Awkwardness: Nick the High School Newspaper Writer

Just for kicks this week, I've dug up a pair of stories from my personal history I wrote for the weekly newspaper in high school. One is a real news article; the other is just a commentary article that I probably had to rough somebody up to get published, because, really, it's barely anything. I omitted the names in respect to the living.

Originally published 4/20/2007 in "The Mentor":

The Bloody Truth by Nick Adams

Dozens of Manhattan High School students lay bleeding in the North Gym at the West Campus on April 25. No, it wasn’t an unfortunate PE class, it was the recent Student Council-sponsored blood drive.

Just like earlier this school year, students and faculty members of MHS were given the opportunity to give blood and save lives. The principle runners of the blood drive were seniors R- Anderson and H- Clark.

“There’s a lot of new donors,” said Anderson. “I think it’s a new experience [for most students].”

J- Tooill, the Red Cross team supervisor commented that the blood drive went smoothly. According to Tooill, they take 500 ml of blood from each donor. And any blood flavor was welcome, from A to O.

“I feel like you need blood to live; it’s the oasis of life,” said Clark.

This spring, the Student Council started setting up multiple stations and chairs around seven o’clock. Many elected members, and some from general assembly, brought food for the blood donors. Several blood specialists represented the Red Cross, which also brought some food.

“What’s a better way to start off a Wednesday than to save lives?” said senior K- Thomas.

In theory, each donor gave enough blood to save up to three lives. Times that by the scores of donors and you get a lot of saved people. But not just in Manhattan. All the collected blood is shipped off to Wichita and processed and then sent out to hospitals all over Kansas and parts of Oklahoma.

Many, if not all, of the donors from this drive feel proud that they are helping their fellow man. Senior N- Johnson, a recent blood donor, acknowledges that “it’s a great cause”. To him and many others, the temporary uncomfortable-ness is a small price to pay for the end result.

“The help here is great,” said Johnson. “Plus you get out of school.”

To future potential donors, Tooill suggests everyone should make sure to drink plenty of fluids and eat a good breakfast the morning of donating. Thomas offers much more blunt advice to potential donors by simply adding, “Man up!”

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A Fearful And Celebratory Look into the Future by Nick Adams

The following article is an actual high school newspaper article from the arguably distant future. No part of the article is fictionalized:

Ringing in the Year 2050 by Robit Adams.

Robit here, grandson of the writer/dancer Sir Nick Adams. It’s that “beginning of the year” time of the year again. But rather than simply recap the previous year, I plan to recap the first half of the first century of the third Willennium (I can’t believe the Fresh Prince actually got it renamed).

I guess some of the problems still exist that we faced in 2000. For one, the Middle East sectarian violence has increased. It’s really sad actually. I thought the Baldwin Mid-East Peace Tour was going to star-strike the region into giving up violence (may Billy’s under-appreciated soul rest in peace). Oh well, most people don’t live forever.

Isn’t it odd that 50,000 movies will come out this year, yet none will be as good as the Wayan’s brothers’ timeless classic, “White Chicks”? They just don’t make movies with heart anymore. Even “Time Inns Are Forever,” the most financially successful movie of all-time wasn’t that great. Granted James Bond using a time-traveling hotel to go back to the 20th century and stop the Kaiser was one of the more realistic plots, but where was the love?

Everyone should note that 2050 will mark the 35th anniversary of the, hilariously ironic, end of WWIII. On a vastly different note, everyone probably grudgingly remembers the Clinton scandal several years back. Did former-President Hilary Clinton REALLY think she wouldn’t get caught rigging the election of President Chelsea Clinton? Three of my dads are still angry that it took eight years to prove it though.

It’s a strange time we live in where robots can actually feel love and, incidentally, feel pain. And randomly catch on fire. Though we do need to try building better robots since the Human Cloning Project fell apart after the successful, yet questionable, cloning of Mary-Kate Olsen.

It hasn’t been an easy half-century, that’s for sure. For instance the 37-cent coin creation controversy. Well, I guess the creation wasn’t as controversial as the decision to put Tom Arnold on the coin. And then there was that Constitutional amendment leading to a certain three states being bombed into uninhabitable ash fields. That was the biggest turn in American opinion since they discovered iPods caused ear cancer!

In some ways I imagine people from fifty years ago would be disappointed in our lack of progress. Our cars still run on gasoline, but who would have guess we would find an oil reserve in the least likely, and cutest, place? Not to mention how that “Life on Mars” hoax set us back trillions of dollars over 30 years ago. And let us have a moment of silence for the (tasty) animals that are now extinct. We loved your meat too much African Elephant, Hybrid Spider Monkey and Cow.