mass murder at the high school

So I searched the internet for news from the 70's and I asked the Boys from Engineering if they remembered anything. It was true.

It's funny to think that you could forget something like that. Maybe there's some psychological reason for it, I don't know.

One winter day in my teeny tiny little home town, one of my classmates went into the High School with a duffel bag full of weapons and proceded to shoot and kill a whole bunch of strangers.

It wasn't exactly like the Columbine shootings. School wasn't in session and the victims weren't necessarily students and teachers.

It was during Christmas break on a sunny Saturday morning. The kid was carrying a duffel bag full of rifles, a gas mask and some spray paint. He barricaded himself in the Student Council room on the third floor at the front of the school building and spray painted racial epithets all over the walls.

Then he opened the window.

Then he opened fire.

First, he shot anybody who was walking along the street. It must have taken a few minutes for people to realize what was going on, since the school building was set back pretty far from the street and maybe people didn't associate the sound of the gunshots with what was happening.

Before long, people caught on to the fact that there was a sniper shooting people at random. They ran for cover, leaving four or five injured or dead citizens lying on the street and sidewalk.

Next, the sniper turned his attention to the heroic people who darted from cover to try to help the ones who were injured. He shot several of them. It was soon impossible to reach the victims without being shot.

The police arrived about this time. They entered the school and tried to make their way to the Student Council room. The door was blocked and there was a maniac on the other side of it with a big pile of deadly weapons.

Two old WWII tanks were brought in from the armory a few blocks away. You could hear their tracks jingling on the pavement as they made their way to the school building.

Police and perimedics ran along on the leeward side of the tanks as they drove down the street to provide cover for the victims to be rescued.

By this time, the police had fired a teargas cannister into the window. The sniper had bought his gasmask from the Army surplus store on the main street of town. I guess it was considered a novelty item, rather than a working gasmask.

He was apprehended.

I knew the kid. He was in my gym class. His name was Anthony. He was two years older than I was, a skinny, shy kid that everybody picked on. On the day when the wall between the girls' gym was pulled back for a special co-ed class, the backup quarterback de-pantsed Tony.

Every Monday during home-room announcements, the scores from any school sporting events were announced. The football team rarely won, the rifle team rarely lost. Tony's name accompanied most of the rifle team announcements. He was a very good shot.

Anthony was tossed in the local jail. We all talked about the event for days afterwards. Nobody had ever experienced something like this. Soon, though, it started slipping from our minds.

When Tony hung himself in his jail cell, the local paper printed his suicide note. We all talked about that for days afterwards.

But soon, it started slipping from memory. By the time those two kids went to Columbine with bags full of weapons, I had totally forgotten about Tony.

I haven't been back to that town in many years, and as the years go by, I lose track of my friends from those days. I wonder if they still think about Tony and his wild shooting spree whenever the newest school shooting is reported on the news. I wonder if the memories faded for them like they did for me.

I wonder if folks in Columbine will ever forget their tragedy.