There but for the grace of God go I.......

As the horrible news continues to filter out of Virginia Tech, people are asking themselves, why? Why does this sort of thing happen, seemingly more and more? We never had these kinds of problems when I was a kid. What is so different about now?

Well I'm not so sure we didn't have those kinds of problems when I was a kid. I think we had many of the elements which turn school kids into killers. Maybe not all of the elements we have today, but certainly many.

As I watched the news today, and thought back on my own childhood, I couldn't help but think, "that could have been me."

I had a somewhat normal childhood, at first. I was a fairly popular kid. Had friends, etc. But then, as I was preparing to enter Junior High, things changed. First of all, my parents got divorced when I was young. That was almost unthinkable in the Texas of the 1960's. Kids from divorced families were thought of a certain way.

Not only was I the child of divorce, but I also started seeing physical changes in my body that summer before 7th grade. I grew taller. I sprouted hair in strange places. My voice changed. I grew whiskers. And, along with it, a terrible case of acne. Most of my male classmates didn't enter puberty until later, so I was the oddball.

And on top of it all, the kids in my school seemed to sense that I was gay, even though I didn't know it myself at the time.

So, the bottom line is, I had all kinds of wonderful self-esteem things going on. And young kids can be cruel, horribly cruel. I can't say that everyone was cruel, but there were ringleaders. These guys tormented me relentlessly. And, of course, all the other students would acquiesce to the torment, and sometimes join in. I still remember walking into the locker room after gym class, and hearing the girlish screams from the naked guys as they grabbed their towels to cover up their "manhood."

The torment lasted through all three years at Pine Street Junior High. God, it was awful. I was on the lowest rung of the social ladder at the school. The only time I ever got invited to a party was when a guy wanted me to blind date his cousin, who was in from out of town. She turned out to be a fat, ugly, fairly toothless, young lady. That was a fun evening.

The only person who was as low as I was on the social ladder was another young man in almost the exact same circumstances. He was also from a broken home. He was also a big guy. He also entered puberty fairly early. He had a worse case of acne than I did. And he was thought of as "queer" by most of the campus. One thing he had over me was that he was pretty effeminate too.

So, Tim and I became friends. I kind of liked him. I honestly think the main thing that attracted me to him was that he was the one guy in school I could look down on, at least a little bit. I have never admitted that before to anyone. We started hanging around at each other's houses. Eventually that led to a little "ill show you mine......" That led to jacking each other off. And that led to the inevitable blow jobs. I still remember that day. We decided to give each other blow jobs. We were in my bedroom. He was going to do me first, and then I would reciprocate. Bad move on his part. Once I was done, I started to feel very guilty, and then I backed out. He eventually went home without a blow job, and I turned on him. I KNEW he was queer because he sucked my dick. Jacking off didn't count because, well it didn't. Eventually that news leaked out because I couldn't keep my mouth shut. He sank even lower on the social ladder than he was before, and I could enjoy watching his torment from my lofty perch on what used to be the lowest rung.

My three years in Hell finally came to an end when I finished Junior High and moved to High School. The thing that I feared most actually became my salvation. We were thrown in with different kids from other schools. My acne started to go away, about the time some of the other kids' acne hit its peak (one of life's little ironies I guess). I wasn't wildly popular, but I wasn't despised either, and that was a step up, Then, I got my first job in radio when I was a sophomore, and I suddenly became cool.

When I got to college, I really came out of my shell. I had lots of friends. Joined the Lambda Chi Fraternity, and generally had a good time. Too much of a good time, I'm afraid, as my GPA was average, at best.

And all the bad stuff was behind me. But was it? Every time we have some school shooting, I think of that lonely little fat kid with acne, who was tormented daily by his classmates. And I wonder why I didn't turn out like those kids that shot up Columbine.

You see, I know from experience that kids can be very cruel. And I also know that they can act one way amongst their peers, and then act a completely different way around adults. I quit the youth choir at my church because the pastor's son and his little gang of thugs tormented me. We went on a choir trip to Dallas one time, and they cornered me on a balcony on the 9th floor of the hotel, and threatened to throw me over. I complained to the choir leader but nothing was done. So I quit the choir. I also quit going to church at all.

When I was young, I was filled with hate. But, unlike the current crop of school killers, my hatred wasn't directed at the entire student body. There were a few select people who warranted that. I can still remember how I would plot to inflict horrible deaths on them. One in particular was a guy named David Lewis. Oh David, you have no idea what a grisly death was in store for you. Of course David's mother was good friends with my mom, and I always heard "what a sweet young man David is." He may have been sweet, but nothing would have made me happier than seeing him lying dissected while he was still alive on the table. In my mind, that was what I had in store for him. And then there was the pastor's kid. Oh man, you were lucky your dad got transferred to another church. And the guy, I can't remember his name, who threw a rock at me while I was walking to class. It was a fairly large rock, and I can still remember it shooting by, inches from my ear. Had I changed course, only a few inches, I would probably have been severely injured.

Once I became an adult, I had the opportunity to talk with others about their experiences. And I realized that most kids are dealing with a host of issues at that age. Some are worse off than others, but even the most glamorous beauty queen on campus probably has something going on inside her head.

The point of all this is: there are thousands and thousands of potential killers growing up in the schools today. We're lucky that all the elements only seem to come together for a handful of those kids. But most, if not all, have at least some of the elements brewing inside them.

There but for the grace of God go all of us.