(Editor’s note: Welcome to Living Eulogies. All recollections are accurate in the author’s mind only. Apologies in advance to everyone who has different recollection of the same events. Send all complaints to Dan Patrick. The choice of a lawyer is an important one and shouldn’t be based on advertising alone.)
So this is where Living Eulogies become tough and need some explanation.
My intention when I started these things was to share with people while they are still alive my recollections of them. The hope was that it would start a chain reaction and people would or will eventually jump in with their own kind words about those with whom they shared classrooms and hallways for so many formative years.
Unsaid in this was that these recollections would be positive.
I mean, I’m not sitting here at my laptop 30 years after graduating Fox Lane High School looking to put people on blast like I’m freaking Eminem because of the shitty things they did — from my perspective only — when they were 13. I’m sure that there are people out there who could do the same to me and I’d be all indignant and spout off with “But I’ve changed since then!”
We all have. Right?
But then there’s this quote by an American novelist:
“Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
Anne Lamott
At the root of my conundrum today is that I believe people should take the time to make amends for the hurt they caused, whenever they might have caused it and whether they intended to cause it or not. I know that if there are people out there looking back on their School Dayz and think of me in a bad way during that time, I want to know about it so I can apologize and try to make things right going forward.
Which leads me to sixth grade and the subject I’ve written about a few times, though not in any detail on here.
Sixth grade was a pivotal time for many of us in the Bedford Central School District. We were forced off the safe confines of our elementary school campuses and thrown into this big mix of kids coming from four or five different schools at Fox Lane Middle School. Then we were divided into two houses, and rarely did the kids from each have any interaction with the other. East and West might as well have been as far as Japan and the United States, in some respects.
I faced further challenges in my own sixth-grade journey. A few months in, the kids I’d grown up with, the kids who’d been my good friends, great friends and best friends, the kids at whose houses I’d slept over and with whom I shared a baseball diamond and a history, decided en masse that I was no longer good enough to hang out with them. About seven months later, I learned the reason was something about my pretending to put blood from a cut on another’s jacket, which was an incident I didn’t and don’t recall and, even it were true, was not a reason for the bullying I went through at the hands of my former friends.
It makes me angry that this is such an important event in my life to this day. The kids who did the thing did not have any thought in their minds that they were doing it to someone who would one day be a grown-ass man — a middle aged one, at that — who would still remember what those months felt like as if they were yesterday. I didn’t want this to be a life-shaping thing. I never asked for it to be a life-shaping thing. But sitting here and looking back, I clearly see how it did, indeed, shape parts of my life.
And so the question comes up: In giving these Living Eulogies, what do I say about those kids? Because that’s what they were: Kids. And I’m sure most of them went on to not be the types of people who would do what they did as kids to another human being. Kids do stupid things. I did stupid things. My own kids did and do stupid things. It’s part of being a kid.
But then there’s Anne Lamott saying that if people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better. While I can most definitely give absolution to those kids, the truth is this: Exactly one of the dozen have ever actually apologized to me for his role in it back then. Matthew Palmieri wrote me a Facebook message a number of years ago and, because we were not Facebook friends, I didn’t see it until about a year after he wrote it. It is my own personal failing that I never wrote him back to thank him for that apology. It took courage and humility. I was a dink for never acknowledging it. I plan to fix that soon.
Here’s the thing: Bullies rarely think they’re being bullies, whether they are kids or adults. Bullies rarely see or feel the consequences of their actions. There are rarely moments in real life in which the bullied one rises up and stands tall against his bully — and maybe even is supported by the other bullied ones whom the bully has bullied. That’s sitcom shit, in my experience.
I say that to say this: I’m pretty sure my old Pound Ridge friends are clueless as to the hell they put me through back then and how it had an impact on not just me but by family back then and how it helped shape me into an adult who had and has some pretty big trust issues. Bullies — and humans in general — rarely think about the ripple effects of their actions when they’re taking them and often don’t really even want to acknowledge them when they’re confronted with the Truth (capital T) of what their words and actions did.
But the reality is that every step we take alters the future for someone or something. We have an impact on this Earth and everyone around us. A kind word at the right time can create positive ripple effects that spread out for ages. Hell, that’s part of the purpose of these Living Eulogies. But instead, we too often let our bad moods create negative ripple effects that are like the Plague.
Oh, and don’t tell me about your intentions. I don’t care what your intentions were in anything. I care about the reality of the results of your words and actions. Thinking you have nothing to regret or apologize for because you didn’t intend to be a negative in a person’s life is a narcissistic cop-out. Don’t go there with me. I ain’t havin’ it.
So here I am: At a pause point in the Living Eulogies. Why? Because there are so many people who were such amazing influences in my childhood who, for reasons I’ll never fully be able to understand, turned into the ones who tormented me and led me to, in too many negative ways, have some of the struggles I’ve had to face. And with the exception of Matt Palmieri, they all do so unrepentantly.
No, I don’t think an apology as we all race toward 50 would magically undo those struggles, and honestly, it’s not as if I’ve been sitting around waiting for anyone to say they are sorry. That said, I admit it was comforting to read Matt’s apology, which only underscored how quiet the rest of my Ridger buds have been in the years since then.
There’s another Truth to this: What happened in sixth grade probably was one of the better things to have happened to me when it comes to who I am today. I have faced a lot of struggles in my life, from the death of my first son to a whole host of medical battles and more. The sixth-grade experience started the journey that led me to be a dude who has perseverance in abundance.
But beyond that, it also opened my eyes to the world beyond the Ridge. Had that not happened, I don’t think I would have seen the reality of the world as clearly as I do today and how much of a secluded sanctuary Pound Ridge, New York, truly is. Easily 99% of the rest of the world does not live like those who live in the Ridge. I don’t begrudge anyone their wealth, but when that wealth creates a lack of compassion for the huddled masses (read, the other 99%), I do get a little bit impatient and irked.
Beyond forced out of the Ridge bubble introduced me to people who were so much more real and average and great. These people became good friends and valued me for me, not for what my parents had or where I lived or what they drove or I drove or how I vacationed. The people who are dear to me today are most definitely not the stereotypical Ridger. And I’m glad about that. It’s not that I don’t think there are good people who came from the Ridge or who live in the Ridge today. I’m sure there are.
I’m just not one of them and, for me, that’s a good thing.
Living Eulogies will continue. I think I’ll post the next one on Friday. But I’m going to give it a week or so to feel how things should be with those who were part of that Sixth-Grade Thing. I’d welcome any thoughts anyone has on this topic. I’m leaning toward a fair appraisal of how meaningful these people were before sixth grade while simply saying they were part of the Sixth-Grade Thing. That seems fair, and it feels like a just application of Anne Lamott’s quote.
But I’m not sure yet. So I’ll wait.
Who should be the next Living Eulogy? Email me at johnagliata@gmail.com.
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