Jeesus! Sometimes I feel sooooo lucky. I got pushed around a lot as a kid. Actually when kids upend your briefcase in front of everybody, and you watch all your stuff go all over the floor, it's totally humiliating. If you don't fight back right then (I didn't), that sort of stuff will go on for a long time. I was the (willing) victim of lots of minor stuff, and by the time I was 13, was totally terrified of school. The only time I fought back was when three kids cornered me one night (I had been sent to a private boarding school to get "adjusted") in the school gym. I was so scared, I simply snapped. Talk about a 'primal' scream...I flew at one of them, and all I could think about was tearing him to pieces. At that moment, I wouldn't have cared a whit if I'd died in the process, as long as I killed him. Fortunately he got away and they ran off.

Why was I so "different"? Don't know. I WANTED to belong. My folks tried so hard to help..but I simply couldn't communicate why I was so shy.

As I've mentioned in great detail ad nauseum, I discovered folk music, and the world became a brighter place...but am I ever glad that I didn't have access to a gun that night, cause I would have gleefully used it.

To this day, the 'bully' is my least favourite creature on the planet.

Gun laws will never be changed quickly enough to make a real difference, and teching kids to respect each other is a Hurculean task, considering that the teachers themselves are probably polarized by religion and politics. Is it too much to ask that the media not turn these kids (shooters and shootees) into TV stars?

Rick