In a page-one story that appeared in the Chattanooga newspaper on Sunday, it stated a local neighborhood group's meeting to end violence at a convenience store on Wilcox Boulevard "fizzled" when the owners of the market failed to attend.

The story may have been the saddest, as well as the most ridiculous, article written this year. It hardly takes a genius to realize that the only thing the store owners want to do is sell gasoline, milk, beer and potato chips. They are hardly in the violence business -- you can't even buy bullets there -- and to now force those owners to provide round-the-clock security is not only tragic, it is indeed laughable in a civilized society.

But before we start, allow me to bring your attention to the fact there were two horrible incidents at two different Chattanooga high schools last week where fighting students were "tasered" in an effort to restore order. Another kid, presumably innocent, was "tasered," too, because the dummy got "shockingly close" to the officer's "shocker" in one melee.

Hold on, let's also watch the YouTube clip shown on a local TV station -- also just last week - of an actual video of a fight at yet another Chattanooga high school. It caused one distraught mother to claim on the 6 o'clock news "exclusive" that she had just withdrawn her own darling from that school due to a well-founded fear for her child's safety.

Are we connecting the dots yet? The convenience-store people don't have anything to do with it - it's us, not them. So with the full knowledge this plea may evoke the ire of every bleeding heart that worries about police brutality and believes that teachers and principals should today be the parent figures for every "weed" that sprouts in their district's garden, allow me to offer an ultimatum.

Let's demand such hard-fisted discipline that today's punks don't dare become tomorrow's thugs. I believe that 98 percent of our junior and senior high school kids will never be affected by stern rules because they don't break them. But I'm offering a "weed eradication" idea that might work - goodness knows last week showed us that student resource officers (cops) with tasers are hardly fazing this new breed of brawlers.

If I were "king" I would call an assembly this week at every junior and senior high in Hamilton County and announce the formation of "The Cooler Club." This would be where any student, male or female, black or white, skinny or fat, rich or poor, who dared fight would be immediately whisked to the courthouse, promptly seen by an emergency judge, and - by nightfall the very same day-- be firmly placed in a solitary-confinement cell for three long days and nights.

Every club member will even get a uniform - an orange jumpsuit. No, your Mom can't come see you. No, you can't watch TV, drink Coca-Cola, or play checkers. This new version of "time out" would be in a barren cell with only one textbook to read. Its purpose is meant to teach a stark lesson.

Under my plan, the first fight would get you three days, the second would bring you seven. Fight the third time in a public school and our disruptive Rocky Balboas wouldn't be a bother or even seen again for at least 11 months and 29 days. One more "perk," if a scholarly "perp" hits a teacher even by accident, the "time for the crime" becomes a multiple of two. Oh, I'm your huckleberry. The club motto would be, "Don't fight, don't go."

Is that harsh, you bet it is, but it is time for us to fight back. You can hire three or four lawyers, eight or nine if you want because they just love the checks, but any hearing won't be until after our "little battler" gets a bus ticket back home and, by then, all the shaken kid will want is for his anger-borne nightmare to never come back.

What our community desperately needs to do is quit trying to blame the convenience stores of the world and launch a full-scale assault on the rogues who think they can ruin the landscape for the rest of us. The jails may bulge, but it wouldn't be for long. Let the bad kids know they aren't going to be tolerated and they'll either move to Topeka or "see the light."

Our focus needs to be on the 98 percent who behave, not the remaining hoodlums who are increasingly allowed to destroy the school day for everybody. If we "weed the garden" with an unprecedented fury - again connect the dots - our one-stop markets won't have to lock their doors and throw away the forsaken keys. A convenience store is solely meant to be a business, not an beacon for some juvenile gunslingers to prey on some hapless customer who only wants a couple of bucks of gas.

I have no idea what happens to the fighters after a school brawl has been stopped, but I'll go you one further; I'm for letting them return the first day after they are released from jail with no-questions asked. That's right, I want them to tell their pals that "time out" was so bad at "The Cooler Club" that they even counted the letter "z" in that lone text book and it appeared 4,367 times.

I want them to tell everybody how their "rights" were violated when they were given just two bologna sandwiches each day with all the water they could drink. I want them to tell their fellow pugilists that those sandwiches didn't have any mayonnaise on them, either.

Listen, if you want to stop fights at schools, hit back a whole lot harder. If you want to stop shooting at convenience stores, let those who blame the one-stops drive to Ringgold for their milk and cookies, but let's quit kidding ourselves - let's put the blame squarely where it belongs. Root out the bums and put them all in the Bastille.

I believe if we attack a "weed" when it first appears, the chances it will develop into a thorn will be much less. I also believe that once a fledgling heavyweight "chump" realizes that, yes, a Hamilton County school is the worst place in the world to fight they'll either go somewhere like Afghanistan before they cause more trouble or else play by the rules like that other 98 percent of our children who do exactly that.

Let's firmly attack this nonsense. The time has come to stop it once and for all.

royexum@aol.com