Cheyenne Mtn white-flight or white lie?

cheyenne mountain footballThere is an aspect about the Cheyenne Mountain High School drug bust story that most interests me. An insider aught to be able to confirm it: Did the student who narc’d on his druggie friends really have to move –siblings, household and all– straight out of town? That weekend, the rumor goes, so terrified was his/her family of the wrath of the “¡MEXICAN NATIONALS!”

No need to reveal the student’s name, and I’m certainly not going suggest the Xanax-stowaway did anything wrong to break the silence, of apparent consent, on the Cheyenne Black Tar Breakfast Club.

But someone who knew the student’s name, could look up his/her address –in the school directory if the address in unlisted, then go straight to the spot, or talk to the neighbors, or of course consult friends you might have in common, to confirm or debunk the hysteria.

Did Family Xanax pull up and go, moving van and all, to parts unknown, protected by the same White Mountain keep-our-troubles-to-ourselves White Witness Protection Program which kept a lid on its untroubled heroin trendies?

I’d like to know, who is it the family thinks is after them, the so-called “Mexican National” devils? Weren’t the two suppliers arrested? Is there a Mexican drug cartel that must avenge what happened? That must keep rich kid students cow-towed in fear, lest the next frightened Xanax-abuser, think little enough to squeal on the next Mexican foot soldiers to take on the rich-kid-malaise HS gold mine?

Why do I doubt it?

Could it be instead, the other white rich parents of whom the Xanax-parental-gardians are more afraid?

It occurs to me now, thinking of a past acquaintance with another local high school, two in fact: Manitou and Coronado, to name them, that their chief drug supplier, a few years ago, lived in the Cheyenne Mountain school district! I visited his house, actually. It was quite spacious, and his father was in on the action, also ran a chop-shop, as I recall.

Now that’s someone the neighbors would know to fear. Is that guy still around? Probably there’s some kind of expiration date for how long a recent HS grad can hang around school without becoming conspicuous.

Am I the only one who thinks there’s a story here? Violence between dealers is commonplace; are customers also kept terrorized? If User X and family did have to skip out of town, who did they flee? Brown-skinned outsiders? Or white skinned bad boys still here?

It’s one thing for affluent Cheyenne Mountain families to keep mum and take their substance-abuse challenge lumps. It’s another to acquiess to drug use like it’s their child’s rite-of-passage, spelled “right.” I’m not sure they don’t think it’s spelled the same. For some privileged folk, it seems a person’s ability to afford something is the only determinant of whether it’s right. Laws do not apply to freedoms they will not be denied.

And of course, the chief benefit derived from propagating the urban-mythic Family Hightails It Out-of-Town story, is that it reinforces a code of silence. We don’t betray our own.

And it slams shut the barn door. There’s nothing further to talk about, they’re gone. Don’t re-ignite the issue lest you invite the attention of the bogiemen out for revenge.

Bearing False Witness
Worse, to me, might be to let the storytellers lay the whole mess at the feet of the White Mountain non-whites. Cheyenne Mountain households are the same conservatives crying for blood at our southern border. They support harsher measures to stem illegal immigration, yet they rely on the undocumented workforce for their domestics. Those who are rich developers, builders and car dealers hire an enormous share of the local illegals. This disparate attitude is not contradictory. Unforgiving immigration policies keep wages low.

And then the opportunist-hypocrites want to blame their children’s drug problems on the same victims.

Let’s find out the truth to that white-flight story. What good is served –to amplify the potentially false stigma– by remaining un-skeptical about such a salacious rumor?

Black tar heroin bust spoils Cheyenne Mountain High School White Christmas

I’ll admit I was pretty floored when I read that students at Cheyenne Mountain High School — my kids’ school — were busted for using and dealing heroin. Apparently, a hired drug-sniffing dog led police to a locker containing Xanax, an anti-anxiety medication, that hadn’t been prescribed for the locker’s owner. The word is that this kid ratted out his fellow drug-using students. Whether this was an attempt to minimize his crime, or to strike a plea bargain of some kind, I don’t know. I called my college girl with breaking news of the drug busts. “Yeah,” she said, nearly yawning, or so it seemed, “it’s not 25 kids, it’s only 15. I heard the two dealers are facing 7 to 12 and the rest of the kids are being sent to rehab.” With Facebook, news disseminates in real time so my scoop was already old news to her.
Cheyenne-Mountain-High-School-banner

Undeterred, I dropped in on a fellow mother to deliver my bombshell. “Oh, yeah, there’ve been rumors of heroin use at Cheyenne for at least a couple years.” She proceeded to give me the lowdown on two of the alleged dealers.

Okay, everyone knew but me. But let me at least wager a guess about the future: since no drugs were found to be in possession of any student, there’s nothing the school can do to any of the alleged users. Not even a suspension, which is as it should be if due process is honored. I wouldn’t expect much more than hand-wringing from the parents who didn’t notice their children were strung out on heroin. The kids who’ve admitted smoking the stuff will likely be sent to $10,000/week rehab facilities where they can meet Mary Kate Olson or Lindsay Lohan and come back to mini-celebrity status.

The rest of us will distance ourselves from distasteful realities, likely with the full cooperation of teachers, shrinks, and media. One local headline read “D12 students were sold black tar heroin,” not “D12 students bought black tar heroin.” The subtle difference provides us a tiny emotional cushion.

Rather than dealing with the very real problems that plague our community, we’ll continue to emphasize the role of the drug-smuggling “Mexican nationals” in the corruption of our teenagers. Though the media has demonized them repeatedly, no one I’ve talked to knows anything about them, or exactly what a Mexican national is. But, then again, Cheyenne Mountain doesn’t know much about Mexicans in general, or blacks, or Indians that aren’t the school mascot. Come to think of it, we’d also never heard of BLACK TAR heroin. We thought heroin was supposed to be pure and white, like us. In any case, we take only prescription drugs, which is why we hurt for whichever mother had her Xanax jacked, the not-so-shocking incident that started this whole dark chapter.

Life, Love, Liberty and Lunch

graduation cheyenne mountain high school julia marie walden
I’m taking over the Bachelor Nutrition Series. Yes, Eric is a bachelor. But he’s my bachelor; as such, he’s carefully tended and well fed. The Simple Nutrition Series (its new name) should be geared toward those who know something about the body and, as such, desire nutritious fare but who, for whatever reason, find themselves culinarily challenged for a spell.

Proper equipment, fresh ingredients, adaptable recipes, sufficient time and talent — all components of good nutrition — are in short supply when one finds herself alone, in a dorm room, on a big college campus, hungry for both food and companionship. Yes, the hot pot is small consolation, and stands in the way of starvation. But wouldn’t it be great if a moveable feast was a genuine possibility? If the way to the heart is truly through the stomach, shouldn’t a girl come prepared for the journey?

My lovely Julia graduated from Cheyenne Mountain High School this weekend. Voted Most Likely to Win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and Best Sense of Humor — both make me so happy! — she did not win the Next Rachael Ray title. So begins my Fifteen Freshman Recipes Cookbook.

Freshman Fifteen #1 — Tortilla pizzas
I will not sing the praises of the lard/bleached-flour combo known as the tortilla. Pure dreck if you ask me. But, in a pinch, it can be the foundation for a nutritious gourmet pizza.

The PRESTO Pizzazz Pizza Oven is a stand-alone device that can cook a fresh or frozen pizza in minutes. We experimented with it tonight and discovered a few nutritious alternatives to Totino’s, using flour tortillas as our crust.

I placed the following items along the counter:
marinara sauce
olive oil
chopped fresh garlic
chopped fresh cilantro
chopped fresh basil
chopped fresh spinach
black beans
sliced black olives
turkey pepperoni
sliced roma tomatoes
sliced green pepper
sliced green onions
pineapple tidbits
shredded cheddar
shredded mozzarella
shredded swiss

We used the above ingredients in various tasty combinations and had a really lovely time of it.

A few combinations we discovered:
-black beans, tomatoes, cilantro, green onions, cheddar
-olive oil, spinach, garlic, basil, swiss
-marinara, pepperoni, pineapple, black olives, mozzarella

Each pizza took about six minutes, and ended up crisp and delicious. Not exactly haute cuisine, but definitely a step up from the ramen noodles of my era!
julia walden cheyenne mountain high school