A bullying fine?

[Bengalzona]

Like Fred, I grew up in a lower middle class area. When I was in elementary school, my parents used to give me a buzz haircut. Being a little kid, I didn't care. Unfortunately, some of my classmates in fourth grade did care. This was back in the early seventies. Some kids took offense to my haircut and started calling me a "war monger" (it didn't help that I used to like to read history books about WWII and stuff).

Anyway, this one guy told me one day that he was going to beat me up after school. I didn't have any desire to fight anybody. When the bell rang, I bolted out of the class like a bat out of hell and went the opposite way that I normally went home to try and throw anybody off. It didn't work. This guy had two friends and they surrounded me and took turns punching me. I don't remember whether I tried to punch back or not. But, being that they were all three larger and stronger than me, it wouldn't have made much of a difference.

My parents were not real happy when they saw the "shiners" on my eyes. They called the school and the principal wanted me to tell who had done it. The one guy who had threatened me asked me not to rat him out, so I didn't (I didn't know the other two guys). I got whacks for not ratting no him. But, he left me alone after that. I eventually got to know one of the other guys and we became best friends a year later.

This was an important incident in my life. A lot came out of it. I swore to myself that, win or lose, I was never going to back down or try to run away again. That led to a lot of fights. A LOT of fights. One guy in 7th grade was running book on me (literally) and figured up that I had 59 fights that year. I almost never started the fights. But if someone knocked the chip on my shoulder, we were gonna tangle. And I wasn't real particular about the place, time, size of the other guy, etc. Initially, I lost a lot of fights and got into a lot of trouble at school. But when you fight that much, you eventually learn stuff (a.k.a. School of Hard Knocks... literally). By the time I got in high school, people didn't come at me anymore. It wasn't worth the risk. I didn't fight to win or lose anymore, I fought to do enough damage to the other guy mentally and/or emotionally that he would never think of fighting me again.

I hated being that way. I hated that lifestyle. I hated fighting. I hated that I really didn't consider any other options. I turned away from fighting. But it always seemed to come back periodically. And I hated that, when I was trying to avoid fighting, I let a couple of guys go that I should have confronted. I think I hated that most.

My son is different than me. He is smart and has a non-confrontational disposition. I'm hoping he doesn't have to go through what I went through and can retain that personality. Therefore, I hope there is some authority around to intervene if he is ever bullied. So far, so good.