When I was in high school there was a place called “Father’s Hill” on the sprawling property of a Catholic school near my house. Father’s Hill was perfect for sledding, and for several years a very well kept secret. When the snow iced over, the ample descent provided as fast and long a ride as any incline in the area, providing hours of fun for a select group of neighborhood kids. Indeed it seldom had more than a dozen people enjoying it at any one time. Alas, it was too good a thing to stay under wraps, eventually word got out and the crowds came.
One significant stretch of winter weather in 1977 served to move Father’s Hill front and center as the spot to see and be seen among Winston Churchill High’s student body. One particular canceled school day there may have been a couple hundred kids on the grounds, reflecting a who’s who of the social food chain, many more interested in spleefs and Budweisers than sledding.
Father’s Hill abutted Bradley Boulevard, a well traveled road, and it was only a matter of time before somebody decided it would be fun to throw snowballs at passing traffic. What started as sporadic bombs thrown from longer distances quickly morphed into multiple attacks launched by a teenage mob from no more than 15 yards away, pounding vehicles with damaging force. Of course the owners of the cars were incensed by the brazenness of the pelting, and several got out to confront the growing group of rowdies, but faced with a tribe straight from Lord of the Flies, each member looking to outdo others and impress the sizable female contingent watching and taking note, thought better of it and retreated back to their vehicles surely convinced the nation’s future was not promising.
I now confess to being one of the first involved in the event. Not interested in sharing my hill with so many, I joined a group of cohorts intent on getting high and gazing at girls I wouldn’t have the courage to approach. We were perhaps 25 yards from the road, sheltered some in a small glen. Our accuracy rate was low and the odd strike was only once significant enough for a car to even slow its journey. This changed when a buddy launched a softball-sized bullet he had been packing for a while and scored a direct hit on a windshield. The car screeched to a halt and a middle-aged man, ahead of the obesity epidemic’s curve, got out and started screaming at nobody in particular. He couldn’t tell where the strike had originated, and after a couple of minutes of futilely looking for a culprit left the scene. Everybody laughed, and we received some momentary noteriety, however the episode announced to all there was a new game… and the biggest and most fearsome of my peers decided they wanted to play.
There is an apocalyptic feel to a large mob of lawless teenagers fully bent on breaching the constraints of society. The spectacle that evolved quickly that day at Father’s Hill was frightening. A couple of dozen well-to-do suburban teens pummeling cars from point blank range, daring the bravehearts with the courage to get out and challenge them. Although I was a party to starting the affair, I wanted nothing to do with what it had become. And as I watched with a crowd from a distance, mesmerized by its ferocity and sizing up my escape from cops who were sure to arrive at some point, I was seized by the horror of a sudden realization; my father took this exact route home from work, and he very well may be coming home early since it was a snow day!!
Nausea quickly enveloped me. Whatever common sense previous victims of this riot were displaying, I knew my dad would not recognize such limitations. The thought of my father confronting the group of hyenas assembled at that moment buckled my knees. He would likely do what he had always done throughout my life when engaged in confrontation: size things up and slowly remove his glasses, his face transformed to a strange blankness, like a shark ready to chomp something. The image made me lightheaded. What to do?! Should I stay and monitor things, interceding when I saw his car coming, hoping pleas it was my father would grant special dispensation? The humiliation of that option quickly eliminated it. Maybe I could go down Bradley Boulevard and pretend to hitchhike, waiting for him to drive by and then plead with him to turn around and take another route home. That strategy was abandoned because, knowing my father, he would want to assess exactly what was going on, a worst case scenario. Maybe he hasn’t left the office yet I reassured myself! I decided to go home and try to call him. If he hadn’t yet departed there was nothing to worry about.
My father’s secretary, Mary, had the world’s most pleasant disposition, yet her cheerful confirmation that my father had left his Georgetown office “oh, maybe 20 minutes ago” sent dread through me. Such timing had him on a collision course with disasterous peril. My mind raced. Should I run back and await the worst? Perhaps it wasn’t too late to employ the hitchhiking plan. Everything was jumbled, nothing seemed constructive. So I merely sat on the living room couch mindlessly watching a syndicated rerun of some kind and did what always came naturally as a last resort… prayed.
In between Hail Marys I pondered the situation and understood I no longer cared about any social abasement I may suffer. Screw those assholes, this was my dad God damn it! My mind’s eye had him taking shots from the nastiest of the mob’s ruffians, going down as others joined in. Just as I was certain the worst would happen, and got up to head back to Father’s Hill, my dad’s white Chevy Nova coasted down our driveway and disappeared into the garage. I took a deep breath and rushed downstairs to meet my father at the basement door, half expecting him to look bruised and battered. He walked through the doorway looking no worse for the wear, curtly informing me my earlier efforts at shoveling the driveway were “halfassed.” I exhaled in blessed relief and actually hugged him! Now he was worried and asked what was wrong? Was everybody alright? Yes, I exclaimed, everyone was fine. I casually asked if he saw the big crowd at Father’s Hill. No, he responded, he had taken the back route to avoid traffic. As always, my prayers came through.
It’s doubtful the boys from Kentucky captured for all-time having fun at the expense of Native American elder Nathan Phillips and others faced any similar predicament, and they were certainly not the destructive posse of punks trouncing the envelope at Father’s Hill more than 40 years ago, but they were a mob nonetheless. In fact, watching the video, which now is the subject of competing interpretations as the culture war and Fox/AM intercede to set the record straight, a woman onlooker can be clearly heard telling the boys they are behaving like a mob.
Partisans for the Catholic boys want it known Black Israelites started the whole thing, taunting the kids as they awaited their buses. Yet and still, regardless of who may have riled them up, the video clearly shows a large group of boys unconcerned with anything other than joining in with their peers and anatogonizing an outnumbered group of passive Native Americans with tropes void of any other usefulness. The clear image of so many kids unifying around nasty chants meant to proudly underscore the MAGA bigotry which nobody can doubt informed their actions should be as troubling to watch as my unhinged schoolmates were that day long ago.
When groupthink fully eliminates individual judgement and the will to deviate from shared behavior at odds with common decency, a major problem exists. Unlike truly senseless behavior 40 years ago, which no parent would condone or seek to revise in a brighter light, this weekend’s antics will continue to be debated; the Kentucky boys actually appear headed toward Fox/AM martyrdom, the innocent victims of an unquenchable appetite by fake news to villianize any who proudly support Trump. The sad reality is those kids were behaving no differently from so many adults they have observed at Trump rallies since his campaign began, becoming a mob unified against any and all different from themselves. MAGA’s children. BC