(Editor’s note: This column is the sole opinion of its writer and has not been influenced by any administrator, educator, parent or student.)

The town of Bishop is sporting a black eye after the alleged ‘fight club’ incident in which about six kids hanging out at the house of Bishop High School Principal Ray A. Garza, whose freshman son was hosting a get together, participated in staged combat a few weeks ago. Videos of the fights were posted on You-Tube and show the boys punching, kicking and grappling with each other while others watched. None of the boys, thankfully, were injured and the investigation - initially taken up by Nueces County - is in the hands of Kleberg County law enforcement.

Now that most of the ‘Bishop Fight Club’ dust has settled, here are a few lessons we adults and children can learn.

BOYS WILL BE BOYS

Years ago, while I attended Memorial Middle School in Eagle Pass, my fifth period band class was left without any adult supervision whatsoever. My two band directors - who were at a midyear convention - had submitted the paperwork requesting a substitute but the front office mishandled it.

A band hall with close to 50 unsupervised kids - and we were the Honors Group - quickly realized the situation and started horse playing. Us boys played such wholesome games as ‘Let’s see who can jump over the highest stack of chairs’ and ‘Instrument Room Royal Rumble’. It was one of the happiest days of school for eighth grade me…until the head principal walked in.

That is not to say Principal Garza is totally to blame for this incident - though he should accept some because he was there when it happened - but as you parents know, you can’t watch your kids 24-7. It’s time for many mommies and daddies to realize their kids aren’t innocent angles who only watch Barney videos and hold bible studies in their rooms when friends come over. Juvenile mischievousness happens in pretty much every home regardless of the socioeconomic situation. When the cats are away, the mice will play.

INTERNET SUPERSTAR

I don’t blame the Internet for all of the videos showing kids’ misbehavior, I blame the massive misuse of the Internet by people. The kids who filmed and posted these videos knew what they were doing and were looking for a little fame and attention. Well, they got it and so did the sleepy town of Bishop.

THANK SOCIETY

Did you know that MTV’s ‘16 & Pregnant’ and ‘Jersey Shore’ are two of television’s most popular shows? So now, it’s cool to be an unmarried teenage mother. Every episode of pop culture reality television seems to have youngsters who have no self-respect and are ready to throw down in a heartbeat, with your kids eating up every second. This is especially true for kids whose deadbeat parents have abandoned them.

Better yet, have any of you parents ever played the wholesome game of ‘Grand Theft Auto’? I was once at a video game store in San Antonio where a console was set up for kids to try out the latest version of GTA. There was this one kid - who could have been a second grader - just having a grand old time playing the game. In Grand Theft Auto, you get to kill people (including cops and women), hijack automobiles and pretty much cause any sort of havoc your heart desires. Forget family movie night, let’s all gather around in the living room and take turns practicing evil as a family. After all, you parents are there in the room when your kids are playing these types of games, right?

I was distracted from watching the kid on the console by a parent loudly cursing out the cashier because the store had run out of copies of the new GTA. The parent, who looked like he was in his early 20s, stood there with a toddler in a carriage and his pregnant wife - at least I hope it was his certified spouse - and yelled obscenities at the cashier who had done his job of selling all of the copies. I can imagine the father-son bonding in this family a few years down the line.

“Look daddy,” the proud boy says to his father while playing GTA. “I just beat a prostitute to death and took my money back.”

“That’s my boy,” the proud daddy says.

Again, I don’t blame violence in video games, movies, music or television shows like professional wrestling or mixed martial arts for today’s general lack of decency. I blame the parents who don’t teach their kids right from wrong, and the kids who don‘t listen.

WHAT CONSTITUTES A CLUB

A club, by my definition, is a group of people with a distinct purpose who routinely gather; athletic booster club, poker club, bible study club, etc. One of my biggest hopes is that the Bishop incident - which actually happened in Ricardo - was an isolated one and not a routinely organized get together with the sole purpose of staging fights. In my opinion, this was a lone incident where a handful of kids with a camera did something stupid, but Kleberg County will determine this later.

SHARKS SMELL BLOOD

It didn’t take long for plenty of people in Bishop to bust out the tar and feathers when word of this broke out. Principal Garza was taking a beating in one of the blogs with most of the people chiming in using Internet-fantasy names or going anonymous; what courage. Sounds like many of you out there already had it in for Garza before this incident and jumped all over it like a starving man at a buffet.

SO HERE IS MY PUNISHMENT

Here are the castigations I recommend. BCISD’s board and superintendent talk to the principal and remind him to be more careful next time he has kids over; after all, the guy is an administrator. The kids involved in these fights are grounded for a while, and the parents make it stick. The critics with way too much time and absolutely no knowledge of what it’s like to work in education should zip their lips and make sure their own kids are not a part of the problem. And then we all move on.

(Rey Sifuentes Jr. can be reached at rataman2@yahoo. com)