A DISTRESSINGLY ORDINARY MAN

On April 19^th, 1995, a quiet loner by the name of Timothy McVeigh, blew up a government building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 innocent people.  On September 1997, I wrote the piece below in my regular newspaper column, in an attempt to explain how a seemingly normal person could commit such an atrocity. I’m resurrecting this old piece on Substack because the would-be assassin of President Trump fits the profile, as one news account put it, of

      A quiet, lonely nerd

Thomas Mathew Crooks, a twenty-year old boy, was a recent graduate of Bethel Park High School in Pennsylvania.  Classmates “painted a portrait of a social outcast who kept a low profile.”

· “He didn’t really fit in with anyone else,” classmate Sarah D’ Angelo, told the Wall Street Journal.  “He was there, but I can’t think of anyone who knew him well,” said another.

· Crooks was a “loner” who “would sit alone at lunch,” classmate Jason Kohler said.  “He would regularly wear camouflage outfits and was “bullied” for the way he dressed.

· “Most - but not all – who knew Crooks, expressed disbelief in his involvement in the shootings at the Trump rally.”

· “It was just, like, shocked – I just couldn’t believe he did something that bold, considering he was such a quiet and kept-to-himself kind of person,” said an anonymous classmate.

· “He was somebody who came across as lonely a lot,” said Jameson Myers, who attended both elementary and high school with Crook.

 In a poignant sort of way, I feel sorry for these boys.  Don’t get me wrong, McVeigh referred to his victims as “collateral damage.”  He was executed; he got what he deserved.  But most of us can understand what it must be like to be at the end of life’s pecking order, to be isolated, friendless, bullied, disrespected, unnoticed, unloved. 

At the age of thirty-nine, Errol, a friend from back in the Bronx, took his own life. He was slight of build.  In high school he went through a regimen of drinking orange juice and lifting weights to beef himself up.  He was reasonably intelligent and good looking, but his father was a shrill embarrassment. Someone threw dirt in his face, causing him to lose sight in one eye. As far as I know, he never had a girlfriend. I’m guessing Errol concluded he would never find love. His casket was closed. I could have been kinder to Errol, bit I wasn’t.

During the twelve summers I went to camp, there was always one boy in the bunk who was bullied. He was the weakest athlete, the most vulnerable. The most ignored. The most teased. The most dissed. The last picked when we chose-up teams. Life must have been hell for these kids. I could have reached out to them, but I didn’t.

Crisis Update

In a Reuters/Ipsos poll released yesterday, July 18th, in response to the attempted assassination of Donld Trump, eighty percent of voters in both parties agree that "the country is spiraling out of the control."