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Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

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I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

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Be a wild strawberry.

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You are here: Home / Justice / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / I’m Completely Over 90% of My High School Friends

Reader Interactions

163Comments

  1. 1.

    The Castle

    I guess the crazification factor is a little higher than 27% in WV.  You are from WV originally, right?

  2. 2.

    Karen Potter

    High school in Wisconsin, they didn’t change just vocal and proud of being racists.

  3. 3.

    Karen Potter

    I firmly believe that people haven’t changed, just that bunker baby has made it acceptable. So since it is now acceptable they are vocal and willing to be on media harming, killing without remorse.

  4. 4.

    PenAndKey

    @Karen Potter: I attended a podunk school district in Western Wisconsin fhat only existed because two towns merged districts to survive and my graduating class was still under 40 kids. Of those I am only still in contact with three of them. The rest are, almost to a one, hardcore “farmers are the only TRUE Murcans!” MAGA idiots. I purged my account of all of them a couple years ago. I can only imagine how bad they are now.

  6. 6.

    frosty

    Most of my high school friends are still friends. The people who come to the reunions? Probably about 40% OK…. well, most of those conversations didn’t involve politics. So maybe 25%.

  9. 9.

    hells littlest angel

    “Friend” requests from people I went to high school with were one reason I cancelled my Facebook account.

    If you haven’t heard from someone for 25 years, there’s usually a reason.

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    Anyone mentioned this part of the Jacksonville hoo-ha yet? (from WaPo)

    Under the current schedule, Trump would accept his nomination on Aug. 27. In Jacksonville, that is the 60th anniversary of Ax Handle Saturday, when a mob of 200 white people chased peaceful civil rights protesters with ax handles and baseball bats. Events to commemorate that anniversary are already planned in a park not far from where Trump would accept the nomination. Source

  13. 13.

    MisterForkbeard

    As someone who literally posted about being called “pro-rapist” by a high school friend a couple of days ago, I fully support this feeling.

    For the record. saying you think Reade has some credibility problem means you just lurve rapists.

  14. 14.

    geg6

    I have a few friends from high school who are still awesome or who have matured awesomely.  I had a fairly large high school class, the largest that district ever had, of about 465.  I’d estimate that about 15% are great and hate the GOP with a passion.  Another 30-40% are nice people who don’t talk politics but who aren’t put off by my more strident FB posts.  And the rest are and always were unrepentant assholes and not worth the effort.  Every one of them voted for Trump.  As a very wise man once said, fuckem.

  15. 15.

    andy

    it’s always amazing how fucking old my classmates look and act at reunions, almost as amazing as how they arrange themselves into the same old pecking order from 30 years ago. i’m so glad we’re not having a 40th reunion, thanks to the ‘rona.

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    I didn’t hang out with my fellow students when I was in high school and see no reason to alter that situation.

  19. 19.

    MisterForkbeard

    @NotMax: They don’t care.

    I don’t think it’s intentional, honestly. I think they just don’t bother to look into stuff like this because they know that their entire party doesn’t mind at all  and will probably be happy when some liberal points out that they’re celebrating racism.

    I would not be terribly surprised to see it mentioned in Trump’s speech though- he’ll gaslight the hell out of it and demand that everyone pretend he meant it. At least some in the media will go along with it.

  20. 20.

    jame

    I was just wondering “What’s everybody back home doing?” and hopped onto Facebook.

    Now I’m wondering “Have y’all all lost your damn minds?”

    Even the supposedly intelligent ones.

  22. 22.

    aliasofwestgate

    My graduating class was about 400 students give or take.  I don’t miss any of them. We scattered to teh winds. I missed the 10 year reunion in 2005, and this year would have been teh 25 year one. ‘Rona likely canceling it, so i don’t really mind. I was one of the weirdos or as i called us ‘fringe dwellers’.  Geeky, but not pariahs either.  I had my nose in sheet music or a book, most of the time.

  25. 25.

    raven

    I am surprised how many progressive folks there are from my HS class of 67. There are plenty of wing nuts too but we have a nice little lefty fb group.

  26. 26.

    Martin

    One of my personality failings is that I have no interest in keeping tabs on people from HS, etc. None. I have good memories of many of them. I don’t want that to change.

  28. 28.

    FlyingToaster

    Since I didn’t want anything to do with the people I went to HS with, I never signed up for Facebook. Also, my BIL’s second wife is deranged and keeps attacking people (e.g., my wonderful SIL) there, so I decided that I’d make family stick to e-mail.
    Sometimes it’s a shock to realize that we graduated 41 years ago, and they’re still EXACTLY the same Xtianist misogynist racist assholes that they were then. 1500 miles is just barely far enough away…

  30. 30.

    Villago Delenda Est

    John, you don’t suppose your exposure to those of high melanin counts in the military may have shaped your perspective the way it did not shape those old highschool classmates?

  31. 31.

    PsiFighter37

    I suppose I am lucky in that I had a group of about 10 people we were really tight with. We see each other a lot less now because our lives took different directions, but we have Zoomed a couple times during the pandemic. It’s been nice to catch up. Everyone is a liberal, and from my high school (suburban NYC), it seems like most people I am “friends” with on Facebook turned out that way.

  33. 33.

    bbleh

    You know who went to MY high school?  Fkin DONALD JUNIOR and ERIC!  Long after I did, but still.

    Some of us grow up.

  38. 38.

    Percysowner

    Wow, I’m in a weird position when it comes to High School. My dad got a new job and we moved my Senior Year. I didn’t make friends in the new school. I’m an introvert , it was a rural district and they had zero money, so juniors and seniors went 8:00-12:00 and Freshmen/Sophomores went 12:30-4:30 it was all class work, no time to make friends. I lost touch with the friend group I had at my old High School. I’ve never been invited to one HS reunion, because no one remembers me where I graduated and I’m not on any list at the school where some people might remember me.

    Anyway, I use Facebook and Twitter solely to sign into sites that let you use them as a sign in option. And to look at Pet Rescues, because most Pet Rescues use Facebook. I’m not a social media person, and happier for it.

  39. 39.

    Krope, the Formerly Dope

    @MisterForkbeard: They don’t care.

    I don’t think it’s intentional, honestly

    Is it possible, now hear me out, that there is a racist atrocity for every day of the year?

  40. 40.

    apocalipstick

    I wonder if travel (going to a Disney property doesn’t count) and experience play a role. Most of the people with whom I touch base seem to break into two groups: the ones who stayed home (and have become bitter and curdled), and the ones who’ve seen a bit of the world. Some of that group are Trumpy, but it’s a lesser percentage.

  41. 41.

    Another Scott

    ICYMI, WVGazette:

    It’s only June, but with the apparent defeat of 10 incumbent legislators in Tuesday’s primary election, it is clear that, when the West Virginia Legislature convenes for the 2021 session next February, it will have a much different composition — including a new Senate president.

    One of the long-serving incumbents defeated Tuesday, Delegate Daryl Cowles, R-Morgan, said Wednesday he could not recall a previous time when so many incumbents were defeated in a primary election.

    All 10 incumbent legislators apparently defeated Tuesday — with significant numbers of absentee and provisional ballots still outstanding — are Republicans, three state senators and seven delegates.

    “Once you put a title on someone, whether it’s Senate president or House speaker pro tem, you kind of have a target on your back,” Cowles said, in one explanation for the purge.

    Cowles, who is the current speaker pro tem and previously had served as House majority leader during his 14 years in the Legislature, was referencing the major upset of the night, the defeat of Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson.

    Cowles said he believes Carmichael was done in by being in a three-person race, with former Delegate Jim Butler drawing the more conservative Republican voters, and primary winner Amy Grady, a school teacher, drawing votes from the “Ditch Mitch” movement of teachers and others who objected to his handling of teacher strikes in 2017 and 2018.

    […]

    Other incumbents defeated Tuesday were: Sen. Sue Cline, R-Wyoming; Delegate Martin “Rick” Atkinson, R-Roane; Delegate Scott Cadle, R-Mason; Delegate Eric Porterfield, R-Mercer; and Delegate Larry Kump, R-Berkeley.

    During his two years in the House, Porterfield made headlines for homophobic comments and, in the last regular session, for run-ins with House leadership that, on one occasion, led to his demanding that bills be read on the floor in their entirety, bringing the legislative process to a grinding halt.

    Vote the monsters out.

    Good for WV. Let it be the beginning of a trend.

    (via twitter.com/ssurovell )

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  43. 43.

    Zelma

    One of my classmates financed the latest Atlas Shrugged monstrosities.  Another bragged that her daughter clerked for Justice Thomas.  I discovered this at my 55th reunion.  I don’t think I’ll attend the 60th next year.  Still in touch with my best friend from high school who is fortunately sane.  I am ashamed of my generation.

  45. 45.

    Virginia

    I didn’t like them then.  They didn’t like me.  Why would I ever think nearly 50 years would change anything?

  46. 46.

    Martin

    @Krope, the Formerly Dope: True, but Trump and the GOP continue to argue that there aren’t any, or they were all justified. So if they’re going to deliberately lie about US history, we’ll just have to assume they’re doing this deliberately as well.

  47. 47.

    dnfree

    @raven: I have had a similar surprise.  When I first got on Facebook, probably 10 years ago (to see grandchild photos), I naively accepted most of the friend requests from my high school class.  The ones who turned out to be Trump supporters have unfriended me, and the rest I have actually been quite moved by in terms of both their present positions and their high school struggles that I knew little about.

  50. 50.

    Yutsano

    I talk with exactly three people from my high school on Facebook. One was my best friend back then, one I actually met up with again in college so we got to do a lot more hanging out there, and one reconnected with me out of nowhere once. But there isn’t anyone I would want to talk to from there. Well maybe the trombone who was supposed to go to West Point, but that’s it.

    So…I’m going to take this time to update you on my condition. I’m close to getting the MRI but a thing needs to happen first. It’s too complicated to explain but I will hopefully get one tonight. Still in the hospital and it sounds like they intend to keep me a while m

  52. 52.

    CaseyL

    I’m still close friends with someone who was my BFF in high school, but am otherwise totally out of touch with all of them.  Ditto college – I’m not still in touch with anyone I knew from college.

    I can see people who grew up in small, mostly-poor states turning out to be mean racist fucks:  not many of them have a chance to get out and see more of the country, much less the world.  Not many of them have a chance to escape the poverty they were born into, either.  Of all the things that broaden the heart and mind, the only one available to them might be reading: reading for pleasure, for exploration; reading a wide variety of things.  And a lot of them don’t do that, because the culture they grew up in doesn’t encourage it.

    Mind you:  In Europe, where you can find a foreign culture and language just by getting in the car and driving a couple (or a few) hundred miles, there are still stone cold racists.  So mere exposure to diversity isn’t preventive.

  54. 54.

    Barbara

    I kept in touch with maybe five people for a while. Several came to my wedding, but it has been years and years since I spoke with anyone from high school. I have thought about going to reunions, but somehow it never works out. My younger sister still has 3 or 4 very close friends from high school.

  55. 55.

    satby

    @NotMax: I didn’t hang out with my fellow students when I was in high school and see no reason to alter that situation.

    Pretty much my opinion too. Didn’t like them then, doubt time has mellowed any of us.

  56. 56.

    glc

    mrmoshpotato’s link is nice. Or you can go straight to the petition dailyshow.com/invadeus which is less fun but quick. 5200 “signatures”

    At one point I went to school with Lanny Davis, later with George W. Bush. Lanny seemed nice at the time, and clever, I have to admit. George I never noticed but I sort of recognize the type. I still have one good friend from that time, and one other I’m loosely in touch with.

  58. 58.

    kindness

    I came of age before the computer era and moved not too long there after.  I had kept up with some of my old friends.  The ones moved out here to CA in particular made it easier.  You saw them.  But the bulk of them?  Into the ether.  So I don’t know.  I know in the mid 70s we all tried to present ourselves as liberal and tolerant but there was always a certain amount of quiet racism on the down low.  Trump seems to have convinced a lot of the racists to come out of the shadows and let their freak flags fly.

  59. 59.

    dexwood

    @zhena gogolia: Somewhat true for me, but. . . We went to different Catholic high schools in Baltimore that were widely separated. Plus, we had the benefit of having been friends since first grade in 1957. We are in touch two or three times per week despite the miles and time zones.

  62. 62.

    tokyokie

    My father’s company transferred him overseas right before my senior year in high school, and I wound up graduating from a Swiss boarding school. I got on Facebook a couple of months back to see which of them I could track down. A couple who I thought were idiots in high school haven’t gotten any smarter, but overall, they’re not too bad. But pretty much all of them have traveled a lot during their lives, so they’re broader-minded than most.

     

    I still get invited to reunions of the high school I attended in Oklahoma, and I have a handful of friends who went there with whom I keep in touch. But none of them live in Oklahoma any longer. The ones who still live there are, by and large, the ones I didn’t much care for back in high school. The friend with whom I’ve stayed in touch the longest I’ve known since second grade. I roomed with him in college and was in his wedding. And the Oklahoma Sooners have never lost a football game at which we sat together.

  63. 63.

    danielx

    Getting together with three friends from high school tomorrow evening – suitably distanced, of course, driveway party. Attended a Jesuit high school and there were 98 people in my graduating class, so it was different. However, the people who were assholes then are assholes now so I keep in touch with a small subset who are still among my closest friends.

    eta: one thing Jesuits did was hammer critical thinking skills into a lot of very hard heads. Makes me wonder what happened to a lot of classmates.

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    @Mister Forkbeard

    Was the Dolt 45 campaign aware of it? Maybe yes, maybe no.

    Are the local politicians pushing for the convention events to be held there aware of the calendar and the significance of the date there? Unquestionably.

  65. 65.

    Jackie

    @Martin: Yes! I totally expected a “Great Job WV!” post from John following WV primary election results. ??‍♀️??‍♀️

  66. 66.

    Shalimar

    @Krope, the Formerly Dope: It is highly likely there is a racist atrocity for every day of the year.  That said, Trump’s people have an uncanny knack for picking the anniversaries of the biggest racist atrocities in the cities they’re visiting.

  68. 68.

    HumboldtBlue

    All the best Yutsano.

    I’m surprised so many people still use Facebook. I used that and Twitter and all the other social media as part of the job but not for personal use.

    Speaking of classmates new and old, West Point graduates have penned a letter to this year’s graduating class who get to be a prop this weekend for Trump.

    @danielx:

    eta: one thing Jesuits did was hammer critical thinking skills into a lot of very hard heads. Makes me wonder what happened to a lot of classmates.

    Dr. Stephen Maturin once commented to Capt. Jack Aubrey (whose bastard son was trained and taught by the Irish Jesuits and appears in front of his unknown father as a fully frocked Catholic deacon on his way to a Bishopric) that he needn’t worry too much about Sam Panda, the Jesuits have a way of churning out atheists.

  69. 69.

    Yutsano

    @Jackie: Wait…you’ve seen Cole on here right? If he’s gonna be a grouch then he will. He does care about his home state but he’s at heart a pessimist.

  70. 70.

    Central Planning

    I moved after my freshman year of high school. The people I keep in touch with (from both schools) are the ones that did theatre with me. Maybe we tend to be more accepting of differences.

  71. 71.

    Zanamu

    The people who were my good friends, I have contact with. And I have picked up 2-3 happy surprises. More have been disappointments.

    One person unfriended me because I didn’t care that we included a person who (horrors) did not graduate with us because her parents divorced her junior year, and she could just not get past that detail. Whatever. I’m busy, and not seeing most of these people again is really – fine. I can barely stand my parents in that town most days, and I already see the ones I like

    .

  73. 73.

    Kattails

    High school holds few fond memories for me. I was a shy outsider with one friend who I haven’t seen in many years, not at all sure we would be on the same page now.  They did a 50th reunion last year. I was going to go just out of raw curiosity, but ended up with not enough funds to cover things.  Would have liked to just drive around, see if I could even find my way. One of the women who organized the reunion sent me a photo of the brownie troop from way back. It was nice of her to do that, I’ve been so busy I need to go back, find that email and respond.

    I made longer term friends after HS when I met a bunch of hippies at the Jersey shore; and in my New England town, a lot of escapees from Jersey/NY/CT.

    Never been on Facebook. Fuck Zuckerberg.

  75. 75.

    Yutsano

    @NotMax: There’s a cherry pie here that I’m about to order…

    They actually have a decent burger but I got interrupted by occupational therapy and it took awhile to get back to it. It was stone cold when I ate it. I could only choke down half of it. But the soup at least had some warmth and was pretty good.

  79. 79.

    Eric S.

    @hells littlest angel: I got on to FB in my late 30s. Shortly after that an IRL friend, a cop actually, told me via FB our alumni association was looking for graduates for our 20 year reunion. He asked if i wanted him to give my contact information. My response was I would drive to his house and kneecap him with his own service gun. It was funny to us then. He was one of my best friends in HS. I blocked him years ago as he became more and more RWNJ.

  80. 80.

    different-church-lady

    I have been on a facebook purge.

    When the number of friends hits zero, you’ve succeeded.

  81. 81.

    laura

    Yutsano you’re in my thoughts for a positive outcome.

    One of the benefits of having no social media presence is the not having to hear from high school classmates.

  82. 82.

    Ilieitz

    I thought I had great high school friends but then I joined the Peace Corps and married a black woman

  84. 84.

    Martin

    @Amir Khalid: I’ve spent a lot of time as a visitor in hospitals. Literally months. First thing to do is learn where they keep the pudding and jello. Nurses always let you take some for the guest you’re visiting. Helps a lot.

  85. 85.

    James E Powell

    I quit facebook in the summer of 2016 because too many people I knew, including family, revealed themselves to be hateful, bigoted, and stupid.

    I went to a nearly all white suburban Cleveland high school. Back then, being a racist asshole was very uncool. We all swore that was our parents’ thing and we were going to be different.

    I had a conversation with one guy who was part of my high school social circle, not just an acquaintance. And I asked him, what the fuck happened to you? You were not like this back then. You were always a pretty easy going person. His answers all sounded like Rush Limbaugh told him what to say.

    Another guy who was more of an acquaintance emailed me after I left facebook – he’s not hateful, bigoted, or stupid – and we wondered what was more shocking, that the others turned out like they did, or that we did not.

  86. 86.

    tokyokie

    @Amir Khalid

    Hospital food sucks. Hope they spring you soon.

    Yes, but hospital food is the world’s greatest appetite suppressant. I lost about 25 pounds when I was in and out of the hospital last year, as I was mostly subsisting on the apples the spousal unit brought me.

     

    And good luck, Yutsano!

  87. 87.

    Geoduck

    I’m another who hasn’t seen any of my classmates since graduation. (Smallish town north of Seattle.) We were a bunch of slackers in many ways, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we never even had any official reunions.

  89. 89.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Krope, the Formerly Dope: My first reaction is that we had so many that of course there was one happening on the same day as Trump’s acceptance/coronation.

     

    And then I found out that this particular disaster was in the same town as the convention, and that’s just too big. Luckily, we dont yet have atrocities for every city in America every day of the year

  92. 92.

    namekarB

    I was never one of the cool kids in High School (Northern California) and the only difference between then and now is I really don’t crave being accepted. I have developed Popeye Syndrome. I yam what I yam and that’s what I yam.

  93. 93.

    MoCA Ace

    Joined the book of faces a few months ago just so I could participate in a private woodworking group our Guild put together so we could keep in touch during the troubles and immediately started getting friend requests from all kinds of HS classmates,,, all of which I accepted.  Most of them were unfriended the first time I visited their page.  If asked I’ll tell them its not me its you!!

  94. 94.

    Plain Dave

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    The N word was frequently used by my father, mostly when complaining about how lazy his black co-workers were.  One of his frequently mentioned solutions to societal problems involved a brick wall and a machine gun.  I attended High School in a graduating class with over 1,000 members — the largest in our state.  Only one classmate was black.  I liked him but thought he must be one of the rare exceptions – he was humble, studious, and kind.   At 21 I went to work in heavy industry where a large percentage of my coworkers were black.   In very little time i realized the black men were superior in character to the white trash types who outnumbered them.  It was a revelation.  During that same period I joined a band as the only white member.  Some of my lifetime highlights are in that period.  Socializing with blacks was a key factor in shaping my adult personality.   For too many white boys the associations I was lucky enough to experience were either unavailable or were  unfortunately not pursued.  I try to keep this in mind when I’m tempted to hate the racist instead of the racism.  Sometimes I succeed.  Sometimes.

  98. 98.

    mvr

    Don’t go to high school reunions, not because there is no one from there then I would want to see, but because those folks would not go either, at least most of them. My closest HS friends scattered and I see a few of them in other settings and have a few FB friends from there then that I’m fond of and a couple of others I remember and who are probably wondering how anyone from there could be so liberal (they don’t remember what I was like then, I figure, when I was in the small D minority in downstate Illinois). And some from then (early-mid 70s) but not from there (my very large HS) that I am also fond of and also sometimes see in person too.

  100. 100.

    mvr

    @MoCA Ace: Woodworking is a good thing to know how to do. Particularly during times of distancing. Has kept me sane or what passes for it nowadays.

  102. 102.

    Anotherlurker

    I keep in touch with approximately 20 close friends from high school, including my oldest friend on earth.
    It was a small catholic high school on L.I. My graduating class was 100 students. From what I can tell, very few of us have become RWNJs.
    My lasting friendships are the only good thing about my pedophile priests cursed, psycho nuns infested shithole of a school. There were 2 active pedophile priests in attendance during my time there. My classmates and I rebelled at the hypocrisy that was so evident. We were united against an abusive establishment.
    I still deal with the effects of this experience.
    I cherish my lasting friendships. They are the best thing I received from that hell hole.

  105. 105.

    Original Lee

    I had more friends in the class ahead of me than in my own class. Of the group in my own class with whom I hung out, I am still pretty good friends with two, and one I’ve had to block because he’s become increasingly casual about posting racist and conspiracy stuff. I accepted friend requests from a lot of my other classmates, mainly because they were still local and able to keep an eye on my mom. Some of them have turned into pretty cool people. Some of them are still assholes.

    I am the kind of person who keeps in touch with the people I like as I go through life. I really hate unfriending anyone. I haven’t gone to any reunions, though I have been having Zoom reunions with some of my friend groups during lockdown, and that’s been fun.

    My grandma lived to be 102 and was the last person from her high school graduating class alive for almost 10 years before her death. She used to tell us to wait until the 40th high school reunion to consider attending one. “By then, you’re so happy to see someone you knew when you were young, that you end up having a nice time.”

  106. 106.

    rikyrah

    In an uncontested primary and in the face of rampant voter suppression, turnout in the GA dem primary is plus +110,000 over the 2016 GA Super Tuesday primary with two competitive campaigns. Fulton County (metro ATL) turnout increased 40% over 2016.— Federico Chispas (@dfsparks) June 12, 2020

  108. 108.

    VeniceRiley

     

    Went to an almost Ivory Soap HS. All my male close friends died of AIDS. My female friends are lesbian liberal and the hets don’t post politics… but I think they’re marginally aligned with ther husbands on the white.

  111. 111.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Trump is the proximate cause of bigotry – he’s not only a bigot, but he has the right wing media insisting that he isn’t, using “reasoning” that I can’t put outside of quotes, because it bears no resemblance to the real thing.

    So you have people supporting ideas that immigrants are dangerous criminals. Also, the right wing has made immigrants one of the bogeymen for why jobs suck so badly, and pay so little: because of undocumented workers stealing all the good jobs, and driving down wages.

    And, of course, the right wing’s only response to “Black Lives Matter! No one should be slowly murdered over 9 minutes while begging for their life!”  is “Oh, I suppose you think cops should hesitate, before slowly killing a man, who is begging for his life, over the course of 9 minutes?”

    Oh, wait, this time, they’re allowing that 9 minutes, on video, with witnesses, is a bad thing. And, just recently, they agreed a cop shouldn’t be able to kill someone after entering their home by mistake.

    They still think that “lots of black people kill other black people (unspoken: just as lots of white people kill other white people)” is a meaningful argument to “cops have unbelievable power, and are not using it with the proper restraint, and are killing black people, precisely as if their lives simply didn’t matter.” And they get away with it because we live in a country whose media is so broken down that the reporters won’t even note how stone cold, dyed in the wool, objectively, factually, *STUPID* that argument is. Enough people make that idiotic argument, it’s considered acceptable, argumentum ad populum, which surely is the name of the rule that makes it a FACT, right?

  112. 112.

    Calouste

    I also purged Facebook recently, as in I closed my account. Didn’t look at it anymore anyway in the last year, maybe two. Zuckerberg can make his money of racists, he doesn’t need me for that.

  115. 115.

    Kent

    Went to a suburban HS in Eugene OR.   Guy I shared a backfield with in HS football was thrown in prison some years ago for spousal abuse.  He was out on parole a couple years ago and went camping with his son.  They got into a drunken argument and he pistol whipped his son so severely that he was permanently blinded in one eye and needed about 100 stitches.

    So he is back in prison for assault and weapons violations.  The worst?   Other fuckers I know are commensurating with him on his Facebook page which is mostly poses with guns and cammo and dead animals and MAGA.

    We gotta do something about this epidemic of white on white violence.

  116. 116.

    Ruckus

    My city HS was actually pretty good. Sure there were/are some racist fucks, those dipshits are everywhere. I’ve been to a group 65th Bday party, our 50th reunion, and a 70th Bday party. The two parties were at a girls house that I knew. She married a fella from the year before us. Still married. I met friends/neighbors from HS that I hadn’t see in decades. One probably saving grace is that I wasn’t in any clicks. I knew a lot of people but didn’t hang out/party with more than 3 or 4. One of those I haven’t spoken to in 50 yrs. Another worked for us for 10-12 yrs, moved away I’ve never been able to connect with him. We were about 50-60% white the rest black and Latino, with a few Japanese. Best I could tell a majority of the people at the parties/reunion were reasonably liberal. But it was a mixed socal town.

  117. 117.

    MoCA Ace

    @mvr:

    Yes it is.  I got a lot of projects completed early on but then back to work, lawn care, gardening, fishing… haven’t been in the shop in days now and probably won’t much until winter.  That’s when I really get in the groove and start making sawdust.

    What kind of projects are your favorite?

  118. 118.

    Ruckus

    @Kent:

    One of the people I went to HS with is still in prison for murder. Has been for over 45 yrs, was on death row for a while. I knew this person from church, I’ve been to this person’s house on more than one occasion.

    Not everyone, not anywhere is good, or even close.

    BTW good snark.

  121. 121.

    dopey-o

    When i attended my 40th HS anniversary at a catholic all male 99% white school, i noticed most of my classmates looked like Dick Cheney. Talked like him, too.

    Went to a reunion at my catholic parochial school. Was amazed at the sense of warmth and love i felt. Go figure.

    Nuns?

  123. 123.

    hitchhiker

    This would be the 50th high school reunion summer, if reunions were a thing in 2020. I have exactly one friend from the class of 1970, and that’s because she married one of my brothers. They watch Fox, which is all you need to know.

    It’s sad b/c she’s why I am hitchhiker … we packed up some clothes, bought a journal and a bunch of Marlboros, pooled our money ($240), and put out our thumbs. This was in November 1970.

    Somehow we made the money last for 4 months. Went all the way to Florida and back; we wanted to see the ocean and we did. There were some sketchy people on that adventure, for sure, but it was mostly about the beach and finding pot to buy and share. I loved her, it’s not an exaggeration to say.

    She and my brother still live in the northern Michigan town where we went to school together, a place I avoid tho’ it’s a popular tourist destination in the midwest. The chasm between us now, thanks to Fox and Rush, is never going to be crossed.

  124. 124.

    Tom Q

    Graduated from high school in 1969.  For most of that time, I’d only kept in touch with one or two friends.  But, at the 40th reunion, three of us hit it off and started meeting for dinner — liberals all.  Then one of them threw a barbeque, to which about 20  guys showed up (all-male NYC Catholic high school); again, everybody was a Democrat.  I was surprised; I’d expected more Reagan Democrats among the mostly Irish/Italian group.  On the other hand, it was a sort-of selecttive school (rigorous entrance exam), and, as we know, there’s a correlation at this point of education and Democratic voting.

    At the 50th reunion, people started collecting Facebook friends, and that’s how I discovered one guy is a full-blown wingnut — he keeps posting Breitbart shit.  But he’s the only one.  I’m lucky to have come from a mostly intelligent crowd.

  125. 125.

    Dan B

    I attended school in a small town near Akron.  There were two Goldwater for President organizations.  They hated each other.  I believe one was Chamber of Commerce and the other John Birch + Klan.  I got as far away as possible.  One of the few friends I had, I was trying to avoid being bullied as a shy baby gay, moved to Seattle.  He was good looking and gregarious.  We went backpacking many times.  One night he got obnoxiously drunk.  I cut off contact and didn’t take a phone call from him.  A few weeks later I learned he’d died of AIDS.  It still hurts.

    My brother has gone to several reunions and took his girlfriend last year.  She had little to say about it.  Says much about her ability to suffer quietly.

  126. 126.

    Grover Gardner

    My wife, from Silver Spring MD, has been doing this for about three years now. ;-)

  127. 127.

    Jackie

    I graduated ‘73 in southeastern WA. Trump Country. I’m happy to report the friends I kept in touch with are active Democrats. Amazing!

  129. 129.

    debbie

    I’m still close to a few friends from high school. The rest are more like acquaintances, even the ones who are gritting their teeth while continuing to support Trump. I did unfriend them on FB, because I sick of the crap they post.

  131. 131.

    Sloegin

    Pulled the plug entirely on FB about 5 years ago.  Not here to virtue-signal or anything, just saying that everyone should examine or re-examine their FB use and decide if the benefits of it outweigh the drawbacks.

    For me, there were zero regrets after I bailed.  My surviving parent and most of the kinfolk weren’t on FB, so I imagine it was easier for me than it might be for others.

  132. 132.

    glc

    @Original Lee: She used to tell us to wait until the 40th high school reunion to consider attending one. “By then, you’re so happy to see someone you knew when you were young, that you end up having a nice time.”

    That’s what I did for college and it worked exactly as advertised.

    For high school I waited for the 50th. It was o.k.

  134. 134.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @geg6:

    You’ve mentioned before you live in Beaver County, PA. Heard on the news there was an EF2 tornado that touched down there last night. Did it touch down close to where you live?

  135. 135.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Another Scott:  What’s … mystifying is that the asian dude gave dickhead white boy three chances to stand down and walk away. And dickhead white boy declined all three. And ends up snorting pavement, straight.

  137. 137.

    Kent

    @Ruckus:

    @Kent:

    One of the people I went to HS with is still in prison for murder. Has been for over 45 yrs, was on death row for a while. I knew this person from church, I’ve been to this person’s house on more than one occasion.

    Not everyone, not anywhere is good, or even close.

    BTW good snark.

    Yeah.  Had a college girlfriend who’s older brother was a true psycho/druggie who came home in a rage and murdered her mother in a fight over money when she was in about 9th grade.  My girlfriend had to testify at his trial and still has to go to the occasional parole hearing to testify against him.  She fears for her life if he is ever released.   She now lives in rural Norway.  Married a Norwegian engineer she met while doing development work in Mozambique.  I think she finally feels far enough away from rural Tennessee (where she’s from) to relax.

    Of course I went to HS with some really accomplished people too.  I don’t keep in touch with any of them but they are google-able so I can if I want.  About the only friends I keep in touch with from my earlier years are the ones I made in the Peace Corps and a couple of grad school friends.  I’ve lost touch with all my undergrad friends other than being linked to a couple of them on LinkedIn.

    When I want to dive into the crazy I can surf over to a couple of FB pages of HS guys I knew from football.  It’s all MAGA, guns, cammo, and hunting/fishing.  None of them left town or amounted to anything.  I only have to find one of them on FB and all the rest are there as linked friends.  Their pages are all wide open so you can read it all without friending them.  I do that about every 5 years just to remind myself why I left home and didn’t look back.  Rural Oregon has as much redneck as anyplace.  Trust me.

  138. 138.

    Dan B

    @Jackie: Wow!  SE WA seems like Mormon or cowboy / girl territory.  As I recall Idaho has a higher percentage of Mormons than Utah.

  139. 139.

    Kent

    @Dan B:@Jackie: Wow!  SE WA seems like Mormon or cowboy / girl territory.  As I recall Idaho has a higher percentage of Mormons than Utah.

    Depends on what part of SE Washington.

    Walla Walla is a relatively civilized little city, home of Whitman College and a bazillion wineries, brewpubs, and farm-to-table restaurants.   The Tri-cities are more like a piece of West Texas dropped down into WA.  They look more like Abilene or Lubbock than anyplace in Western WA.  Pullman is a college town on the Idaho border.

    WA borders northern Idaho which is the white nationalist and racist part of Idaho.  Oregon borders southern Idaho which is the more Mormon part.  Idaho is a long tall skinny state.  But the Mormons are more densely packed into the SE portion of the state that borders Utah.  Like Twin Falls and Pocatello, which are a LONG ways from WA.

  140. 140.

    Brachiator

    Never had much of a nostalgia gene. Never attended a high school reunion. Liked some of my high school friends, but mainly I was marking time until I went away to college.

    ETA. Still am friends with people I met in junior high school. Go figure.

  143. 143.

    Yutsano

    So again thank you for the well wishes. What I’m waiting on is a spinal cord stimulator to charge because it needs to be fully charged before I can have the MRI. But this thing is just being stubborn and isn’t charging. It’s frustrating right now.

  144. 144.

    Jackie

    @Kent: “ The Tri-cities are more like a piece of West Texas dropped down into WA.  They look more like Abilene or Lubbock than anyplace in Western WA.” Yup.
    Politics aside, we have a beautiful country. Wine country. Three rivers merging together creating an oasis.  Outside of politics, I love it here.

  145. 145.

    Kent

    @Jackie: We will be coming out your way maybe next weekend.  Taking daughter #2 on a DIY college visit road trip through Walla Walla and Spokane to see Whitman and Gonzaga in person.  None of the schools are doing in-person tours.  But you can still go walk around and see them on your own.  We did that last weekend to University of Puget Sound.

    I’ve been through the Tri-cities a bunch on the way to Spokane over the years.  But have never actually stopped for more than gas so I’m sure I have never seen any of the nicer parts.

  146. 146.

    Kattails

    Cole, they may always have been mean, just not to you.

    Wanted to come back on to mention that my HS experiences to this day color my view of current events. It was white, suburban, middle to upper middle class. Had a long uphill hike to the bus stop, but some of the guys were such shits that my sister and I took to walking yet another probably half-mile to one where a couple of friends waited. One morning we were standing talking; a group of boys was several feet away.  One of them got it in his head to throw a stone, one of those sharp 1-2″ ones that break out of the pavement. It hit me square in the throat. It was agony, I couldn’t speak or breathe for minutes. I’d done nothing. Had no recourse, boys will be boys (complete assholes).

    Nice white boys, all of them.  Nothing worse than in a pack, self-reinforcing, and utterly entitled. Years later I was watching  a local softball game, came across two of my friends’ daughters being harassed by two boys. Now in my 40’s, I had those little shits by their shirt fronts half off the ground, them bleating that they were going to come back with their fathers. I was like oh please do. Tiny payback.

  147. 147.

    Leto

    @Yutsano:

    Finally read through the thread, saw you’re back in the hospital, so just wanted to wish you a speedy recovery (GTFO of there!) and hope you’re back home soon!

  148. 148.

    Just Chuck

    I just recently deleted my facebook account.  Won’t get righteous about it, I know it’s less than practical for some.  Was just that the only way I could stand it for the last few years was to unfollow everyone, so for me it was pretty diminished in importance anyway.  It’s not that any were raging right-wingers, but all the things forwarded … I can only take so much outrage and negativity.

    I turned on 2FA for my Twitter account something like 10 years ago, lost the authenticator, and never tried to recover my account.  I write web apps for a living, but social media can still go fuck itself.

  151. 151.

    JustRuss

    @Kent: I’ve been through the Tri-cities a bunch on the way to Spokane over the years.  But have never actually stopped for more than gas so I’m sure I have never seen any of the nicer parts.

    I married a tri-cities girl, have spent plenty of time there.  Let me know when you find the nicer parts.

    Also, this is mandatory reading for any Tri-Cities visitor:  baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1999-05-23-9906040355-story.html

  152. 152.

    low-tech cyclist

    My wife grew up in central Florida, and she’s been purging her FB lately for pretty much the same reasons Cole is, I’m sure.

    I’ve tried FB a couple of times, but both times I got to a point in a few months’ time where I couldn’t stand it.  No point in trying a third time; the outcome wouldn’t be any different.

    I still miss the community I was part of on LiveJournal, even though it’s been a decade or so since they all migrated to FB.  For whatever reasons, the toxicity of FB didn’t happen much on LJ.  But LJ is a ghost town now.

  153. 153.

    Geminid

    I stay off of Facebook. But I did have an idea of setting up a social media platform in which friends could drag other friends behind their back. I’d  call it “Two Facedbook.”

  154. 154.

    The Pale Scot

    @Another Scott:

    All nazis have glass jaws.

    My GG coach taught “everyone thinks they can fight like Ali but if you want to survive you fight like Frazier. That calf kicking crap. Fucker tries that you you drop you head, close and bust up his ribs. That coward is looking for a long range fight and doesn’t have the guts to work the telephone booth

  156. 156.

    The Pale Scot

    @Plain Dave:

    In very little time i realized the black men were superior in character to the white trash types who outnumbered them.

     

    Here in FL, Fuck Yea

    I’m so glad to find out it’s not just me and my dismissal of them being illiterate prods

  157. 157.

    xjmuellerlurks

    I took a Facebook break last fall that lasted through March of this year.  I’ve walked away again two weeks ago.  I just don’t want to see the bullshit anymore.  I miss seeing the family stuff, since most of them live somewhere else, (my wife keeps me up to date on that) but I don’t miss the political or culture wars stuff.  When I found myself arguing with somebody I don’t know (about something that I can’t even remember now) I knew it was time for a break.  I don’t need to see posts about Soros and the Clintons plotting our demise, antifa coming for our freedumbs, the need for military style weapons in the hands of civilians (just in case someone starts some shit, as they say), or the necessity of brutal policing.  I also don’t need to see links to articles that I’ve already read myself or hear more outrage over our putative president and his administration.  I already have a solid opinion about that bunch.  I don’t need to see clickbait ads, stupid polls or games (although a pandemic related name generator tickled me).  And no, I’m not going to wish Obama (or any other political/pop figure) happy birthday so I can be added to a grifter mailing list.  Lastly, fuck Zuck.

    Please note that after just two weeks off I’ve become less angry and upset about this.  I only had about 25 friends on FB and did not accept friend requests very often.  Even with these self-imposed restrictions I still couldn’t stand it.  Such is life in America in 2020.

  158. 158.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yutsano:

    It’s the next day, and I’m only now catching up with BJ threads, but you have been much on my mind. Sending you the brightest healing thoughts I can muster.

  159. 159.

    Exregis

    Unlike many of you whose classmates scattered after graduation, my classmates were scattered while in high school — in all five NYC boroughs, New Jersey, and Long Island. I never interacted with any after classes were over. But six or seven of us went to the same college in Boston and all but one were in the same house/dorm, so I got to know those better.

    There is nothing like alumni/alumnae associations to keep track of us. I still get my high school alumni magazine every quarter sixty years after graduation. I don’t keep in touch with any classmates, but I can follow their exploits (and deaths) in the magazine.

    I joined Facebook a decade or so ago to “support” my daughter when she was pregnant and 700 miles away. When I got my first Change to Privacy Policy, I actually read it, deleted all personal information from my page, and have ignored Facebook ever since. I still get reminders every once in a while that I have friend requests or look at these new entries. All automated but costing Facebook a quarter-cent. Zuckerberg is a closet Trump supporter who created Facebook as an exercise in sexism, lied about almost everything involving Russian interference, charity, numbers, etc., and who has strategic goals akin to a pro wrestling federation.

  161. 161.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott: The thing I noticed is that it looks like the flip-flop-supremacist try to startle asian-guy into jumping back in front of the car, which the supremacist could see but asian-guy could not.

    What the fuck is wrong with these people?

  162. 162.

    mvr

    @MoCA Ace: Sorry for the late reply. Went to bed and didn’t look at this til now.

    Favorites are hard. I make a lot of boxes for gifts in woods that I like. Used to be mostly walnut and cherry but now have made some of really nice curly maple including a kind of portable flytying desk. Made a few guitars, one acoustic, two electrics – I have a tendency to make projects that involve some metalworking too.  (my website is mvr1.com and I have pages with some of these projects.)  About fifteen years ago I built a timberframe cabin in the Rockies off the grid.  It isn’t fine woodworking but it is pretty cool to have a place near the Continental Divide.  I’m a nut.

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