Trued on a Base Story: A Cautionary Tale

The Opposite of People—Planetarium

If this is a true story, this is the first time I have despised a performer for his lack of decency. If this is meant to provoke, inspire a strong reaction, it has succeeded in spades. The program specifically invites teachers and principals; and having spent most of my life in that field, it piqued my interest. He starts by saying he is a sucker, and an asshole. If what he relates is true, I heartily agree with the second. His story of being groomed and seduced by his serial pedophile teacher, whom he goes on to father three children with, and commit bigamy is a crass one. He claims to have been in charge of the child care while his wife was off molesting another student on her famous screw and canoe trips. He goes on to become a teacher, among other things. Yet when he encounters the six year old a few years later, he lets her call excitedly out to him seven times; knowing he will choose to ignore her dwindling entreaties. If it is a true story he is the kind of parent my circle cannot abide. The kind of person who breaks a bond with the children he has raised and abandons them without a care, is not someone worthy of respect. The children were not well served by either parent and must have felt so unwanted. The long lasting sense of worthlessness and ensuing inability to trust take years of therapy to begin to heal, if ever. I was taught birth control in elementary school. These two teachers seem to have missed that class.

Lisa Campbell