00:00Good evening, and welcome to Middletown High School.
00:07Tonight we have a visual history of Middletown and some other surprises.
00:11He never felt like a teacher.
00:13People used to call him Hippie Fred.
00:15Other educators would have us believe Fred was a crackpot.
00:21You don't learn by sitting in a classroom and taking notes.
00:25You learn by doing, by getting involved.
00:30Oh, wow.
00:32Wow, it's like going back in time.
00:35Action.
00:38I thought of myself more of a nuisance.
00:40I was an outsider.
00:42Misdirected youth.
00:44I was sort of against the system, but deep down I was cripplingly shot.
00:50In the 90s, you would have called me a poser.
00:52You're a dick, Jeff.
00:53You're a dick, Jeff.
00:55Yeah, Jeff, you're a dick.
00:56Old school teachers thought it was a joke.
01:02Making a movie is not like writing a five-page essay.
01:07Yeah, this is real life.
01:08That's harder.
01:11Middletown was picture perfect, but Fred was teaching us what's underneath the surface.
01:18Toxic waste was illegally dumped for 20 years.
01:23We're on the edge of some kind of pond.
01:26The smell is making me sick, Fred.
01:27We were meddling kids making a documentary.
01:30Like, that felt really powerful.
01:33Cover-ups from the county, state, and federal level.
01:36I'm nervous for that kid.
01:38I know it's in there because I've buried lots of us.
01:40I don't think any of us had any sense of the scale of this story.
01:45The biggest garbage company was, in fact, run by organized crime.
01:48We're talking about mafia in our neighborhood.
01:51There was a perception that Fred was leading us into danger.
01:55The guy did threaten me.
01:57I think our phones are tapped.
01:59Mr. B advises that I buy a gun.
02:01You're going to stop videotaping me?
02:02I have nothing to hide.
02:03It's more than just a record of environmental crime.
02:11It's this archetype of young people rising up to the challenge and doing something about it.
02:21The school had had enough.
02:22I remember I asked Fred if we should keep going.
02:25He said, yeah, push harder.
02:27And I was like, fuck.
02:29Yeah!
02:31It was a community.
02:32It's one of the only reasons I came to school.
02:38What if we could get it right?
02:40What if society could turn the world back right side up?
02:45That became one of our mottos.
02:47Civic courage.
02:49It means acting as if you live in a real democracy.
02:53That's something for everybody.
02:57That was scary.
03:01It was right.
03:01I was thinking about me.
03:02I want to go.
03:03I want to be kidding.
03:08I know.
03:08I do not.
03:09I already hear what?
03:09I think I'm going to...
03:10I?
03:11I think I'm going to go.
03:12I, I want to Bethesda.
03:12I'm going to go.
03:1316th business.
03:13And I'm going to go.
03:15You, I got Guevara.
03:15and now you're going to watch movies in the darks
03:16that I have.
03:17What if I go, we're going to go play Twitter.
03:18And I worked every week with everybody,
03:19the one and I did not contact myself.
03:20The great thing, right?
03:20You're going to try.
03:21I'm going to love it here.
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