Beware of Chewy Water

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your 

high school class is running the country.” 

 -Kurt Vonnegut

Or your whole Jr. High class works at the local grocer. 
Whoa, they got far in life. 

Today I adventured into that lovely city called Magna, which in Latin means great or large. Pause... just hold one a sec, while I go laugh in the corner uncontrollably. Breath, breath. Oh right, I'm back. If anyone knows ANYTHING about  Magna they know there is nothing great or large about it. It was once a thriving mining town but is now turning into something that resembles a mix between a ghost town and a government housing development. All it needs is for a tumbleweed to roll through the middle of town. Ok, it's not that bad, but I am only exaggeration a little.

Don't you see the need for tumbleweed?

No, this whole post is not about bashing Magna. It's about three years of... cough... sputter... choke, choke... fond memories that took place in Magna, where you have to chew your water. Or in other words, Jr high school. While running errands today, I drove past good old Matheson Jr High, and the memories came flooding in, some of them that have been repressed for years. 

We were the Tigers and or colors were
Green, Blue and Yellow... go figure

It is state law that a school has some many fire and lock down drills. Let's just say Matheson never had to schedule one... they just happened... naturally. Let's time travel back almost seven years, to eight grade. PE class to be exact. Here I am running the timed mile (cause that is all you do in PE, is run the timed mile, while the teacher sits on his lazy butt) when the fire alarm goes off... for the second time that year. By this time we all know the drill and head for the nearest exit. And wait in the back parking lot... and wait... and wait. By this time PE is done (thank goodness for that!) and we are halfway through the next period. And so much that rule about keeping with your class. It's just a mad free for all or runny, screaming preteens. When they finally let us back in, the story filtered through the students fast... faster then the teachers knew what was happening.  Two girls in the bathroom. And the plot thickens. With lighters. Who get this genius idea to put them right next to, what they thought was, the automated sprinkling system. Where did all this brilliance come from? But it gets even better. These were not water sprinklers, these were black foam dispensers. The kind that sucks the oxygen out of the air and causes less water damage. But here's the clincher... the black foam dyes everything. Clothes. Skin. Hair. The Culprits. Even if they hadn't been dyed black from head to toe, I still wonder how they thought they were going to get away if they had been being soaking wet... Regardless, they were caught pretty quick, and I got out of two full periods of class. Thank you stupid girls. 

Then there were countless garbage cans that somehow spontaneously combusted. 

Next on the list of required drills... lock down. This one was actually because of outside forces and not because of some preteen who's head had not been fully connected. Ninth grade was when the immigration debate became extremely heated in my area. Or the first time a actually noticed.   

There was a huge protest going on around my school. People were actually coming on school grounds and throwing rocks and banging on the windows. Many students who's parents were immigrants or immigrants themselves didn't show up to school that day, and many more walked out of school to join the protest. We had police at every entrance and to have special clearance to get in and out for seminary. It was one of the most terrified I have ever been. And an eye opener. For the first time I realized that no debate had a wrong side or a right side. Just normal human beings stuck in bad situations, trying to do their best. Everything became more grey to me that day. 

While maybe my math, science, and reading skills suffered from going to Matheson, my street smarts increased and my empathy and understanding for other expanded. I now know how to identify the smell marijuana and the look someone has when they are high. But I also know intense pain is usually the reason and the outcome for drug use. I now know the colors and other identifying makers for most of the major gangs in Utah. But I also know the human feeling of wanting to belong somewhere, anywhere, is a strong pull and leaves a desperate void that needs to be filled.  As Albert Einstein once said, "never let... schooling interfere... with education." So, my schooling lacked, but I sure did get an education.