I've Never Written About It Before: A Couple More Things About My Dad
a school shooting before there was the term "school shooting"
In my last post I wrote about the reasons I think my dad hid the fact we were Jewish. But two more frightening, formative experiences are coming to mind that I think were big factors in his general feeling the world wasn’t a safe place.
CW: the following post discusses murder and violence
When my dad was in college, way before there was the term “school shooting,” there was a school shooting.
A student brought a gun to campus and went down the hall of his dorm, trying all the doors, intending to shoot as many students as he could find. He found a door that opened, entered, and shot a sleeping student in the head with a rifle. He then ran through the building trying doors and shooting in all directions before surrendering.
This is something I’d heard about from my dad hundreds of times, blithely mentioned in a matter of fact way, without emotion and simply as a reminder to lock your doors because it could mean the difference between life and death. It’s only recently that I started thinking about how traumatic this must have been.
The shooting happened at Swarthmore college in Pennsylvania where my dad was an English major. I don’t know if he lived in the same dorm or even on campus. But it was a small, small school. The graduating class only had 217 students.
Interestingly—and to me, upsettingly—the shooter was later hired by the
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend! to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.