Narrative: Final Paper

On the morning of Aug 10, 2007, I had gotten a rude awakening by the bailiff for the Ogden City Juvenile Court. He had come into my room and told me to get up, and that I was going to DT. During this time, I had felt tired, angry at my parents for calling the police because I wouldn’t wake up for court, and confused as to why my parents would call the police on me. I had complied with the officer, and got up, put on my shoes, and left with the officer, after he had handcuffed me outside of my house.

Later, he had told me that if I would have gone to court, then I would have been able to stay home with my parents instead of going into programs. He had taken me to DT, gotten me settled in, and left. I was with a bunch of people I didn’t know and who I was scared of for the next couple of days.

While I was in DT, I had met 2 kids named Dyllan and Zach. They had helped me to adjust to the program, and to learn to accept what I had done to get there. After I had told Dyllan what I had done, Dyllan had told me that Zach was in there for the same reason that I was. I had felt accepted, somewhat happy, sad to be away from home, and not alone.

When I went into O&A, I went with a kid who I didn’t like. That same day, he had left to go back to DT, and the rest of the kids in there, including me, went to a baseball game. I had asked if I could go to the bathroom and tried to run--I know, a stupid thing to do--, but they had caught me at the front gates. They had taken us back to the O&A building and asked me if I was ok or if I was going to try to run again.

Of course I would lie and say that I wouldn’t run again. I told them that I had calmed down and would stay with them. As soon as they had let me out of the van, I had bolted to the graveyard across the street and lost my shoes in the process. I had run through the graveyard, not taking care to watch out for stepping on the graves, and stopped at my scoutmaster’s house.

I had told his wife that I was running away from a bunch of mean people and asked for a ride to a friend’s house. She had kindly taken me in and gave me a ride. When I got there, I had banged on the door and told my friend what had happened. He had taken me inside and gave me a change of clothes as I was still in the O&A clothes, and gave me his bike to ride away on.

As I got on the bike, my brother drove up, saw me and spun around in a _ doughnut. He told me to stay where I was while my friend and I bolted inside. They had come and knocked on the door saying that they knew I was in there and to come on out, that they only wanted to talk. I knew better than to open the door, so I stayed with my friend in his living room and waited for them to leave.

After about 20 minutes, I had finally opened the door and got into my brother’s car because I was tired of hurting my family. They had taken me back to my house where I waited for the police outside because my parents wouldn’t let me inside for some reason. The cops drove up about 5 minutes later and took me back to O&A where I got put on run risk and slept for the night. That night, before I went to bed, I had gotten a huge 1 hour lecture on why I shouldn’t have run, where did I go, who was I with, etc.

While I was at O&A for the next 69 days, I had met David and we had gotten along pretty well. I had become his roommate about _ my stay there. We had a weird contest to see who could rip their pants first. David grabbed my pants and pulled so hard, that I fell off of my feet and hit my tailbone on the corner of my bed.

When I had gone into Pine Creek Ranch, I was nervous that all of the kids would be messed up, and mean. Later, I found out that Dyllan and David were there. I was happy that I found them both there. I had gotten along with both of them pretty well.

I have definitely learned my lesson. That lesson was many lessons combined. Some of the lessons were to not try to fix something by negative actions, to leave most things well enough alone, and to learn to love and respect my family, and to try to do the right thing for them. I definitely learned a lot of things during the past 3 years. I just hope that I don’t do something naïve enough to get me locked up again.


Michael