A steaming hot plateful here. We've touched on this here time and again, in one context or another -- some str8 staff members were bigger assholes than others. I was thinking about this while taking a dump a few minutes ago. Doing a little stinkin' thinkin', you could say.
For instance: Chuck Hargraves, Todd Miller, Paul P., Matt M., weren't the raging, sadistic, prick bastards that guys like Dean Mistretta, Jim Sailor, Joey Glaze, and Matt Lyle were. Ok throw Scott Proffitt into that last batch too, fair enough. (I personally lucked out a little as far as receiving Scott Proffitt's usual dose of wrath maybe because I bragged about playing guitar in my "past," or maybe he was my "primary counselor" or whatever the deal was with that.)
No, Chuck Hargraves, I think that was his name, would go through the motions when he'd stand people up, but at least he had a relatively lax attitude and didn't take pleasure in being a dick to the kids all the time. I recall once when he stood Rick M. up for some shit or another. I remember Chuck asked him what he intended to do with his life after he got out of Straight (Rick had put in for WD, or something) to which Rick replied that he was gonna cut and sell firewood, which didn't seem like such a bad idea to this city boy at the time. (I got to thinking about this because I recently stacked a bunch of wood for my mom.) So Chuck didn't blast him, but of course ribbed him a little, talking in a hillbilly twang... "So you're gonna cut yourself some fiiiirewood, eh?"
But seriously though, while this ridicule was perhaps uncalled for, it was in good humor; Hargraves was going through the motions like a lot of us did every day in there....
Although what bugs me about this is that I must have lost a part of myself in there. Just about anyone who ever made 2nd phase did this. I hate to think that I gave in to them for even a minute, but I did. I could have fought. I could have tried to run at times but didn't. I played along, and so did you. We are the scum of the earth for this.. I say this in jest but with seriousness at the same time. Sure, ultimately, we have to live with whatever bullshit we did in there; we must be real about all of it with ourselves, first of all.... Thing is, this can take time for some...hell, for a lot of us. Just to bring all the memories back can be a challenge in and of itself, and can be emotionally stressful to say the least. Just living with the knowledge of whatever Straight bullshit it was that we did (or was done to us) from day to day can be enough to make someone lose it. We know this all too well...
Anyway, time to pull that chain on the side of my head and FLUSH MY MIND....
