Lynch Mobs, John-Paul Sartre and Getting What You Deserve

Barry Maher
Mon, 23 Feb 2026 14:56:03 -0800
Opinion

I've had a checkered relationship with journalism since high school, when it almost got my friend, Don, lynched.

The advisor to the generally ignored school paper had asked me repeatedly to be the sports editor. This was neither tempting nor flattering. All the editors had to be seniors and no one in those days ever thought the sports editor could be female. It also had to be someone from Curriculum One, where there were only five remaining males. Three of them couldn't tell a basketball from a hockey puck. The fourth, my friend, Don, knew the difference, but he had no interest in either. So, I was really the only likely candidate. But my plan for my senior year consisted entirely of spending as little time as possible in high school.

The curriculum breakdown was an educational caste system. It started in seventh grade. Curriculum One was geared for the top colleges, the ones the administrators tried hardest to bag. So, we were the students whose credentials they most wanted to burnish. That's why, when I got my yearbook, I discovered I was in the math club and on the chess team. Neither of which, I'm reasonably sure, actually existed. Among other things, Curriculum One studied French. Which was considered intellectual because France was the land of style and Sartre and Grey Poupon.
Updated: Mon Feb 23, 2026

I've had a checkered relationship with journalism since high school, when it almost got my friend, Don, lynched.

The advisor to the generally ignored school paper had asked me repeatedly to be the sports editor. This was neither tempting nor flattering. All the editors had to be seniors and no one in those days ever thought the sports editor could be female. It also had to be someone from Curriculum One, where there were only five remaining males. Three of them couldn't tell a basketball from a hockey puck. The fourth, my friend, Don, knew the difference, but he had no interest in either. So, I was really the only likely candidate. But my plan for my senior year consisted entirely of spending as little time as possible in high school.

The curriculum breakdown was an educational caste system. It started in seventh grade. Curriculum One was geared for the top colleges, the ones the administrators tried hardest to bag. So, we were the students whose credentials they most wanted to burnish. That's why, when I got my yearbook, I discovered I was in the math club and on the chess team. Neither of which, I'm reasonably sure, actually existed. Among other things, Curriculum One studied French. Which was considered intellectual because France was the land of style and Sartre and Grey Poupon.

Curriculum Two was openly regarded as a rung down. It was also college prep, but — unless Dad and Mom had some significant donor bucks — it was more likely to be U. Mass than the Ivy League. Many of these kids had started out in Curriculum One but — through grades or testing or none of us quite knew what — had fallen from grace. Curriculum Two studied Spanish because they weren't considered likely to be working with John-Paul Sartre.

I should mention that I have never worked with a French intellectual or even a French idiot. The only time I ever tried to speak French to a Frenchman, he said, "Could you please speak English? Nowadays, I'm trying to learn Spanish, with no particular success.

The Curriculum system was only flexible in that you could drop down. Which happened a lot. Particularly from One to Two. And, I suppose, from two to three, which they called the business curriculum. I think Four and Five were trades and shop for the guys and home economics, whatever that entailed, for the girls.

At any rate, I had my hands full not attending imaginary chess matches and math club meetings, so eventually the journalism advisor offered the sports editor job to poor Don. Who, for some reason, accepted. Don started out covering the football team. Predicting victory after victory and reporting loss after loss. Then, for the game against what would have been our biggest rival, if we'd ever been good enough to have a rivalry, Don wrote that the team would give it their all, but they probably weren't going to be able to pull it off.

The school went crazy. Who was this guy? How dare he sell out OUR TEAM? Our outraged principal called the only pep rally I can ever remember. Everybody, including the team, the coach and the principle threatened Don for his dastardly, cowardly, disgusting lack of school spirit! Don hid out. Fortunately, aside from the few of us left in Curriculum One, no one knew what he looked like.

Saturday afternoon, an effigy of Don was burned before the game. Then, all the windows were smashed in a car belonging to the wrong Don (a Curriculum Four kid who later built a huge plumbing empire and retired to Paris. I heard he spoke — in French — at Sartre's funeral.)

The team lost 57 to 3. In the next edition of the school paper, an unsigned column commended their valiant effort and predicted a glorious victory in their upcoming game against the current state champion. When I asked the paper's advisor about the story, he said, "I guess people get the journalism they deserve."

Barry Maher's dark humor supernatural thriller, "The Great Dick: And the Dysfunctional Demon," has just been released. Contact him and/or sign up for his newsletter at www.barrymaher.com.