25 years is enough

Now that it's clear that the average age of folks out there in cyberspace is 36 going on 11, I've decided to do a bit of reflection.

It was 25 years ago this fall, when I was a student at Cline Middle School in Cold Spring, Kentucky, that I became the target of a vicious attack campaign. And believe me, if someone told me there would still be whisperings to this effect 25 years later, I would have said they were crazy, because adults don't act that way. But some do.

Because they have no morals.

There used to be moral values in this country. Ironically, morals went out the window at the same time America's leaders were telling everyone else how to live.

Maybe I'm an old fogey, but it boggles my mind that adults would make sport of someone for being poor and for not being allowed to attend "their" school system 30 years ago. This is the basis for a lot of the grief that's gone on over the years, but only now does it seem as preposterous as it seems today.

For this reason, I'm seriously considering early retirement. I do plan on releasing a second book soon, but I can't tolerate the stress of an ongoing campaign of lies as long as I'm working on other major projects. I truly feel as if I have paid more to society than I will ever get back if I live to be 1,000.

There's no question that the pain of the past 25 years has kept me from being something more.

It is evil as well as abnormal for someone to carry out a personal campaign like this for 25 years. It's a sign of a sociopath. For it to be tolerated is a sign of a very, very ill community. (Campbell County went 59% Republican even in the last election, by the way.)

And who expects it to stop? I don't. If this country still had (gasp!) laws and morals, this wouldn't be an issue now. But moral standards are only for suckers, I guess. Our schools are as ineffective at teaching character as they are at teaching civics.

On the other hand, maybe one of these days, the people who have been harassing me will forget to register on the sex offender list, and then their harassment will stop when they get sent to jail.