Tuesday, July 12, 2011
I attended the tiny school at Buckley, Michigan from 1974 through 1979, from 4th through 9th grades. The school had about 300 kids, kindergarten through 12 grade. Really, it was an awful school at that time. Any attempts to improve the school failed because local residents thought, "It was good enough for me back in 1948, it is good enough for me now."
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I was constantly picked on because I was book-smart, physically weak, and considered a sissy. I remember the time when Steven J. told me he was going to beat me up at lunch time and sure enough he found me and beat the shit out of me. Teachers didn't do anything about this sort of behavior. The hippie math teacher, one of the few teachers I liked, would eventually kill himself because he was a closeted homosexual.
Traverse City is the big town nearby and the City commissioner passed a non-discrimination ordinance in October 2010 that banned employers from firing people because they are gay or lesbian. Of course the local born again homophobes have raised enough signatures to put this on the ballot. One of the ringleaders in this effort is Matt Schoech. His brother John was in my class and we were friends.
For the last 10 years Matt Schoech has been focusing on this issue. Back in 2001, he was successful in preventing a similar ordinance from being enacted. You really have to wonder why a straight man would be so interested in this issue. Marcus Bachmann syndrome?
I looked up the Buckley school and was pleased that it has changed, the school actually boasts of its academic excellence and prohibits bullying.
Buckley Bear, ironic isn't it?.
