I walk my kidlets to and from school almost every day. A lot of people in town tell me I'm crazy, but I look at it as if this is a total of three miles' worth of walking and exercise that I would otherwise miss. It also gives me extra time with my kidlets, and helps them to wake up a bit before starting their school day. To me, these are all good things. At least I consider them to be good things when the weather is beautiful. I do question my own sanity when it's either freezing cold and sleeting or roasting and humid.
On the walk home from school today, a couple of middle school students stopped us. They both knew at least one of my kidlets by name, and we all knew each other by sight from simply seeing one another hundreds of times at the elementary school over the years. Both boys looked exceedingly concerned, so I asked them if they were okay. It might take a village to raise a child, but I was the only adult around who was in a position to help if needed, unless you counted the guys cutting down tree limbs two houses away, and those were hired men who were likely strangers to the two sixth graders.
One of the boys immediately asked me if I knew what happened at one of the parks in our town. I told him I had not heard anything, and asked why he was asking. Both boys piped up to say they heard there was a shooting at the park, and that the teachers had told them whatever happened was too violent to tell them. They claimed all after school activities had been cancelled due to this supposed shooting. One boy stated he did not want to go home because he would have to be there alone.
Hmm. I had not heard anything. I had seen an emergency vehicle fly through the center of town, but I had no idea if it wound up at the park in question. I certainly had not heard any rumors flying at the elementary school. Having been a teacher myself during September of 2001, I could say that it is not uncommon for teachers to be told they are not allowed to mention anything about tragic events that are still unfolding. (We were told to not tell our students anything on 9/11, which I found exceedingly difficult as I did not immediately know if my husband was even still alive. Thankfully, he was.) No one wants to start a panic amongst the students, I suppose.
I asked the two boys if either one needed help contacting their parents, since I had my cell phone on me, or if they needed us to watch to see if they would make it home safely. They declined, but one walked with us as we finished our walk home. (He lives a couple of houses up the street from us.)
After walking into my house, I immediately contacted a friend of mine whose husband is a volunteer firefighter in town. I figured if anyone I knew would have heard of an emergency call, she would have. Apparently, there was an emergency near the park in question, but there was no shooting. Those middle schoolers were worried over a rumor that had essentially been a game of telephone run amok.
You know that game? One person starts out by whispering something to someone else, who then whispers it to another person, who relays the message further, and so on and so forth, until the very last person announces the message they heard. "I love the color red" becomes "Rainbows are awful things unless you own a unicorn" or something else totally unrelated to the original statement. That's what must have happened here. One person said something about the park in question, and the next thing we knew, the middle schoolers are asking about a shooting that never took place.
The saddest thing about this whole telephone situation, in my opinion, is that we live in a society where kidlets know a shooting could actually take place at the park where they play. I am just grateful that turned out to be a rumor instead of the truth.
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