A True Story of Injustice and Fighting the System

TimK — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:00:00 -0700

If you enjoy reading good stories—and I assume you do, because otherwise why would you be reading The Conscience of Abe’s Turn? Here’s one of my favorite true stories from Magazine Man’s blog, Somewhere on the Masthead. Magazine Man is a real-life magazine editor who writes pseudonymously. And his is definitely one of the best personal blogs on the Internet.

The story is in 6 parts. You can read the whole thing at once, of course. And the way Magazine Man writes, you’ll probably be tempted to. (And if you want to, you can get links to all the parts at my writing and storytelling blog.) Even so, I’ll post a brief announcement each Tuesday with a link to the next part of the story.

(By the way, in the story, “HLS” is “Her Lovely Self,” Magazine Man’s wife.)

In the first part:

But at that moment, I realized what annoyed me about the letter: It wasn’t just the formal language—like it was a police report—it was that it exuded an excessive amount of authority. I mean, honestly, does an elementary school really need someone who not only calls himself “Dean of Discipline” but who refers to himself in the third person, using that title in a report he made out himself? And “detention”? For a first grader?

Ah, Andrew. I knew about this kid, the class bully. He’s one of the oldest in the class (actually so is Thomas) so he’s much bigger than most of the kids… He would take other kids’ toys, or throw rocks and sticks at them. And he always managed to escape the notice of teachers. Naturally, he ended up in Thomas’ class, proof again that if it weren’t for bad luck, my family would have no luck at all.

Read part 1 of the story at Somewhere on the Masthead.

The Conscience of Abe’s Turn - A True Story of Injustice and Fighting the System - Comments

A True Story of Injustice and Fighting the System