Shrillness

I finished the writing I was doing ... fondly reminiscing about running a school in the 1970's ... when an online discussion began over someone posting a news article about someone who moved out of the area and became involved in unethical -- maybe even unconscionable -- behavior with a patient. Comments began flying about
-- How wrong it was for the person to post this article ...
-- How both the Dr and the patient required our concern ...
-- How we should be primarily concerned about the patient ...
-- How this was wrong to attack the messenger ...
-- How no one was attacking the messenger ...
-- How 'yes, they were' ....
-- How it was wrong to criticize the person who criticized the messenger --
-- How nobody did ...
-- How this was a gender thing .... men taking advantage of women ...
-- How this wasn't a gender thing, necessarily ....

Geez ... And I thought taming the playground at my school was a job. Reading the postings gave me an itch! Ah! Maybe it's just Winter dryness?

I would think the average age of posters to this discussion was >60 and the average number of years of education held by participants to the kerfuffle was >25. People who spent half their post-kindergarten lives in school and the next half "helping" people deal with a difficult world and are now Playing in the Last Quarter? I think they're playin' too hard.

What struck me was the shrillness of the discussion ... So much like the playground.

Before I took over the school in 1976, I recall an incident:

Randy says -- in code -- to Keith who's looking out the window: "Yo'Motha &^%%^$#@^*&"
Keith throws a chair out the 2nd floor window (no Juliet at the window was he).
Randy runs upstairs.
Keith discusses Randy's Mother.
Fight! Fight!
Teacher enters ....
TEACHER IN FIGHT!

And, by the way, pretty much everybody knew that Keith's Mother hadn't really indulged in solo horizontal aerobics with all of the hometown's National Football team!

In any case .... age, grandchildren and school-bought wisdom don't seem to act as proof against acting shrill ... hey! ... I mean acting like a horse's sphinctor magnum.

WHY AM I PULLING PUNCHES. Age and wisdom don't act as preventatives against acting like a horse's ass.

Lee Hayes in the many years before he grew old, died, and was composted (at his own request, as I recall) ... used to sing a song (How Do I Know My Youth is All Spent) that had some lines in it about gittin' old (something like): Each morning I wake up and dust off my wits/Roll outa bed and read the obits/If my name ain't there, I know I'm not dead/So, I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.

Think if I told my colleagues they should give it a rest they'd thank me?