Hit Me Baby One More Time

One of the big stories in the news today has to do with a teen from Bethesda basically plotting to kill lots of people, perhaps even POTUS (that’s the President of the US, for the non-Washingtonians).

Apparently, this teen and a friend have been testing pipe bombs, stock piling guns and ammunition, devising lists of teachers to be killed, learning about how to kill someone from 200 meters away, and obtaining and marking a map of Camp David. Interesting, huh?

The kid at the center of it all is an 18-year old, just graduated from high school. The friend is a year younger and still in high school. Those are two lives that are lost right there. I am not sure of the entire back story, but apparently the two were being investigated for bomb-making and all the rest of the goods were discovered when they searched the home of the older boy. It’s really scary.

The story made me think about my high school, good old Newfield High School, and how, while I was there, it had the reputation of being “homicide high” because of a couple of incidents that occurred. The most notable incident was the Cheryl Pierson story. Cheryl claimed she was sexually abused by her father, and was afraid he would start in on her little sister. So, she hired a classmate to kill her father. Which he did. This was big, huge news and they even made a TV movie about it. There were some other incidents that occurred regarding Newfield students doing hideous things, but since I don’t have all the specifics, I won’t mention them.

While I was writing this blog post, I was doing a little bit of research into Newfield since it’s been a while since I was a student there. Apparently, it’s now an up-and-coming school. It’s completely revamped, with new facilities and amenities. Must be nice. And, I found out that one of the finalists on the last season of Project Runway was from freaking Selden (my home town) and graduated from Newfield. How about that? And, can you believe Newfield has a Wikipedia article? That’s just crazy.

I’m a little peeved that the school got all revamped and great after I graduated. We got stuck with all the homicide, crumbling building, and resentful teachers, and the kids today get new classrooms and stuff. I bet the teachers actually want to be there too. So not fair.