OK, here's the thing ... I went to see "Hellboy" on the weekend. Interesting enough premise for a "let-your-mind-go" movie, but just a few too many shots of tentacles for me. I think one or two or less of those would have allowed the movie to flow a little more and bog down a little less. Anyway, after that visual treat, I headed to Tim Horton's for a taste treat. NOBODY MAKES PLAIN ole' JOE BETTER THAN TIM'S! It's hockey playoff time, the Leafs and the Sens are battling it out, I've just been to an action flick, and in walks this guy wearing a jersey from some other team! Every other team logo on the place is a Leafs' logo and then there's this dweeb. My mind clicks into overtime. I see ... the entrance to Tim's is guarded by a muscleman who brings new meaning to the concept of pecs. His shirt is in imminent danger of splitting over his array of biceps and triceps. I walk by with my Leafs' jersey, and he smiles benignly. Others follow in their jerseys and jackets and his features crease into a grin each time. THEN ... up walks this fool in the WRONG jersey. Not a word escapes Mr. Muscle's lips, but his right fist snakes out in an action so fast' it's blurred! Mr. Wrong Allegiance flies backward through the parking lot, his body in a straight line with his head leading the way. He crashes straight through three vans before finally coming to a halt with just his head still stuck inside the fourth van, and the rest of him protruding from its side, his body still in a rigid line. No-one gives him a second look, as the guardian of the gate goes back to gently smiling at those of us supporting the right team!

OK, talk about upside down! I think I've come to a crossroad, and it might just be time for me to take a turn down a new path. After years of teaching that have included being bitten, kicked, punched, sworn at, and now threatened with physical harm, maybe the time has arrived to take pen in hand and write a resume. Yup, I've had laughs and tears of joy, as well as triumphs and accomplishments, but in most other workplaces, those things do NOT come accompanied by the various needs for tetanus shots and tylenol, listed above. The schools are less and less the safe place that we all wish they were. That's not only for the staff, you understand. That's for the students, too. Something has got to change. It would seem that "zero tolerance" policies are something to be used at the discretion, say even at the whim of each individual school administration. They are not something to rely on and trust in. We've all heard of the turkeys who suspended some student for bringing a table knife with his lunch to spread cream cheese on a sandwich. Such actions make this all into a farce. But so few of the public have heard the other stories. At one school I taught in, at the time of the Columbine horror, I intercepted a handwritten note, wherein a student detailed his intent to kill a classmate, "cut off his head and use it as a bloody hockey puck". That's a verbatim quote I'm able to make because I will never forget reading that note. What did the principal do? Dismissed it all as a 'boys will be boys' joke. How did he know? On what was he basing his second-guessed guarantee of safety to the student (and his parents) named in that note? It's being done all wrong, all wrong. For every one school where they get it right, how many schools are a place waiting for some student to die in them? Remember the student who was a lunch monitor, until he was found hanging from a coathook in a classroom? He died, and the suspects remained only suspects. The police never got enough of a case to bring it to court. I know I will live in fear for my grandchildren, because I have seen it all from the inside, a view many never get ... a view I don't think I can take much longer.