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This story by Dawn De Winter, posted on Crystal's Story Site is one of the funniest around. I first read it years ago, it was posted in 2001 and I've been re-reading it recently.
As a non-American, I don't know how true the portrait it paints of the US schools system and gangs, but I found it extremely more-ish. I also don't know how true the picture of middle America is, it's set in Des Moines, Iowa. Is Dawn still writing, because I don't see anything posted after 2003?
For those who haven't tried it, it is very clever, although there are one or two typos, and I thoroughly recommend it, oh, and be prepared to laugh out loud.
Angharad.
Comments
Mopeds
I Loved that storey! As a matter of fact I think it was you who pointed me to it a couple of years ago it seems? I grew up with motorbikes in Europe and know the feeling of "ANYTHING for a motorbike" ; without one you were just not cool, you were a ...pedestrian (ugh such a dirty word)
It was an interesting story...
As to whether it was like US High Schools... It's not like ANY I've been around, or people I know have - but it sounds like some where Gangs are big... Just don't know from personnal experience. (Which, I'm glad!)
Annette
Sharks and Jets
Although there is gang activity in US high schools, it may be a bit more dangerous and drug-related than depicted in the story. The use of the Sharks and the Jets as gang names may be a clue, for those were the gangs in West Side Story, as coyly mentioned in chapter 13.
>>>> When you're a Jet,
>>>> You're a Jet all the way
>>>> From your first cigarette
>>>> To your last dyin' day.
>>>>
>>>> When you're a Jet,
>>>> If the spit hits the fan,
>>>> You got brothers around,
>>>> You're a family man!
Notice the bowdlerised "spit," whose reference appears somewhat below.
The Sharks were Puerto Ricans, but they seem similar.
There is more violence by far than there was when I was in high school in Oakland, California. The year after I graduated, the school had its first knifing. These days, they have metal detection wands in the hands of the hall monitors, as I understand it.
So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut was wont to say.
Cheers,
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Middle Side Story
or a modern Rosemary and Juliet: doesn't have quite the same ring about it.
Angharad
Angharad
I don't know yet...
I've never read the story, and only discovered the Jets and Sharks references through accident. I found the story on Sapphire's Place after poking around on Storysite, which I never do, since there are such a crazy mixture of story types with no clear way to sort them out besides random stabs in the dark. It confused me at first, because it wasn't clear that parts weren't equivalent to chapters, so I looked through them all to verify that the story was complete.
Thus far, I'm through chapter three, and you're right that it's very funny at times, although disconcerting too. The comment about the tissues was eye-opening, and I hadn't ever seen such a grotty lifestyle depicted with what seemed very much like accuracy.
It seems the sort of thing Cary Grant could have played, when he was quite a bit younger, if course. He did a masterful job in "I was a Male War Bride," and was terribly good in farces.
Cheers,
Puddin'
--------------------
Snips and snails,
And puppy dog's tails,
That's what little boys are made of.
--- Mother Goose
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Very nice thus far...
>>>> His mouth began working like a guppy's in a dirty fishbowl.
Dawn has a definite way with words...
...and a definite need of good editor...
She has a tendency towards mishmash paragraph glops containing the thoughts and words of everyone within shouting distance. It may be that the examples I saw were transcription errors, but they were widely dispersed.
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
And here it is in French...
http://poly3d.com/plume/velomoteur.htm
Dawn obviously gets around a bit...
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Drug Free School Zone
is the printing on signs of American elementary, middle and high schools. So where can you go to get drugs? At the school of course. Gang Activity in the major US cities is out of hand. The police don't really enforce the criminal statutes when it comes to these gangs, unless someone is willing to come forward and testify, or a police officer actually sees it being done.
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin for instance, people on the south side are afraid to tell the police anything, for fear that one of the hispanic gangs will kill them, burn their house down, or both.
In Detroit, Michigan, gang activity is so bad that it takes more than one squad car to answer a call. In both of these cities, if you call the paramedics, they will wait until the police arrive before going to your address.
I don't know how these gangs got so out of control, but they are. And it isn't just gang violence on other gangs. These gangs are involved in importing drugs and selling them to school children. Some of the senior gang members are going into military service and coming back and teaching what they learned to their respective gang factions.
Yes Angharad, gangs and gang violence is a reality in American elementary, middle, and high schools.
Be strong, because it is in our strength that we can heal.
Love & Hugs,
Barbara
"With confidence and forbearance, we will have the strength to move forward."
Love & hugs,
Barbara
"If I have to be this girl in me, Then I have the right to be."
>> I don't know how these gangs got so out of control
Well, it's fairly obvious that it was done deliberately, through a new version of Prohibition, which worked so wonderfully with alcohol and increased the price of the stuff that it made "gin running" profitable for organised crime, which in turn made "law and order" a sure budget enhancer for the Feds (and local police departments) and ticket to power for conservative politicians, which turned into a vicious tautology. More crime = more power. You do the math.
In California, one public worker in four is, or will be soon, working for the Department of Corrections keeping "druggies" in jail, and the United States has more of its citizens in prison per capita than any other nation in the world, including the most depraved and oppressive police states. It's our bigest growth industry. In certain areas, it amounts to legalised slavery, as the prisoners are rented out to farmers and contractors as almost free labour. (The prisoners are paid a very small wage, around a dollar or two an hour, but they then pay "room and board" as a kickback to the prison system) It's a really nice racket for those who've never quite weaned themselves from chattel slavery.
In fact, not too many years from now, if the current growth rates continue, every adult citizen of California will either be behind bars, or standing just outside the bars guarding the rest of its citizens. Just who is going to be left to do productive work in this ultimate law and order fantasy is left as an exercise for the imagination.
It's something to brag about, eh?
Puddin'
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Saphire's place, maybe
I did a little looking for her from the Colonies, and all I could find other than what you have is some stories on Saphire's place. Wish I could help more.
Gwendoline