Dear old dad will hear that Troy was fighting and think that he should be punished. Since it was used on Vance Troy should be in dresses until allowed back to school. What, Vance was fighting too!, ah , well, I guess I have two Daughters for a while....

Back when I was growing up in the '50s and '60s, the schools I went to had no qualms about calling parents for minor infractions and cops for criminal behavior. Sometimes while you sat there waiting to tell "your side of the story". Corporal punishment was allowed, with parental approval. Unfortunately, my parents didn't allow it. They were called when I was in trouble and, by the time they got done with me, I wished the school had punished me instead.

Now, with today's litigious society, Zero Tolerance is the rule and absolutely moronic behavior on the part of the school systems is the norm. I read of a case where a grade school student brought a toy soldier to school to show a friend and got expelled. Not suspended, expelled. The reason? No guns are allowed on school property and the plastic-cast soldier was depicted with a rifle. Another case had a high school girl suspended for dealing drugs. Her offense? Giving a Midol to a girlfriend of hers who was having menstrual pain. An over-the-counter medication, one pill, and she's out of school for dealing drugs.

The ZT policy also lets the school system do stupid stuff like that without any possibility of repercussions because they were "just following standard policies". So were the soldiers at the extermination camps in WW II. Did any of them get a pass? Why should today's schools get one? Because of the liars, errr, lawyers, that abound in our society that must cause as much chaos as possible in order to stay in business. Just consider this: create a town of only 100 people. You could get away with one grocer, one hardware store, one gas station, one mechanic, one cop, a volunteer fire/rescue department, one office supply, etc, etc. Until you get to liar...lawyers. All of a sudden you need a minimum of five; one for criminal prosecutor, one for court appointed defense, one for private sector plaintiffs, one for private sector defense and one to be the judge (if not two - one criminal judge and one civil case judge which would then make six). Imagine; five to six percent of the population HAS to be a ...lawyer. Then again, you'd probably get some other town filing suit against your town because you don't have any ACLU attorneys.

I've always wondered why Supreme Court Justices had to be lawyers. They're there to interpret constitutional issues. Why aren't they required to be constitutional scholars, instead? Oh, yeah, forgot ... they're political appointees, they don't have to be scholars, just true to political party dogma. Duuhhhh. Sorry about the lapse there.

As to the story, Troy and Vance became victims of the ZT stigmata. At least it's not something that will hurt them in the future (if the principal's comments are any indication). Bruce and Frankie, though, are another issue. I agree with Stan, they will be trouble in the future. With Vance's recent change of heart, he may deal quite well with defending himself AND his brother. I think his biggest issue will be the same as his dad will have when Troy finally comes out of the closet totally. Will Vance still defend him? Will dad be able to accept and protect him, as well?

Good story. Plan to follow this to the end.

Hugs,
Erica