One Of The Worst Possible Things Happened To Me. Twice.

I thought it could never happen again: a vicious, deadly shooting spree in a school in my community. One happened in 1975, the other in 2023. Both incidents show how far North American society has come in 48 years and how far it hasn’t.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Mass shooting number one: Brampton Centennial Secondary School, Brampton, Ontario, Canada, May 28, 1975

In 1975 I was in grade nine, or, to put it in American terms, I was a high school freshman. My family had just moved from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Brampton, Ontario a few months before. I had no friends. I walked two miles to school every morning and every afternoon completely alone. I sat in classes where no one talked to me. I was an awkward teen lacking social skills.

I liked my new school because the teachers were interesting and knowledgeable. For example, we learned about the Kent State massacre in history class, which had occurred only five years earlier. Also, although no one talked to me, they didn’t bully me either, so it was an improvement over the junior high school in Newfoundland I had just left where kids bullied me…