Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Can you sit in the 'bacolny' . . . or not?


I just got a comment on this post, one pointing out how much my old high school resembled a notoriously ramshackle and crime-ridden Baton Rouge, La., motel. The anonymous commenter took issue with the picture above, and with my saying the auditorium balcony no longer was in use. I will repost that comment below, and then I'll have my say in response.
ANONYMOUS WRITES:
"Instead of holding students at assemblies or the public for community events, the balcony of the school's grand old auditorium now holds junk. Not people." While your post raises a lot of interesting points, this one simply is not true. I graduated this past May, as a member of the class of 2007, and I know from personal experience that the balcony is used for seating during events. The picture you placed immediately before this description is also misleading -- the "No public seating on balcony" sign is only used when an event doesn't draw enough people to fill up the downstairs portion of the auditorium. Since it doesn't make sense to have some people sitting downstairs and some people sitting upstairs when the downstairs is not completely filled, this sign is used.
ACTUALLY, the sign says "No public seating in the bacolny," and it is what it is. That is what I found there years after I graduated -- it's not like I planted the sign . . . or the junk in both balcony entrances. In one entrance, there was no way to squeeze past the discarded desks, etc., to get into the balcony -- or "bacolny," as the case may be. In the other second-floor entrance, I was able to squeeze -- barely -- past the junk to get to the balcony. So, you're telling me that the school staff has to remove all that crap and find somewhere to put it whenever there's a large assembly at Baton Rouge High? Again, the pictures are what they are. And the junk-filled balcony entrances are the LEAST of the school's problems. YOU SAY the post "raises a lot of interesting points," and this is what you seize upon in order to get your knickers in a twist? I'm not raising "interesting points." I'm screaming at the top of my lungs that your old school and mine has been allowed to become a f***ing dump! As in "unfit for human habitation." And that the school board -- and the taxpayers, too -- let it get that way, blithely sending their kids and others' to school there as the place crumbles around them. But dat's Looziana for ya'! And I'm horribly sorry if I misrepresented the usage status of the auditorium "bacolny." Coulda fooled me, and perhaps did.

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