It is the single word that forever changed the way America thought about school safety and mass shootings.
Columbine.
April 20, 1999.
Before I arrived at the University of Colorado in Boulder, a lifetime ago, I spent a year living in Littleton, Colo. That was before Columbine High School was built. Before what is now an eerily familiar script, two troubled young men walked into the school and started shooting. Before they were done, the killed 12 students and one teacher. Another 21 people were injured.
The image that forever stays with me is the line of students walking out of the school with their arms over their heads, to ensure they were not mistaken for one of the shooters.
Once I found out how much it was going to cost me to attend the University of Colorado as an out-of-state student, I had a decision to make.
It really wasn't much of a decision. I didn't have the money. So I made one of the crucial decisions of my life, at the age of 20. I decided to leave school, live and work in Colorado. In the process I became a state resident.
I spent that year in Littleton, living with my older brother and his family, and quickly learning to love the Colorado life.
This was the mid-'70's. There was still a lot of cowboy in Colorado. For a kid from the East Coast, it was a blast.
Despite coming perilously close to blowing all the money I had saved after working for a year as a waiter at the Denver Mariott on a new car that I wanted so bad I could taste it, my mother's fairly stern voice on the phone assured me that would not be a good idea.
I then spent two years in Boulder before packing up all my earthly belongings in the back of my brother's old Toyota pickup truck, pointing it east on I-70, and heading home.
Back east.
But I think I left a part of me in Colorado.
And I will never be able to think about Littleton without thinking about Columbine. And I will never be able to deal with the ugly memory of the Columbine shooting without thinking of the year I spent in Littleton.
For that I owe my older brother a huge thank you.
He and his family put up with me for a year.
I learned to ski, how to ride and care for a horse, and developed a keen appreciation for Coors beer.
Today kids across the country will walk out of school to note the anniversary of the Columbine shootings. One is scheduled for Haverford High. We'll be there to cover it.
My mind will be about 2,000 miles away.
Another time, another world really.
A world before Columbine.
And before what was once unthinkable could somehow come all too close to being routine.
Comments