What is This, I Don't Even

We’ve all heard the news. And it’s not often I have few smart-ass things to say.

…

But I’ll try to smart-ass a little. It’s really the only way I know to deal with this sort of thing.

I grew up and went to school 15 minutes from Chardon (Google Maps claims 30, but that’s not true), in Mentor, Ohio. I’ve frequented the city of Chardon on hundreds of occasions. My favorite apple orchard/farmer’s market is there. A great restaurant as well. Even as it grew from rural to suburban, the only things to really be angry about is that you were in BFE, there was a metric shit-ton of snow on the ground, and you were on top of some hill. In BFE.

If you didn’t click the link above about the news, what you missed is that two days ago (February 27, 2012) was a school shooting that would result in the death of three Chardon High School students, and leave one injured (and finally released from the hospital).

The very least I can do is extend my sympathies to all the students, family, faculty and friends.

Yet I can’t stop myself from analyzing the hell out of this. This was something that was never going to happen in my backyard.

Ever.

I suppose I was, to use a word I hate, “desensitized.” I mean hell, Columbine happened while I was still in my high school, Virginia Tech while I was in college, 9/11 too; these things happen.

But what of the other bunch of school shootings and tragedies that occurred between 1999 and now.  I kinda hate myself for not remembering them without research.

Here’s what I do remember: scoffing at the security guard booths that were posted in my high school after Columbine. Us students knowing that wasn’t enough; what the fuck could a few rent-a-cops do? We all knew how to get around them.

I’m not about to jump into the old, “back in my day, blah blah and such” argument from antiquity that kids are the same as we were fifty-odd years ago. There are similarities (we all still want to get laid), but the children are not the same. They’re growing up completely different: globalized. With the internets. And the MyFaceSpaces and whatnot.

What’s still left up in the air is the suspect’s motive, and it’s still too early for that.

And frankly, I’m not sure I want to find out what the price of a human life is.