[for Blandy and Dandy Drone]
Fog shrouded morning's news: Karloff has died.
Just ten years old, then, I wept bitterly.
Classmates at school made mirthful mockery
or glibly questioned my sincerity.
In their opinion: having not known him,
such grief as I felt was merely a whim.
How could a man, who had played to such fears,
deserve some random child's sniffles and tears?
Relentless laughter from them; but why annoyed
were they at emotion I could not avoid?
(The cruelty younger people can design
is worse than monsters made by Frankenstein.)
And I still cried---
that affection for Karloff I never denied.
Starward
[jlc]
Author's Notes/Comments:
Blandy and Dandy Drone---these words rhyme with their first names, which rhymed with each other; and their surname---were brothers who had transferred to our school at the beginning of our fifth grade year (September, 1968). My deeply emotional response to Karloff's death, which happened about a month and a half prior to my grandfather's, seemed to offend them profoundly. They led the initial class mockery of my grief, a mockery our teacher did nothing to prevent, as my great love of the Universal Horror Films, 1931-1945, which I had enjoyed since 1963, was very dimly viewed by the educational establishment in our small rural town. The mockery gathered momentum, and would return my sixth grade year to haunt nearly every classday.
After I left Madison Park elementary to enter the junior high (I suppose that is, in these days, called Middle School), the two Drones apparently transferred to some other school, as I never saw them in junior or senior high. I know I am required by my faith to forgive them, but I am not required to forget the incidents they instigated, or so ever have confidence in them should I meet them again (a meeting I would studiously avoid),
children can be cruel.
children can be cruel. Sadly, they often learn it from their parents.
I agree, totally. And it has
I agree, totally. And it has not changed.
Starward