Mrs. Martin had completely lost her grip on sanity. My seventh grade Science teacher had her 50 year old hands firmly surrounding Bevin Flavin’s neck. A few moments before, Middle School Principal Ernest Barbieri’s voice had come over the classroom loudspeaker with an urgent announcement: “Attention all students and staff; please begin executing exit plan A. Move to the designated spots on the exterior of the building as quickly as possible.” It was somewhere around the time Mr. Barbieri said “Attention” that Bevin jump out of his seat and started to jump up and down in exuberant celebration of yet another bomb threat.
In 1973 “Bomb Scares” were all the rage in New Paltz and many other New York State Public Schools. Poor Bevin Flavin was the victim of a good intentioned, but extremely frustrated school teacher. Bevin was, inappropriately of course, demonstrating what every 13 year old teen was feeling about another school holiday thanks to the “idle bomber”. After approximately four seconds passed Mrs. Martin allowed her death hold to relax and stood in the middle of the room motionless as the students pushed by her heading for the exists. I stood on the old High School gridiron that day waiting for the busses to take us home and made my first psychological diagnosis to Cherie Kidd: “I think Mrs. Martin is having a nervous breakdown.”
It wasn’t Halloween yet and the New Paltz Middle School was being sent home for the forth time on account of a bomb threat. Quite possibly, the administration at New Paltz Schools decided to start ignoring the threats because it was the last time in the remainder of my tenure at New Paltz that class was dismissed for the threat of a bomb.
Some 50 years later America’s public schools are no longer given warning that potential death is on the way. Today there are no announcements or escape routes available to the children as blazing AR-15s fired bullets through the hallways of America’s schools. Today’s Mrs. Martin’s are not running to choke Bevin Flavin, but they are sprinting to shield their students from rapidly firing weapons of war. It would be reasonable to ponder if Mrs. Martin (an outstanding teacher and person) could see into the future. Maybe she had visions that the “bomb scares” of the 70’s turning into the mass shootings of the 2000’s. Last week America’s latest tragedy happened at Robb Elementary School in a small southern border town Located in Uvalde Texas. A 18 year old, non resident of Uvalde, entered the school with an AR-15 style rifle opening fire, killing 19 children and 2 adults. America has come a long way making the days of bomb threats seem like harmless pranks. The latest rage in American public school is for 18 year old males toting automatic weapons running through hallways seeing how many lives they can steal. We can add another crisis to the top of the list: What is America going to due about eliminating school violence?
In small towns across America, in Blacksburg, Parkland, and Sandy Hook far too many tragic days of guns spraying our country’s classrooms. “We’ve had enough!!” we shout. But what action do we take? What plan do we offer? How long before we’ve had enough again? The cries can be heard through the gun fire. “We have to stop school shootings” The AR-15 style rifle seems to be the weapon of choice for these school shooters. Most of the voices I have heard support more background checks, the end to selling these weapons to the public, or at least moving the legal age to purchase an AR-15 from 18 to 21.
I do believe any hope of taking guns back is impractical. I have never shot a gun in my life and hopefully I will never have to but I still remain an adamant supporter of the second amendment. I am in agreement that adjustments to specific compliances regarding gun laws are needed. I believe it is a waste of time and money to talk about taking back guns. Americans need to get real and stop talking about taking back guns. There will be a civil war if the government seriously attempts to take guns away from Americans. Does anyone think Americans should turn their guns over to a government who does not have their best interest at heart? There is plenty of common ground between the political parties on this particular tragic issue, so let’s take advantage of the the opportunity. I do not know one American who is against developing a plan to put an end to gun violence, especially in our schools.
In my office I have a T.V. that is opposite the way I look when typing into the computer. Yesterday I turned around and instead of Jen. Psaki or Joe Biden standing behind the podium of the Presidential Press Secretary it was actor and author Matt McConaughey. I have a pretty strict rule that I do no listen or read anything from Hollywood people whose I.Q. are half the size of mine. After my “what the fuck is he doing there,” reaction I decided to listen. I confess to being pleasantly surprised as McConaughey spoke many of the words I have heard myself saying over and over: He pleaded passionately to the American people: “We all are very close to being on the same page when it comes to gun regulations and control.” He then continued on to point fingers in a justifiable way. He called on the media to be more responsible and refrain from their constant bias in covering news.
He pleaded for us stop being hung up on Democrat and Republican and start talking issue to issue. The issue he was discussing was gun violence and the most recent school massacre with occurred in his home town of Uvalde, Texas. Mr. McConaughey didn’t use the words common sense, but he delivered his message with a practical two sides of the street American attitude. He suggested that maybe the 400 billion we sent to Ukraine, or the 1.3 trillion proposed to forgive college tuition may be better spent to make schools in our own country safe.
To make our schools safe should absolutely be a top priority, this should have been a top priority the last 20 years. Obama and Trump did nothing and still we do not have a single viable solution except ” Take Back Guns!” Our government needs to pledge that we are going to throw money at American Schools to limit entrance ways to the building during the school day. We need one armed type of law enforcement at each entrance. Every entrance should have a trap door past the first door. We should commit that within five years we will eliminate school shootings. If our government had taken better precautions these needless killings of 100s of children would have never happened. I do not blame guns, I blame sick people, and a gov’t who has gone out of their way not to help. Matt McConaughey was standing at the podium asking Americans to come together to protect our most valuable asset. There is not an overnight solution. The first step is the government finding a way to regain America’s trust. Who wants to play nice with a government that is more interested in a global new world order than the American Dream? Our government must stop being woke and wake the fuck up. It is time for all of us to understand that we are in this together and if our government doesn’t want to go along they will find themselves with a war on their hands that has nothing to do with Putin.
It was 1973, I was 13, and my only concern was whose house the spin the bottle party was at this weekend. One moment I was dissecting a worm and the next my science teacher was strangling Bevin Flavin. The vision of Mrs. Martin’s veins bulging and eyes bugging got etched in my mind and hidden in a place only to emerge in connotation with the recent school shootings. The truth of the matter is 90% of the kids secretly celebrated those bomb scares that fall. Nobody was killed, nobody was injured, and besides Mrs. Martin choking Bevin Flavin I wasn’t aware of any other incidents. Mrs. Martin probably understood better than her 7th grade class that these threats of violence were a precursor to the school mass shootings we are seeing today. I asked a student who was in that class that day in 1973 if she remembered the long ago incident: ” I remember dissecting worms and the bomb scare, I don’t recall Mrs. Martin choking Bevin. But it doesn’t surprise me, Bevin was a teacher’s whipping boy and Mrs. Martin was known to be mean.” Today, the threats are over, the bullets, the deaths and blood is embedded on the hands of all of us. Back in 1973, bomb threats were a common occurrence throughout the the country with zero deaths attached. Since 2000 approximately 550 children have been killed on a day their parents kissed them and put them on the morning school bus. It is well past time that America concentrates its efforts and its dollars on an agenda to keep our children safe.
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