I went mostly for the social slant I could get from it-- a session of people-studying if you will. I mean, how often does one have the opportunity to go to juvie for this kind of thing? These boys are in for all sorts of crimes, and the eldest could not have been older than 13 years. I was even hesitant to take my very precious camera along! I mean, these kids have smoke breaks at their school! But we braved it, and we were in for a pleasant surprise... In a swift bunch they pile into the classroom, empty but for chairs and a board illustrating quite explicitly the dangers of smoking. [It goes something like 1. Healthy 2. Start smoking 3. Lungs get sick 4. Cancer 5. Death]. A boy whose name I do not catch introduces himself- and shakes the hands of myself, my friends and both musicians. There is little disorder as they file in and place themselves on the plastic chairs, quietly waiting for what is about to happen. There is no violent pushing to get a front-row seat, no cacophony of cheering or jeering, no rioting for no reason. They wait in tranquil states of patience for the music to begin. The songs are unpretentiously plain, short, a folksy blues reminiscent of all the wrong messages of smoking and random bar fights. But each boy has his eyes fixed upon the simple sound streaming from each guitar. Many of them grab onto their air-guitars, closing their eyes and strumming along in imaginary nostalgia. When the last notes fade away, there is a gentle request for an encore, but I assume the teacher in charge has to escort them to some correctional activity because he quashes this hope of theirs. They are, however, promised another session next week and [for those interested] there will be guitar lessons with Fred and Liam.
1 comment:
Wow, that is such an awesome initiative. Kudos to them!
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