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When I was really little I went to a school way out in the woods in Michigan.
It was a special school. I went to a series of special schools. This was the first one. It was special, because it was down home. It was probably the best place and time in the world to be treated as a “gifted” child without all of the trappings that come with that label in the 2020s, with all the cultural battle.
In other words, I got to be treated smart, but treated country. And it was lovely. Truly.
My class was a total of I think 14 kids at its biggest. I left this school after fourth grade. Just after I went through the experience of the Reagan election, in which, as a non-voting student encouraged to pretend he was a voter already, I was firmly backing the independent candidate. Even then. You think my Bernie thing came outta nowhere? You ain’t been paying attention.
Anyway, I left this great school, but I always cherished the memories of this school. Now, fast forward to Facebook, and it’s around 2009 or 2010, and everybody in Gen X is reconnecting with all their old classmates, even the ones from way back. I’m there, and a core group of us from this elementary school in the woods are finding each other. But very soon something becomes clear.
We, the brothers and sisters of the Michigan country special school in the beautiful seventies——we were now living in different times. Oh yes. I didn’t understand this at first. But very soon, it became clear that many of my old guy friends, in fact the majority of them, were now going to shun me.
Because of politics. They simply did not reply to the many attempts to include them in the reunion conversations. And I wasn’t even a hardcore Democrat. I was already supporting Bernie Sanders, and I was deeply critical of the Obama administration for reasons that very likely had very little to do with why my fellow old classmates hated him.
But still, I was outright shunned. No dice, buddy. Old memories? You can’t share them unless you suck GWB’s dick. No thank you. Really, no thank you.
But it hurt my feelings. Bad.
And later I did something because of that. I didn’t know it, but hurt will always express itself. Always. Unless it’s addressed.
So a few years later, on Instagram, I posted a screenshot of a text exchange I’d had with my buddy Warren. This was at the time that many, many elected officials at the federal level were trying to wring as much political juice out of their hatred of Iran as possible. And I had said to my buddy that back in elementary school I had a friend named Gary, who was the dumbest kid in my class, and he asked one day back in 1979 why we didn’t just put Iran in jail. And now here were these actual United States senators asking the same damn dumn question. I was criticizing the senators, but I used the memory of Gary and his 1979 question to do it.
But you know what? Gary wasn’t the dumbest kid in our class. Not at all. There were no dumb kids, actually. And I imagine, despite his shunning me later in life, that he’s still smart now. He published a book, so good sign. He was my friend. We had good times. I feel good when I think of his goofy smile back then. But it really hurt my feelings that he completely ignored me later in life because of presumptions about my beliefs that were likely 94% incorrect.
So there I went, hitting him back in private, and then screenshotting it, and then hitting him back in public.
Well, guess what. Another mutual friend of ours from that elementary school class in the woods saw my post on Instagram. And this old friend, whom I still cherish, and whose adult battle with alcoholism and finding meaning in life I deeply respect (he speaks of it publicly)——well, he had also shunned me. Hard.
This was literally the first time he had reached out to me since 1980. And he reached out to say, in defense of our mutual friend, “people will be able to tell who you’re talking about.” And so I deleted the post, and I replied, I’m sorry if I offended you. And then I got super mad and I blocked him.
I don’t block anyone anymore, unless they’re truly being evil. I’m over that. But I suddenly felt his quantum eye on me, and I didn’t like it. The surveilling eye of the former friend turned foe, making assumptions about me that are totally untrue, totally unsupported by the evidence, and yet believed by many who won’t even reach out to me to say hello. His eye watching my move, criticizing me in his heart while shunning me. I had to block it.
I learned a lot from this. I don’t feel I owe this friend whom I still respect an apology at all. But I do owe Gary an apology. Gary, you’re not dumb. You never were. I’m sorry I got mad that you shunned me. You hurt my feelings.
I’m over it now, and I pray that people just look at each other, including me, with a new eye now. We’re really done for as a planet. These grudges are ridiculous.
Apology over. And out.