The Bush Of Death Part 2

I got a comment after my last post where I made some pointed comments on my experience at The Bush Of Death. It was left by someone calling themselves Bad Girls Hunt (I like that name by the way) and this hunting bad girl was wondering about my interaction with a teacher at The Bush Of Death named Mr Zaffini. And I had totally forgotten about Mr Zaffini over the years, but I did have a Study Hall period where Mr Zaffini babysat the kids of zealous Christians and I gotta say that I really liked the guy. Most of those Study Hall periods I did little more than read the USA Today to kill time, but on occasion Mr Zaffini and I would engage the "class" in something approximating a political debate. And these debates were always lively. Mr Zaffini was, and I'm not kidding about this, to the right of yours truly on many issues. The issues where we disagreed involved the social side of the Right's agenda, obviously. I never did, nor do I now, understand the Right's insistence on getting involved and legislating what people do in their bedrooms or with their bodies. For a group of folks who are so insistent on being left alone on issues of taxes, guns, religion, etc. it always puzzled me why those same folks want to push their morality on others through the impetus of the federal and state government. Mr Zaffini and I debated legalizing drugs, abortion, and prostitution from time to time. My argument always came down to what it does to this day, namely that what consenting adults to to in their private lives is no business of mine and certainly no business of government. The "crimes" that folks commit when breaking laws covering these areas are largely victimless. Although I realize that religious folks don't see abortion as a victimless crime at all. And I respect that opinion. I just disagree with it. Largely because once we start legislating against things that one group of folks doesn't like based on moral grounds, what is to stop another group from legislating something you hold dear based on some other set of moral grounds? It's a slippery slope at best. Anyway, this is a debate that will never be settled. But I did find Mr Zaffini to be bright, well spoken, reasonable, and possessing of a sense of humor. All traits that were sorely lacking among other faculty at The Bush Of Death. So, in answer to the hunting bad girl; yes, I liked Mr Zaffini. I liked him a lot. Thanks for me reminding me of that.

There were a few folks I neglected to mention in my post last week about The Bush Of Death. And they were characters. No doubt about that. A few of them -

Steve Trent: This poor kid was an outcast. A not too bright kid who sat by himself most of the time during lunch. He looked a little like Booger from those Nerd movies (without the same charm as Booger, I might add). The thing about Steve Trent is that he claimed to be a direct descendant of the French royal family. He really did. And Steve got mocked for this endlessly. Mainly by yours truly. I would go by where he was eating lunch by himself and bow to him from time to time. Anyway, years later, I happened to be at the BW-3 North Campus one night (granted, I was there almost every night from 1993-1995) with Todd Myers and some other folks. And I'll be damned but there was Steve Trent in a booth with another guy and 2 ridiculously hideous chicks. So what we did was go up to Steve's booth and started bowing to him wildly in front of the entire bar. That amused me quite a bit. It still amuses me when I think of it today. I found Steve on a MySpace page where he claims to be a father of 3. Steve also has pictures of his wedding up on his MySpace page. He's a motorcycle officer. And his celebrity look alike is Leo Decaprio. I'm now officially sorry that I ever thought of Steve today.

Jay Demarcus - Jay was an interesting kid. A pathological liar. One of my favorite lies he told us was that over his summer vacation he had shot a movie with Harrison Ford in South America. That was a bold statement that Jay made. A few months later, when Mosquito Coast opened, Jay was not in the film. River Phoenix was in the film. And Jay did not favorably resemble River Phoenix. Not even close. Jay was a semi-competent singer/musician (although he sang very nasally). During the occasional chapel service Jay would sing this song called When God Ran To Me. It was all I could do to not fall over laughing when Jay would perform it. In fact, I came to enjoy his performance so much, that I'd beg the kid to perform it. YouTube the song. Jay's version is not on there as far as I could tell. But it's worth listening to. Hysterically funny. A few years after high school I caught up with Jay. He was going to some religious college in Tennessee and had formed a christian soft rock band called East II West. On the tape his band "released" was a version of Kyrie by Mister Mister. And I have no idea how to get a copy of this performance today. But I promise you that it is awesomely awful. I listened to it over and over for a week or two. I just googled Jay and he is now a member of something called Rascal Flatts. He's so famous that he was even on an episode of CSI recently. When you click on google images of Jay performing with this Rascal Flatts, you can tell right away that he still doesn't resemble River Phoenix. He resembles a cheeseball, same as always. From his Wikipedia page, it appears that Jay did manage to marry a former Miss Tennessee who evidently does some work for Country Music Television. And you gotta feel sorry for that poor chick. Good God.

Ron Devoe - One of my favorite kids at The Bush Of Death. Ron proved to be an endless supply of much needed laughter. The first thing about Ron is that he smelled like soup. Tomato soup. Every single day. Ron was a hyper kid. And not the brightest guy you'll ever come across. My favorite recollection of Ron's intellectual prowess was in old Mrs Rummer's English class. He'd just read some brief poem aloud, and when he got to the end Ron attempted to read the poet's name. He said very slowly and without conviction, "Author Anon." I said, "Do you mean Anonymous?" My favorite thing about Ron is that even though he never finished high school, he was given a half scholarship to college. It was a school called Cincinnati Bible College. And I found it endlessly amusing that this institution of higher learning would give a half scholarship to a kid who didn't graduate high school. After Ron inevitably washed out from the CBC, he took a job as a cook here and there around Columbus. I remember that he was cooking at one of the fine low rent strip joints in town for awhile. While hanging out with Ron one night around 1992, he informed me that he regularly had strippers over to his apartment. Ron claimed to have regular 4somes. Ron would say, "A foursome, me and 4 strippers." I said, "Ron, wouldn't that technically be a 5some?" Alas, I just tried to google Ron and he doesn't come up anywhere except The Faceshit. His profile doesn't reveal much. He is bald though. That's something I guess.

Enough of this again. It's silly - much like life itself.