Meanderings: The good and the stupid
Ken Arnhold, principal at Marion High School, wants people to know that there are plenty of good kids at MHS.
On April 19, he had cashed a check for $200, taking two $100 bills. He put the money into his checkbook which he stuffed into his pants pocket.
Being the sort of principal that doesn't like a desk, Ken roams the school grounds whenever possible. He was out in the wood shop when the call came through: "Steven Shiplet needs to talk to you right away."
It hadn't been a good month for Ken. Arrests, a high dropout rate among seniors, and the regular vagaries of working in a building fueled by teenage energy had taken quite a bit of fun out of the job.
"I wondered what this was going to be about," he recalls.
When he arrived at his office, Steven was standing there. He handed over the checkbook, which Ken had apparently dropped while checking out one of the rooms in the school.
Ken isn't sure how long it was on the floor, but none of the money had been taken.
"After the month I had, I really needed that," he said.
One hopes no Marion High School student ever receives a Darwin Award. This is presented by the Darwin Society to those who die doing something incredibly stupid. They remove themselves from the gene pool, thus benefiting the species.
An example is the drunk who lies down to sleep it off — on a highway.
They also have special recognition for people who behave stupidly, but somehow survive.
An example is the man who strapped a dozen or so weather balloons to a chair. His plan was to float up above his back yard. Instead, he leveled off at 16,000 feet. He drifted into Los Angeles International Airport airspace (not a good thing to do these days). He was rescued, arrested, and hopefully neutered.
Back in my college days, I was an avid reader of National Lampoon, the humor magazine produced by the company that made "Animal House," "Vacation," and other films.
They had a section called "True Facts," which often dealt with people doing things that were incredibly stupid, incredibly obscene, or both.
It was the best part of the magazine.
I used to clip odd little stories from magazines and newspapers. In a flurry of housecleaning, I threw them all away. But I recently started up again. I took a brief from the Wichita Eagle sports page. It says an athlete has been suspended two years for doping. The sport?
Table tennis.
— MATT NEWHOUSE
