I went to High School with Ann Coulter

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/14/706997/-?detail=emailclassic&link_id=1&can_id=fe4020b37f6b0a9909f482166cdbbdf9&source=email-i-went-to-high-school-with-ann-coulter&email_referrer=i-went-to-high-school-with-ann-coulter&email_subject=i-went-to-high-school-with-ann-coulter

Ann Coulter garners more attention than she deserves, but as a public service allow me to share some tidbits about the town where she grew up. At the least this will provide a basis of understanding, as in "how did she grow up to be such nutjob?" to borrow Al Franken's useful term.

I don't have the answer to that question. I don't know if she's crazy. But I may be able to offer a few clues to her public personna with a few facts and ancedotes about the special place she called home before making the big time. It ranks high among the richest communities in the nation, a statistic you can look up. It would also rank somewhere high on any list of those with the most family dysfunction, if such a list could be found. In short, it is full of batshit-crazy rich people. I should know, I grew up there too, in a family crazier than most.

Follow me below the fold to the simply splendid town of New Canaan, Connecticut, which bills itself as the next station to heaven, whose motto is grow or go.

Racial/ethnic composition: 95 percent white, 2 percent Asian, 2 percent Hispanic/Latino, 1 percent African American.

Forty percent of New Canaan High School graduates are accepted to "top tier" colleges, according to the New York Times. That same article has a realtor noting that the town sees itself as less clubby and more churchy than its neighboring communities of Wilton and Darien.

Coulter was a grade behind me in high school, but I can remember only one encounter with her. Granted, it was 30 years ago, but I don't remember her as standing out in any way. We did not cross paths at parties or in classes, and we belonged to cliques that avoided each other. My clique hung out in what was known as the "veg lounge" so named for the  paintings of oversized vegetables that adorned the walls. As far as I can recall, she must have hung out in the "fruit lounge" so named for the oversized fruits on its walls. Maybe Matt Lauer can check on this the next time she's on the Today Show.

The running joke was that the vegetables represented the stoners who hung out in what was formally called the south lounge, where cigarette smoking was allowed. I kid you not. It was filthy but we liked it. Such a policy was unusually permissive even for the mid-70s, when most high schools that tolerated smoking on campus had outdoor smoking areas with no seating.

The fruits, well, you have probably guessed what they represented to the adolescent mind. In retrospect, it was pretty homophobic, but not in a particularly hostile way. Fruit was really just slang for uncool, sort of like how "gay" is bandied about today. Still indefensible, though, just like allowing teenagers--and forcing custodians and foodworkers, for that matter--to inhale tobacco smoke for hours a day.