Wednesday, April 8, 2009

D.A.R.E.

When I was in elementary school, everyone was a D.A.R.E. kid.

Did anyone else go through this program?



I don't really remember anything from D.A.R.E. because my parents had already made it clear that drugs were DEFINITELY not on the list of approved extracurricular activities.

The only memory I have is after our D.A.R.E. graduation. Everyone was excited to get their free t-shirt, and some of the overachievers (which I may or may not have been a part of ... allegedly) were excited show just how ready they were to turn down drugs.

(Tangent)
By way of background, you should know that my hometown was home to some pretty weird kids. I don't know if it was the pollution or the proximity to a drainage canal, but we had some winners.
(End Tangent)

After the ceremony, I was playing with my friends at recess, and this kid came stumbling up to me. He was from somewhere in Eastern Europe (with a thick accent to match), and I guess he was trying to be a self-proclaimed mole for the D.A.R.E. officer. As he staggered up to me, pretending to be drunk, he held out an empty IBC Root Beer bottle and a bunch of playground weeds wrapped up in a piece of paper, and asked, "Vould you like to trrry some drrrugs?"

Thanks to him (or more likely thanks to my parents), I'm still drug free.

3 comments:

JMadd said...

I totally remember the D.A.R.E program. It was always awesome when the D.A.R.E. Officer would come to our class every week. Weren't there songs involved? I might be confusing this with something else, but I think that one time the D.A.R.E. Officer came to our class with a sheep's heart in a 5 gal. bucket that had a disease (the heart, not the bucket) and told us that if we took drugs, that our hearts would become diseased like the sheep's. I totally touched the diseased sheep's heart.

Shorty said...

Funny story. D.A.R.E. wasn't around when I was a kid, but it was when my little sister was in school (we are 10 years apart). I remember her tshirts and campaign material well!

A few years back I was watching COPS on tv and saw a lady get arrested for selling drugs from her car, or maybe she was buying...can't remember exactly. But, I do remember that she had a D.A.R.E. sticker on the back of her Firebird that the camera man zoomed in on while she was being hand cuffed. It was lovely.

trublubyu said...

sadly to admit, i am older than D.A.R.E.- which by the way, is an annoying acronym to type.