Stewart McAdams, age 16, Ray Mowrer,
age 18, Jolo, W. VA,
Jeremy Ball, age 17, Bradshaw, W. VA, Matthew Phillips, age 17,
Paynesville, W. VA, March 24, 2002Robin Bowman
Stewart McAdams, age 16 One thing in the world I would change would be social outcasts, because everybody should have a chance to do well and they shouldn’t be picked on because they’re not rich enough to afford stuff. Ray Mowrer, age 18 My mother, she used to be a runabout. She didn’t like taking care of her young’uns. I was put in the welfare home and my grandmother found out and she came down. My girlfriend makes me the happiest. I’m engaged to be married to her but do not know when we’ll get married. She’ll be turning eighteen this June, and we was hoping to get married on her birthday. She has something planned for me. A $32,000 car she wants for a wedding present. A Firebird. My fantasy is I want to live like Nelly. He’s a rapper, a black guy. He owns a million, probably a billion dollar home. He’s got like twenty vehicles–-eight or ten PT Cruisers, stretch limos, you know, everything. I would love to live like that. I’d like to be President of the United States. I think I could if I really tried. I’d like to be George Bush right now so I can attack Afghanistan. For them bombing us. In reality, I’ll probably be a coal miner, marry my girlfriend, hopefully have two kids. Jeremy Ball, age 17 I’m Gothic. I believe in being neutral – trying not to put myself in a place where I would influence anyone’s belief in religion. I try to remain… more aloof from people. Gothicism is something that I started believing in when I was fifteen. I met a lot of my friends at parties called raves. (There are very, very few Goths in West Virginia.) The administrators at my school, they try to give me a hard time. Since I started wearing my Gothic attire to school. They’ve restricted me from wearing my collar. They weren’t even going to allow me to wear this necklace. They’re saying it was considered a weapon. The collars are a gift between Gothic lovers. I bought my girlfriend’s, and she bought mine. I have suffered from discrimination
because of how much I weigh. People have made fun. I have some friends,
if anybody says anything they’ll defend me. It makes me feel
good to know that there are people that would help me. I don’t
believe I discriminate against anybody. I definitely try my best not
to because I know how it feels. A big thing that changed my life was when I nearly got my fiancé pregnant, and basically when her mom and dad found out about it, it kind of PO’d them about me and her dad is trying to break us up. I don’t want to lose my fiancé because I love her a lot and if I lose her…It will be hard for me to live. We’ve been together for seven months. My fiancé told me that if I don’t get a job before she gets out of high school, the marriage is called off. It’s kind of a big problem right now... She's 15 going on 16, and I’m 17 and a half. My dad passed away about 4 years ago. He wasn’t my biological father – I’m adopted… My adopted parents have raised me since I was a little baby. So they’re my parents no matter what people tell me. I was closer to my mom, but I was really worried about my dad because he was in a hospital bed all his life. He was a coal minor. He was diagnosed with cancer, black lung. Well, if I can have an impact on
the world it would be because I’m quite fully intelligent, and
if it was to impact something, I’d probably try to be the first
to break the speed of light or something like that.
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