When a young fellow back in the 60s came to school and tried to check his gun in at the front office while he attended classes and wanted to pick it up after school so he could protect himself on the way back home, from the reaction of the principal you would have thought he was making an unreasonable request. For my part, I thought it quite admirable the young fellow was even trying to attend school under the circumstances. These days, when the young people are carrying guns to school they aren’t as courteous as this young fellow was.

One reason, and a considerable one, that I was able to make it at David Starr Jordan High in Watts during the 60s was my reputation as a skilled gunsmith. I usually knew who was carrying and who was not at the school, and sometimes my expertise was needed in some rather clandestine fashion that while undoubtedly still going on in some inner city schools seldom make any headlines. The greater problem is that our schools are supposed to be the bulwark against a descent into all out barbarism; and the schools, particularly those of the inner cities are being asked to do the impossible in the face of so much against them not the least of which is the threat of lawsuits from every direction.

I was teaching metal shop as well as working security for the L. A. City Schools, but it was my ability to teach the young people how to operate machinery, to do welding and foundry work, all the metalworking skills, useful skills that made me both accepted and respected. Things were always a little different in Watts, as some in the Firestone Division of South Central L. A. from those days could tell you. And given the environment, that young fellow with the gun was acting sensibly being armed though some might fault his judgment in trying to check his gun in at the office.

Of course I know how fanciful such a story sounds. But it was one of the reasons I used to tell people “Things aren’t as bad as you think in the schools; they are far worse!” Coming from industry into education I saw things from a considerably different perspective than most teachers going through the system directly into the classroom and never having punched a clock for a living. And what I saw was something I began to realize even back in the 60s when it came to education: A system for failure could not have been better designed had it been done intentionally! And I knew what I was experiencing in Watts at the time was bound to eventually infect schools across the country. Not only in terms of drugs and violence, but in dropout rates and illiteracy as well. But I also came to realize the fundamental problem in the universities responsible for education in America was impervious to any change for the better.

However, that was Watts; and all that most of the country knew about that community was from the riots with the senseless violence and destruction born of anger and despair being shown on their TV screens while Ozzie and Harriet was on another channel. Who was going to speak up about the impossible odds the children and the schools in that area were facing? There was no political incentive to do so, and every reason politically to keep quiet and the job of the schools in that part of Los Angeles was to just try to keep the lid on because of all the violence. Now gentle readers, do you suppose things are any better in the schools of the inner cities these many years later?

This morning I read an article at MSNBC where the writer is asking whether things in America are spiraling out of control? It’s increasingly obvious no one seems to be minding the store, but this should have been obvious back in the 60s. Mulholland Falls is one of my favorite films, faithful in the details to what I recall of that era when the L.A.P.D. took care of business as portrayed. But the F.B.I. as portrayed in the film, ah, I understand the Chief’s attitude toward that agency because that’s the way things were back then in the 50s. However, it didn’t get any better for the F.B.I. in the 60s despite the propaganda like Mississippi Burning.

Along with a young man wanting to check in his gun at the school office, how is this for surreal? My being a Caucasian teacher in Watts made me unusual to say the least. But here come two young men, Caucasians, dressed in three piece suits and wearing hats, F.B.I. agents coming on campus asking to speak to me in private. These two were right out of the film Mulholland Falls, and might as well have had F.B.I. stenciled on their suits for the whole campus to see, asking me to tell them if I heard or saw anything that might be of interest to the agency? Talk about making me a target! And it didn’t exactly endear me to administrators and faculty. Ruby Ridge, Waco, these did not surprise me. That neither Janet Reno nor Louis Freeh could even turn on a computer let alone use one didn’t surprise me. The agency did much better in The Pelican Brief, though I doubt if computer literacy and systems have improved all that much.

Problem is we can’t trust those in government to tell us the truth about anything. We hear of potential threats of Armageddon having been averted, things like the various accounts of the Cuban Missile Crisis, of how close Russia came one time to launching nukes, and right now the possibility of Israel attacking Iran. What I know is that I’ve experienced so much of the ineptitude and duplicity in government including the educational system, police agencies and government related industries to provide me plenty of cause for concern.

Carlos Castaneda was a pretty popular fellow when I was doing my doctoral work, but then so was Viktor Frankl whom I met at my university where he was a guest lecturer. Both had their own worldview, and each had its attraction though I never credited Castaneda’s personal claims in many instances and voicing my objections led to some spirited debate in a couple of seminars I attended at the time. But each of them seem fanciful in their own way and serve to remind me that the truth is often stranger than fiction.

The point being that when we are being confronted by so much uncertainty, when things seem to be spiraling out of control there is room for both reality and fancy to come together to help us through these very uncertain times. Hopefully we will not lose touch with reality in the process, but why fault anyone for taking the path of fancy when the reality is more than they can handle. If someone’s fancy should take the turn of religion or other similar means of dealing with the ugly and uncertain realities as long as they do not incite hatred or do harm to others they are welcome to do so.

But neither should those compelled to do what they feel they must be faulted for their continued efforts to right the many injustices and inequities of this world system no matter whether they meet with any success in doing so or not just so long as they act from the pure motives they demand of others. I would far rather the guns be checked in at the school office, but so long as there is a need for guns just to attend school we have every reason to be concerned for the direction of America. Things change from any existential mode to grim reality in a heartbeat, but I remind myself allowance must be made for fancy as well if we are to retain any grip on reality.

Mine are only the wonderings and ponderings of an old fellow that has experienced enough of reality, wondering how I have lived so long, to know it’s sometimes difficult to distinguish between the lunatics of this world and who really has a grip on reality. But as I view what is happening in America, I have cause to wonder just who our real enemies are? Some are readily identifiable, but I don’t trust our government to tell us who they are.