Witch Season

We've been discussing the poor treatment that the Irish faced when they arrived in America. Ya know, "No Irish Need Apply" and all that. But I told them about an Irish woman named Ann Glover who was hanged for being a witch in Boston in 1688. They misinterpreted her native Irish for some sort of evil witch-speak when and claimed to get a confession out of her.

That was pretty much the sentiment of the time. In 1650, this English bloke Richard Mather said that the new influx of Irish into Boston was "an attempt by Satan and his sons to unsettle us." Damn -- the Irish is the devil!! And people are still chasing witches.

There is a strict no-drinking policy in effect on this trip for the students. Even if a kid is suspected of drinking, he or she will get a phone call home to the parents. If they get caught or are suspected again, they will be sent home to the US. And one group of kids has already been suspected and got that dreaded phone call to their parents. Now, of course, they're on the other teachers' collective "S-lists" and are being sought out at every turn. And I happen to think they're pretty good kids.

Any entrance into a pub is considered a violation, which I agree with. But today, however, I took a couple of the "suspect kids" into a restaurant that also served booze in the front because the meals here are pretty much shit.

Brekkers: shitty cereal, occasionally ripe fruit and toast.
Lunch: Potatoes, thin piece of meat, gruel-like soup.
Dinner: see lunch

So I said, hell - let's get some decent food! Then one teacher, who I guess is my superior because she's about 37 and was a teacher back when I was on the trip, pulled me aside and reprimanded me for taking them "into a pub." After acknowledging that it was more restaurant than pub, the teacher called the kid an "arrogant shit" who she knows will eventually drink.

Awkward. But now the teachers are all talking about how their one roommate, who is more innocent than they are, bought a pipe and is smoking with another group of kids because he "probably wants to distance himself from the drinkers." Or a kid who just buys a pipe will smoke with the others kids who smoke? How about that? Witch hunts are still alive, my friends. Let the kids playball.