain I had violated to warrant such disdain...
...until yesterday...
It turns out, and this is a summary as I am still no more privy to the exact details (and nor do I care to be), that a handful of my classmates -- the handpicked elite, the crème de la crème of the class, the anointed bright future leaders of America -- had been sneaking out at night (boarding school) and getting drunk and high in the hills overlooking the school. Someone had apparently discovered their activities and/or stash and had turned them and/or it over to the headmaster. True to form, the headmaster was more than willing to turn a blind eye (mostly due to his inability to admit to himself that he placed his faith in the wrong people) to the guilt of the guilty and direct it instead to any and all that these blessed lads cared to indict.
Apparently, they pointed their collective finger at me.
*sigh* (It all makes sense now.)
When first I heard this revelation I was rather unmoved. I knew too well the quality of persons the ruling elite of my HS class had been; their hypocrisy quite evident to those around them, and so my opinion of them did not change. The revelation of their cowardly buck passing came as no surprise. Rather my feelings toward my headmaster for whom I had had tremendous respect (coupled with admittedly some fear) shifted.
Here was this man, who without once having the decency to approach me regarding these allegations, had chosen to condemn me solely on the collective word of a recently disgraced group of liars. He chose to vilify me for my alleged rebuke of the very principles he had sought to instill in all of us; principles that I can honestly say only resonated within myself and a few others of the un-anointed of our class.
It is disappointing really.
There was a time when I loved my alma mater, but that was a long time ago. Bad memories can so easily crowd out the good. They're more traumatic at the time and etch deeper marks in our brains. Good memories (for me at least) are scrawled on my memory wall in Crayola Washable Markers, while bad memories get the Sharpie.
It's funny the things you keep with you. Even when you think them long forgotten the most innocuous occurrence can trigger their release into the surface thoughts of your brain.
I don't really give a shit that I was falsely accused of smuggling crap onto my high school campus. I never did it, and it's ancient history now. What does piss me off is that an old man whom I respected and who seemed so much wiser than all of us, couldn't see that he was being played by a bunch of shitheads, and that he chose to believe the worst of me because he couldn't accept the worst in them.
Looking back on it now, I can see how hard it would be to accept the fact that those in whom you placed your trust turn out to have been abusing that same trust all along. And I can even see the need to find an alternative explanation to focus your attention and avoid any unpleasant truth. Human beings have a long standing tradition of this practice.
Here's to tradition.
*deletes the HS Reunion invite email and gets on with life*
[*satisfied* A much better rewrite of the original sucky post. Yes, I deleted the original. My blog. My rules. :P]
Posted by Tacitus at February 22, 2006 03:59 PM