yeah jeff, i wasn't in for as long as you, but i know of
what you speak. i went into straight, new england, on december 20th 1987, and got out in september of 1989.
i remember those ***king friday night reviews too. paul h. would do them when i first got there. everybody would get yelled at. everyone would motivate to yell at everyone else.
then at the end of a review, they'd stand up some so-called
"kiss-ass", i always just thought that those people were
just doing what they could to get the #@#@ out of there.
they'd yell at them, tell them they were being fake, tell them they needed to get honest with themselves - remember all of that? they'd turn red, then someone would yell at them claiming that they "looked full of s***".
but we continued to motivate. flapping our arms, hoping that it wouldn't be us that got stood up next.
to this day, if my boss leaves me a message saying "see me when you get in", i get that same sinking feeling that i used to on monday and friday nights. as someone said on the yahoo board, "that voice in the back of your head - that's straight".
and those blank walls with just those signs on them. the steps. the serenity prayer. the 3 signs. the 5 criteria. the staff room.
the fifth phase desk - remember you couldn't look at it? the mystery meat dinners. eating pbj's for lunch for months on end. and spending all that time in that building. the bus rides. looking at the billboards, hoping that you might be mildly entertained by one of them, then feeling guilty and reporting yourself for it. watching your parents come in for open meeting when you were on first phase - that always hit me. after i "copped-out" after being there for 6 months, i didn't even feel anything when i would listen to my parents "on the mic" in open meeting. i knew that i was going to be there until i graduated, or i turned 18.
lining up "facing forward, heel-to-toe". no cigarettes. no music. just you, all the kids in group, the staff, and the building. i learned a lot while i was there. but most of all,
i learned not to care. maybe i deserved to be there. i know i needed something. maybe i did need straight. but watching kids come in and being introduced in the back of group, kids who had no business being there at all - that upset me.
kids that drank two or three times, and just happened to get caught. kids 15, 14, 13, i think i remeber a pair of 12 year olds in the group in my almost 2 years there.
and then listening to them get blasted in group. stood up,
yelled at, then they'd cry. after enough of that, they too were
broken and no longer cared what happened. they'd stand up after being started over off 2nd or 3rd phase in open meeting, with no emotion on their face. so young!!
not even high school age! but we were told to yell.
yell or get yelled at. that's all we did all day long. yell and talk about our past. coerced into confessing things that no one, save a priest, had any business knowing. all of our stories repeating themselves. telling eachother we could relate. never getting to talk to anyone in that god forsaken building. rap after rap after rap. looking with envy on the 2nd phaser and the two t&r's who were on clean-up crew.
the same ***t re-hashed everyday for us to digest. and share. standing people up for "friendships". the hours in the building were constant activity. song after song. thed'd make us sing when they needed a few minutes to think about what to do next, kind of like a time out in the NFL.
anyway, enough blabbing, and back to work.
have a great weekend everyone!!!!
"as I slooshied, i knew such lovely pictures"
-Alexander deLarge
A Clockwork Orange