“Do I look like a ‘catboner’ to you?” I asked the two kids whose truck Andrew Pohly ’09 and I had caught stuck at the intersection of Salem and Main. This was the third time in two days I had been called a catboner, and I wasn’t ready to let it go. “Don’t look at me,” the driver responded, pointing to his buddy riding shotgun, who, from his small stature and innocent facade, could not possibly have passed his permit test yet. “You mean this 9-year-old called me a ‘catboner?’ Why do you guys do this? Do you think I appreciate being called a catboner?” I asked. But the driver just looked at me. I had not expected the sense of fear I saw in his eyes. He was a big, tough Andover kid behind the wheel of his big, tough truck, and he didn’t have the courage to respond. Clearly, something had been lost in translation. It’s a funny thing, our perception of “townies,” as we have decided to call them. To some of us they can seem scary, though they are more harmless then we realize. Sometimes, however, what they do is more than scary; it’s criminal. A little more than a week ago, Adam Giansiracusa ’08 and I were waiting to be picked up by PAPS after a long night working on the paper, as we are not allowed to walk back to our dorms past sign-in. Standing in the Gelb parking lot, we noticed a Jeep Wrangler sitting in the entrance. As soon as the occupants of the car realized we were there, they flew back in reverse so that the driver could yell “catboner,” and “PA sucks” and a few other nefarious words which ought not be published. Knowing that PAPS would be there any second, I encouraged the driver, exclaiming, “Well if we are such ******, why don’t you get out of your mom’s car and come over here?” This sort of discourse continued for a minute or so, to no avail of course, so that when the PAPS car did arrive, the “townie” flew from the parking lot as if he had just robbed a bank. Getting in the car, Adam and I told the officer what had happened. When he found out that we had not taken down the license plate of the car, he was disappointed, because just that night freshman girls from Isham and Nathan Hale had been egged. I don’t mind or pretend not to understand being harassed by “townies.” I can only imagine how I would feel if some preppy, ultra-elite boarding school dominated my town, as we can’t deny PA does in one way or another. After all, how would you feel if your home, the place that defines you, was overwhelmed by a bunch of cocky overachievers, as the Phillips stigma goes? What I do mind is when the harassment turns from “catboner,” the absurdity of which makes the whole affair light-hearted, to maliciously egging freshmen girls. To be fair, I don’t mind all that much being called a “catboner,” but I can’t imagine what it must be like for a 13-year-old girl in a new place to be attacked by an anonymous crew of miscreants. It isn’t funny; in fact, it’s more than just offensive. It’s downright criminal. We shouldn’t fear, hate, or have any particular quandary with “townies.” Just like us, they are kids. To stop and actually look them in the face is to realize their relative innocence. Sometimes their actions, however, are not so innocent. Sometimes, they cross a line between absurdity and criminality. Last week they crossed that line.
