The local news around here recently has been about girl who disappeared on her senior class trip to Aruba, an Island in the Bahamas.
Those of you unfamiliar with Birmingham should know that the girl was from Mountain Brook, the old money, most affluent suburb of this area. Lily white and often-snooty...the way old money often can be.
The newspapers were reporting the sanitized version of the story, but I got the truth from my youngest sister, Sara. I have to hand it to her...she always gets to the bottom of things.
Sara's new roomate just graduated with the missing girl and say that the fact that something like this happened isn't that surprising. Apparently there were 82 highly affluent teens on the trip, with a mere 4 sponsors...who I might add, were too concerned with funnelling beer than to keep an eye on the kiddies. And the roomie also says that the girl was "wild".
Aruba police report that three men who dropped the girl off by her motel have been dismissed from criminal charges and are not suspects. But something is highly suspect. It's suspect that if the girl had any sense at all she would have let three foreign guys escort her to a bar, then drive her home. One gets the feeling that the girl had maybe drank a bit much, smoked a bit too much pot, or maybe done some lines...the Bahamas are awash with drugs... and eager to sell to Americans with cash-flushed pocketbooks.
I suspect drugs were involved. I suspect lots of dodgy things that the press is being too polite to talk about right now. What is most telling is that the news, which normally sings the praises of even the worst teen criminals, has remained mum on the girls' character. Often what is not said is as important as what is said.
A good friend of mine ran wild through the streets of Paris at much too young an age during one of these trips. I probably would have done the same, but maybe I would have had enough sense not to take the sort of risks that this girl apparently took.
And I will tell you, I find it very hard to feel sympathy sometimes. I looked at the girl's picture and notice that she is the sort of popular kid who would have shunned me when I was in high school. I hung out at the back tables with my cheap shoes and my misery and my dyed hair.
My parents had a little money, but not that kind of money. I dunno, friends...do you ever feel a sort of revulsion in the core of your being when you see another Britney Spears copy-cat with platinum-dumb hair, a vacant smile, and too much lipgloss? Even if she might be dead?
I just get angry at the attitude behind it...it reminds me of four years spent in hell. I fit in nowhere, I had few real friends...and I saw an endless parade of these picture-perfect plastic girls.
Deep down inside, of course I wanted to be popular. Of course I wanted to fit in. I think that's what thrusts us all into the punk scene, the underground scene, the emo scene, the whatever not-the-mainstream scene.
Or as my friend Jon said, punk is nothing more than just a bunch of angry, ugly kids in someone's basement. How true.
Those of you unfamiliar with Birmingham should know that the girl was from Mountain Brook, the old money, most affluent suburb of this area. Lily white and often-snooty...the way old money often can be.
The newspapers were reporting the sanitized version of the story, but I got the truth from my youngest sister, Sara. I have to hand it to her...she always gets to the bottom of things.
Sara's new roomate just graduated with the missing girl and say that the fact that something like this happened isn't that surprising. Apparently there were 82 highly affluent teens on the trip, with a mere 4 sponsors...who I might add, were too concerned with funnelling beer than to keep an eye on the kiddies. And the roomie also says that the girl was "wild".
Aruba police report that three men who dropped the girl off by her motel have been dismissed from criminal charges and are not suspects. But something is highly suspect. It's suspect that if the girl had any sense at all she would have let three foreign guys escort her to a bar, then drive her home. One gets the feeling that the girl had maybe drank a bit much, smoked a bit too much pot, or maybe done some lines...the Bahamas are awash with drugs... and eager to sell to Americans with cash-flushed pocketbooks.
I suspect drugs were involved. I suspect lots of dodgy things that the press is being too polite to talk about right now. What is most telling is that the news, which normally sings the praises of even the worst teen criminals, has remained mum on the girls' character. Often what is not said is as important as what is said.
A good friend of mine ran wild through the streets of Paris at much too young an age during one of these trips. I probably would have done the same, but maybe I would have had enough sense not to take the sort of risks that this girl apparently took.
And I will tell you, I find it very hard to feel sympathy sometimes. I looked at the girl's picture and notice that she is the sort of popular kid who would have shunned me when I was in high school. I hung out at the back tables with my cheap shoes and my misery and my dyed hair.
My parents had a little money, but not that kind of money. I dunno, friends...do you ever feel a sort of revulsion in the core of your being when you see another Britney Spears copy-cat with platinum-dumb hair, a vacant smile, and too much lipgloss? Even if she might be dead?
I just get angry at the attitude behind it...it reminds me of four years spent in hell. I fit in nowhere, I had few real friends...and I saw an endless parade of these picture-perfect plastic girls.
Deep down inside, of course I wanted to be popular. Of course I wanted to fit in. I think that's what thrusts us all into the punk scene, the underground scene, the emo scene, the whatever not-the-mainstream scene.
Or as my friend Jon said, punk is nothing more than just a bunch of angry, ugly kids in someone's basement. How true.