Be True to Your School

Just about midnight tonight, just as I was about to log off my computer and come home from work, something caught my eye on the AP broadcast wire. The slug on the story: MIteenkillsmom. Translation: Michigan, Teen kills mom.

Maybe it's homesickness, maybe it's schadenfreude, but for whatever reason, when I see a news story about my home state, I usually click on it. Since we subscribe to the Alabama/Georgia news wire, only the more shocking and unusual stories about Michigan make the wire.

So I click. And I read. The story was fed by WJBK, the Fox affiliate in Detroit. About halfway down the page, it says that the boy's murdered mother was a psychotherapist in Rochester Hills.

That's my home town.

Further into the story, it mentions the boy's classmates at his high school are shocked. It does not, however, say what high school he attended. So I log onto our digital video server to look at the streaming video clip from WJBK.

And there it was, in all its glory: Rochester Adams High School. The alleged mother-stabber not only went to my high school, he lives on the same street as a friend of mine from junior high school. By the way, my best friend from high school is now a teacher in the school district.

Oddly enough, when I went to WJBK's website to find the story, they hadn't posted it. Instead, there was much more newsworthy information like "Ask the Michigan School of Gardening Experts," "Tigers to Play Twins Today," and "How to Report a Pothole."

WDIV, on the other hand, is all over it. If you click on the first streaming video link ("Students React To Teen Accused In Mom's Death") you can even see my alma mater... and even one of the teachers that was there 20 years ago when I was fifteen.

I guess the old saying is true. You can't go home again.