One memory that will not fade
Blakelee McCulley
Issue date: 5/20/09 Section: Mailbox
May 21, 1998. I was in the third grade. I remember the exact moment when it happened. It was just one of those moments that sticks with you. Sticks with you for so long you can remember it 11 years later. Sometime after lunch when we all settled back down in our desks, the adults had an announcement to make. A school shooting had happened, not too far from where we lived, an hour away. Thurston High School had joined the long list of school shootings.
Every year we used to go to Splash, the water park not too far from Thurston High, and every year before swimming we would stop to eat our lunch at the local community park close to the high school. Maybe that is why it has stuck with me for this long. I remember seeing smiling faces and older teens waving to us as we walked off of our bus to the park. It always seemed like a wonderful place to be.
You are probably wondering, why write a column about this? I just watched "Bowling for Columbine," and it brought me back to third grade, brown paper sack lunches and passing by a fence covered in flowers. Of course, then I realized how close the anniversary of the shooting is, and that made it even more poignant.
I could bring something up about gun laws and bringing them onto campus, but what good would that really do? It would mostly fuel the fire of an NRA person, which I have nothing to say against as I own a Winchester Model 70 rifle.
I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that we should not forget these moments. Keep in mind that a 15-year-old boy killed four people without a motive, or at the least a clear one.
Sometimes the unlikely happens and we are left to pick up the pieces and resolve the conflict as best we can. It is not enough just to brush it off like nothing happened. It did happen, and it is not going away as easily as some memories fade. That memory still lingers, 11 years later and counting, as it should.
Every year we used to go to Splash, the water park not too far from Thurston High, and every year before swimming we would stop to eat our lunch at the local community park close to the high school. Maybe that is why it has stuck with me for this long. I remember seeing smiling faces and older teens waving to us as we walked off of our bus to the park. It always seemed like a wonderful place to be.
You are probably wondering, why write a column about this? I just watched "Bowling for Columbine," and it brought me back to third grade, brown paper sack lunches and passing by a fence covered in flowers. Of course, then I realized how close the anniversary of the shooting is, and that made it even more poignant.
I could bring something up about gun laws and bringing them onto campus, but what good would that really do? It would mostly fuel the fire of an NRA person, which I have nothing to say against as I own a Winchester Model 70 rifle.
I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that we should not forget these moments. Keep in mind that a 15-year-old boy killed four people without a motive, or at the least a clear one.
Sometimes the unlikely happens and we are left to pick up the pieces and resolve the conflict as best we can. It is not enough just to brush it off like nothing happened. It did happen, and it is not going away as easily as some memories fade. That memory still lingers, 11 years later and counting, as it should.
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