If they caught you chewing gum they took you outside and flogged you. 

Well, they didn't do that, but they made you write "I am a juicy fruit" 14,000 times on the chalk board. 

Shoot somebody? Mrs. Evans, the librarian, made the boys take off their watches and the girls take off their bracelets so they wouldn't scratch the tables when they sat down to read. 

When students walked in the halls, boys and girls couldn't be closer than five feet to each other. Teachers carried rulers around with them. 

O.P. Evans, the principal, read biblical warnings against disrespecting authority at assembly meetings. He would cite a school rule and bellow in his frightful voice, "Just challenge us! Just challenge us!" 

Shoot somebody? I was afraid to breathe. 

I also got a great education and never feared for my life. 

One kid blows another kid away at Atlanta's Harper High School Tuesday. The dead kid is 15. In 1989 another 15-year-old was beaten to death at Harper High. 

You know what one of the problems is? Get some of the reaction to the Tuesday shooting. 

The mother of the suspected murderer said her son's "tragic side of the story hasn't been told." 

There we go again. The criminal as victim. He's still alive, isn't he? 

Vanessa Shareef, described as The Atlanta Project's Harper Cluster coordinator, had this to say: 

"From what I get talking to my child and others, the boy (who did the shooting) didn't feel he had an option of anyone to talk to, anyone who was listening, anyone who would address the fact that he was getting beaten by these other boys. The children at the school, they feel there was some justification (for the shooting), I'm sad to say." 

Poor misunderstood kid. He's getting pushed around and nobody will listen to him, so he shoots a fellow classmate in the back. 

And some fellow students think he was justified. 

My God. 

But not to worry. We've got a task force on the situation now. Has there ever been a task force in the history of task forces that accomplished anything? 

Here's what an article in the paper said: "A new state task force on violence in schools kicked off Wednesday with a brainstorming session on how to develop safe schools without creating armed camps of shakedowns and metal detectors." 

"... without creating armed camps?" 

I've got news for the state task force. Some of our schools already are armed camps. The problem is it's the kids who are armed. 

If it takes armed camps of shakedowns and metal detectors to stop the violence, then why the hell not? 

I wouldn't care if they strip-searched my kid three times before lunch if it lessened the chances of him or her getting shot by fifth period. 

"The task force will hold public hearings throughout the state this month and compile a preliminary report," said the papers. 

Public hearings and preliminary reports. Horse manure. Somebody, like parents and school officials, have to get mad and mean and dare the punks to challenge them. O.P. Evans would have called up the National Guard. 

At one local high school where a policeman carries a gun in the hallway, a student said of the cop's presence: "It sucks." 

Not nearly as much, young fellow, as being dead.