I was a geek and nerd back in High School. Yes, I played tennis, but only at the JV level, and even then I sucked. Most of my stuff was nerdy like Math Team, Science Olympiad, Oddyssey of the Mind, and Speech team. Yup, at must schools I would have been a walking wedgie. Fortunately, my high school was pretty cool about that stuff, so I escaped with no ripped pairs of underwear.
One of the nerdy things I did for three years was Mock Trial. Basically we’d play lawyers and witnesses and try to argue our case persuasively before a panel of real lawyers. The cases were standardized through the state and were distributed in a case book with depositions and background material. The witnesses role was to convincingly present their information, while the lawyers had to dig it out. Of course, each witness had juicy bits for both sides in their deposition.
In 1996 (I think), the case dealt with a high schooler who was shot by a police officer named Sidney (convinently, all witnesses had gender neutral names). Our primary defense team consisted of Jeff Firkell (Sidney) and Eric Myers (defense lawyer); I was on the prosecution, so I’m not really involved in this story. Now, neither of these two fellows was what one could call serious, in even the most loose interpretation of the word. This worked out very well because witnesses were basically given free reign to make their responses up if the question was from outside the scope of the deposition.
One of Jeff’s biggest gems comes from a response to a question from the opposing lawyer that was something like “So officer Sidney, why, if you had a chance to aim, did you aim for the students arm instead of their knee?” To which Jeff took the liberty of replying “Well, you see, I was shot in the knee in Nam and wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” and then faked a series of twitches that would be the result of his traumatic experience.
But no, that’s not the actual target of this entry. Rather, there is a much better gem that I wish to describe. The prosecution had been haranging Sidney about why he was near the fast food restaurant when he was supposed to be working at the school. No information was presented about the restuarant, but the question was designed to discredit Sidney’s work ethic.
Now, there was a McDonald’s right next to our school. We had our suspicions about its location, knowing that many people skipped cafeteria lunch and went there instead. Eric, the astute chap he was asked Jeff/Sidney “Wouldn’t you agree that McDonalds are strategically located near schools?”. No objection was raised. Sidney replied that yes it was and he was just checking on truant students. We won the case.
Imagine my surprise today when I see that fast food really does cluster near schools. Yes folks, your research was predicted by Eric Myers nine years ago.