The Injustice of Fighting Fair

It is as sport to a fool to do mischief: but a man of understanding hath wisdom. (Proverbs 10:23)

For me, the battle against violence became personal on that autumn morining in 1959. I was twelve.

I stood at the corner of Berg Road and Biehler Road, waiting with 6 or 7 other boys -- the girls congregated across the road -- for the arrival of the school bus. For no apparent reason, John A., who was two or three years older than I, reached over, grabbed my ear and began twisting it painfully.

"Mutton, you should have a hat on so your ears don't get cold." My arm rose instinctively to bat away his hand.

"Don't you hit my arm," he said as if I were the aggressor against this boy who stood a head taller than I. Then he grabbed me and threw me off a concrete abutment into a ditch.

The black goo at the ditch's bottom coated my jacket on one side and ruined a pair of khaki pants. That event inaugurated me into the purgatory junior high school bullying.

There were other boys who rode my school bus who were older and bigger than I. They joined with John A. in making me their special project.

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