For the longest time, I followed Mother’s advice. “Do not fight! EVER! When people try to fight with you, go away.” This advice worked well for a while…
Most of my elementary school years in Monroe VA were relatively peaceful. There was never much of a reason to fight. Even the tough kids did not fight much and the teachers had excellent control of the classrooms and the playgrounds.
Corporal punishment was still possible in this environment, but in my seven years of elementary school, I can only remember the famous paddle (named Oscar) being used twice on any student in any class. Believe me, if it was used, the whole school knew about it within a few minutes. The rumor spread almost instantly.
However, I do not think that threat kept the peace. Perhaps it was the times, the community, or just the age of the kids. Whatever the reason, there were few fights.
For the eight grade, we switched from a small seven class-seven grade elementary school to a much bigger consolidated high school. Despite the fact that there were more faculty and administrative personnel, discipline was not nearly as good. Of course, by this time many of the students were as large as or larger than the teacher’s. Boy’s testosterone ran high. More places in the school were unsupervised.
High School meant Sock-hops. Sock hops were a big new social opportunity for me. My older brother had gone to them and seemed to like them very much. My going would be a sign of growing up. So when the first sock hop was announced–near Halloween, I pestered Dad to drive me the fifteen miles to the high school. He would be driving 60 miles in two trips so it would be a bit of a burden. But he agreed. I was excited.
Mother had invested $13 for several dance lessons at the YWCA for me during the summer. I knew how to dance well enough to get by. When I got to the dance, I saw I would not be doing much worse than most of the kids there and maybe better than some. Things looked good.
After wandering around and asking a few girls from elementary school to dance, I saw Becky chatting with some guys. Though she and I had never talked much, I knew her from church. She was cute and had a bubbling personality that made her even more attractive. So I went over to ask her for a dance.
Becky was not dating anyone (too young). But apparently, one of the guys she had been talking to took exception to my dancing with her. He gathered a gang to threaten me. They did not strike up a fight there, but they did gravitate to the back door threatening to get me when I left. All the normal doors were blocked. There was one with a corn-shock in front.
I stayed in the cafeteria until my father arrived to pick me up. Rather than run out the door they were guarding, I ran out the one with the corn-shock in front. When they saw this, they came charging down the sidewalk, but I made it to the car before they caught me.
Regrettably, this did not solve the problem. A few days later, the ringleader cornered me in gym. When no one was looking, he executed several gut shots that left me on the gym floor gasping for breath. He declared the girl in question off limits.
The next couple of years offered periodic misery. While I cannot remember any real fights after that, several kids on the school bus would take pot shots on my arm, thump my head, knock my books on the floor and generally harass me whenever the bus driver was not looking.
I remember the day it stopped. Riding home from school on the bus, a gang of three would-be toughs started with the head thumping and hits on the arm I told them to quit, but that just egged them on. I moved forward to a seat by myself. They took this as a reason to come forward and attack some more I was tired of the game. I was as large as the lead attacker. I had purposefully picked a seat that was empty between two seats that were full. It appeared, to them, that I was trapped.
In fact, I had chosen a position in which only one could get at me at a time. I grabbed the leader as he charged in toward me. In a moment, I had him in a headlock position with his throat in the joint of my arm. My back was to the wall. His body was between the other two attackers and me.
“You better let me loose.” He yelled.
“Are you going to stop this?” I asked.
“I’m going to beat the shit out of you when I get loose.” He screamed.
“Then” I said calmly as he struggled, “You don’t give me any incentive to let you loose.” I tightened my hold strangling him.
“You are choking me,” he said.
“Are you going to stop this?” I said.
“You are choking me,” he gasped again.
“I am going to choke you until you promise to stop this.” I said with hate built of having been humiliated many times.
“I promise,” he said.
“And the other two also.” I added tightening the chokehold.
“Tell him! Tell him!” he gasped. They agreed.
“And none of you will ever do this again.” I added while I was in a good bargaining position. They all agreed to that too.
In addition, that was the last time anyone ever bothered me again. A strange thing happened. The three kids who had attacked started acting as if I were there best buddy. I wasn’t. I didn’t become friends with them. Frankly, I did not like them.
However, I did learn one lesson from this: Bullies would respect you if you beat the crap out of them. I carried this lesson forward with me in life and I shared it with my children and other kids who were like me–people who didn’t really want to fight.
I was fifty-six when I told this story to a young man I know. I thought he might need to know this. “That’s funny.” He said. “The same thing happened to me. A guy threatened to beat me up.” I smiled. And what did you do. “I told my mother,” he replied. “And what did she say.” I asked. “She bribed me in to going back and fighting the kid,” He said. I was surprised. Knowing she was the politically correct, academic type, I had not expected that answer. I smiled. The he added, “But, I think she was wrong.” “Why do you say that?” I asked. “Because I didn’t win.” I was momentarily saddened. “But” my friend added, “It’s a strange thing. That kid never bothered me again. In fact, I don’t recall anyone bothering me after that. He went on to beat up on other kids, and eventually became an outcast with everyone.”
I thought about what he said for a few moments and then smiling I said, “I think your mother was right.”
I had recently come across some research in which social scientists had modeled the fighting behavior of a particularly aggressive breed of fish. Their model showed that one fish would be on the bottom of the pecking order. That fish would always run away. Others gained easy social points by attacking it. However, if that fish fought back, it no longer became a source of cheap social pecking points and the attacks would stop.
Therefore, I changed my theory about dealing with bullies. It was not necessary to beat them up… They just needed to know that there was not going to be a cheap win. Too bad, I had not understood that years ago.