Topic: I don't want to be a dick here, but I'm not suprised

[gpw11]

I used to make fun of this guy a lot in highschool

In my defense, he had a hearing aid, he deserved it, and he was a dick.  He also got busted robbing banks three times.  That's just dumb.

[Jedi]

There fixed the title for you.

[gpw11]

I should clarify that he deserved the making fun of, not the whole dying in prison thing.  He was one of those people who tried too hard to fit in and just went about it in the wrong way, namely trying to impress people by being a dick.  At his core he wasn't a bad guy, but he certainly had some social issues and would probably be categorized by kids much younger than us as being a Hollywood movie style bully.   It's sad, but it's in no way surprising.

[KontrollerX]

Damn beav thats craziness. 

Stabbing is definitely not a pleasant way to exit this world. 

[Cobra951]

Stabbing after living 5 years in prison.  Somebody please shoot me before a fate like that.

You say he wasn't really a bad guy?  Armed robbery doesn't automatically invalidate that?

[gpw11]

Well, let me rephrase that: he wasn't a bad guy to me. I guess it depends on  how you want to define a 'bad guy'.  Like I said, he tried really hard to fit in and did it in the wrong ways - picking on the people you shouldn't pick on because you just don't and things like that.  Doing that generally backfires because it kind of makes you a target, and you kind of have to be a social retard in some way or another to not catch on to that fact.  I knew him all the way through elementary school and highschool and although we certainly butted heads at times there weren't any major issues.  There was an issue when he was in grade 12 and I was in grade 11 where a friend and I (mostly my friend who also knew him since elementary school) bailed him out of getting his ass kicked by like 5 other guys, and he would always go way out of his way to show how thankful he was about that, so that probably skews my perspective of him a bit.

All in all, I stand by my previous statement that he was a dick, he was dumb, but I can kind of see where he was coming from - he had a hearing aid and was almost mostly deaf in his other ear as well. As a result he talked kind of funny and he got a really hard time because of it.  I think the main thing is that he felt he really needed to fit in with the popular crowd and didn't, but kept on trying instead of just sucking it up and finding other friends.  It's stupid, but it's probably pretty difficult to deal with.

Actually, now that I think about it, you might be right. When I lived in Calgary a friend of mine who went to the same university but was also from here called me and apparently his older brother had called him with a report that Andy was in Banff (a ski town close by).  His brother wanted us to go up to look for him because he had ripped off a bunch of people and their parents with some fake investing scam and took off.  We went up there because it was an awesome mission, but obviously didn't find him and just got really drunk.  The next anyone had seen him was on the news when he got busted for robbing banks the third time and was being tossed in jail.  The news clip was actually really funny as it was a story on the weak justice system and had a line like "Career criminal Andrew Craig has been in and out of prison.  His sentences are short and to celebrate his release?  He robs another bank" with dramatic music as it zoomed in on his face.   So yeah, I don't think you could define it as anything other than he was a bit of a piece of shit, but thinking back I can kind of see why.

It's also interesting to see how people (especially chicks) totally change their perspective of someone in the past when they die.

[Pugnate]

Quite sad.

[gpw11]

A letter someone sent to me that his aunt wrote into the paper kind of made me depressed:

Re: B. C. Inmate Fatally Stabbed, Two Injured In Prison Gymnasium Brawl, Nov. 15.

The stabbing death of Andrew Craig at the Kent prison facility last Thursday will barely resonate in the minds of many readers; he will merely be a statistic or thought to be of little worth because he was an inmate doing time deserved. But as the family left to grieve Drew's death, we will remember him as a gleeful little boy with a most engaging personality and a mop of red hair and freckles over his turned-up nose.

Drew was born profoundly deaf, and as a child was fond of flushing his hearing aid down the toilet, much to his loving parents' chagrin. But despite the love, care and attention provided to Drew by his parents, extended family and others, and the warmth of his spirit that showered love and affection on others, he took many wrong turns in life. All directed efforts to divert his destiny ultimately failed and this will forever plague us.

As his aunty I will remember the little boy that used to love to snuggle on my lap, and the little hand that would gently stroke the left side of my face so that he could position my face in order to lip read. I will remember the last time I saw Drew -- all six-foot-five inches of him, as he hugged me and told me he "loved me." We said Merry Christmas -- for what would be the last time.

The call at 4 a. m. telling us that Drew was dead is the call I sensed might someday occur. But it doesn't make the pain any less for the memory of the child I knew and loved, for the very flawed young man he became and the potential that was lost for reasons we will never fully understand.

In my mind I will remember lovingly the freckle-faced little boy, not the statistic he became who at 28 was brutally shanked and died on a gymnasium floor -- so far away, metaphorically, from what he might have been.

Sandra Craig, Edmonton.

It kind of made me realize that his life is more of a sad story than I previously thought, not because of how it ended but because of how it got there.  I guess you reflect on things you otherwise wouldn't when someone dies. 

[Pugnate]

I was already feeling sad for this guy, and now this has made it worse.