Anyway... her post brought back memories from high school, and even as far back as grade school, about this one particular guy. Her post is from the standpoint of what effect attending one particular school had on her; mine is going to be about the memories of this one particular guy...
I will call him Ronny, because that is the fucker's name... I am not sure what I ever did to this guy, but whatever it was, it was good for an extended time of abuse. My first recollection is that I was invited to a birthday party for this guy (early grades)... someone threw his jacket into the swimming pool, and I was using some kind of pole to get it out. When I do retrieve the jacket, he comes up and hits me really hard... I recall asking him, 'Why did you do that? I was just getting your coat for you!'
Of course, he didn't reply...
In junior high and high school, it was just nonsense like walking by and shoving me into the lockers... or tripping me... or even the occasional nut-bop... in high school, he was the star half-back... I was the full back who more often than not, blocked for this asshole...
Bastard...
I was a late-bloomer... a VERY late bloomer... Hell, I didn't have my first date until towards the end of my senior year in high school... I was shy... I felt awkward around girls... and even at that point in Life, I was nervous and fearful of rejection. That fear alone has done much as anything to have kept me single all of these years since my divorce... In elementary school, and on, I was the 'ugly duckling'...
I like this image of 'Gobbles' better than
any other image I could find to illustrate my awkwardness
Anyway, Once a year, we had 'TWIRP (The Woman Is Required to Pay) Week' at our school, and some poor girl asked ME out!!! Needless to say, I was so goofy!!! Linnnn, over at 'The Chronicle of Linnnn', wrote about a time they had at their school when the girls could ask the boys out... 'Sadie Hawkins Day' I recommend your reading this post, as well as her blog. She always seems to have some unexpected twist in her writings. This one was no different... However, I digress from my topic.
Some years later, I had somewhat 'matured'... I developed a degree of confidence about myself... and even became a fairly decent looking guy. I would be one of the people at the class reunions where people would ask, 'Who is THAT?!?'
Anyhoo... This one class reunion. who do I run into among a group of people, but Ronny... I noticed so many different things about him... and not in any particular order, he was bald, obese, and was on crutches due to needing hip replacements.
'Shoes! I am SO glad to SEE you AGAIN!!!!!!!'
... and I was just shocked... and without thinking I said...
'I can't imagine why you are glad to see me! The only memories I have of you are bad ones... always being mean to me... always being ugly to me... I can NOT imagine your being glad to see me!!!' ... and as I turned to walk away, he plead, 'Don't be like that!!'
I tend to be a VERY forgiving person... very much a 'turn the other cheek' kind of person... but on this day, I just couldn't. I don't care if I ever see Ronny again.
I'm not sure why, but during my search for a photo of 'Gobbles' the turkey, this photo came up... maybe 'gobbles' refers to a skill set she must have...
????
Anyhoo... do go by and visit Robin and Linnnn... in the time it took you to read my nonsense, you could have read something really interesting...
~shoes~
Shoes,
ReplyDeleteYour story hurts me in my heart. It really does. I know that a lot of what went on at my school was socio-economic segregation and it was this natural set-up for the strong to pick on the weak. However, there were some who enjoyed it more than others. That girl, Kellie, that I wrote about she terrorized a lot of people. Even people who lived on the hill if she sensed any weakness in them at all. I did not know that until I got on facebook and wrote my blog. She plucked people out to do her bidding. Basically, she scared them into it. If they didn't do it, they knew they would become targets. Pure evil malice. She got away with this because none of her targets spoke up and knew that there were other people being picked on. Do you see the cleverness in the planning? And, even if two or three figured it out, what would we do? She hadn't actually DONE anything. Sticks and stones. Word jabs. She made us feel like crap. When I think now about the intricacy of her planning, how she used other people to also execute her planning, I know that she didn't figure this out on her own. She figured it out by watching experts at work. Probably her parents. Her home life had to have been shit. She probably figured it out because she had been the victim of it since she learned how to talk. And she watched them use it on each other and others. No one learns that kind of brutality at that young of an age without learning it at home. Her parents were one of the richest families in our town. She really was the poor little rich girl. She is on facebook and almost no one from our school wants to be friends with her. She successfully bullied and alienated everyone. And even the people she didn't pick on saw what she did and, now, as adults with kids of their own, can't abide it.
After seeing that pic of Scar-Jo, I completely forgot what I was going to say....
ReplyDeleteI thought I better start again b.c. that was really long. I can take all sorts of guesses about your friend. People who bully are usually insecure. Often they have really bad home lives. Sometimes they are gay and don't know how to deal with that. Am I saying all this to you so that you buddy up to your bully? No. I can't bring myself to send Kellie a friend request on myspace. She wasn't my friend in school and I don't want to be friends with her now. Let someone else fix her issues. However, I know that she has them. Knowing that, it makes it easier for me to let her go. I don't get angry when I think about her anymore. When I think about my junior high music teacher, it sends me to the moon still. You might have missed that blog. It was also from last week. It was junior high day one. He was a man. She was a kid.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I am really sorry that it went on as long as it did. I wish that the school system taught a class on standing up to bullies. They seem to be everywhere. And they do horrible things to your self-esteem. Just make sure that you have tossed all of that negative tape loop from those days. It was all crap to start with, but you can think it is gone until you find yourself in a similar situation and then you hear it playing. You need to make sure it is tossed and burned. It was never true then, so you can't let it mess up your NOW.
@ Robin... this kind of behavior has probably always existed... Today's kids have to deal with FaceBook issues as well as other cyber attacks. We just had to deal with the face-to-face mess.
ReplyDeleteI think I've always been a kind person, and in some circles, that can be interpreted as 'weak'... I certainly wasn't a fighter then... not that I am now, but include in this mess the fact that I saw a fellow get shot to death when I was in the 9th grade... I think I backed away even more so from confrontational behavior.
I am NOT that way today. Be no means, am I a bully of any sort of fashion, and I do think that I use my behavior today to protect 'weaker' ones...
We hear the stories of the horrors that come from schools such as those in Pearl, MS... where I do believe the first school shooting ever occurred... to Columbine... to other schools... and it appears that the common denominator in the shootings... is that the shooters were abused by others...
Am I condoning any behavior that results/resulted in the deaths of others??? Hell, NO!! Never...
I'm fine today... it took me a while... but I'm in a very good place.
Should I forgive Fuckhead for the pains he caused me? I dunno... that's my call, and right now, my call is 'No!'
A couple of years ago, I had gone to dinner. When I was heading to the counter to pay my bill, I stopped at a table of people that I knew. The couple were friends of my parents... and there were two ladies sitting with them. I spoke to them, and then went on my way.
While I was at the counter, one of the ladies approached me... wanting to know if I was RedShoes... I said I was... and she told me who she was... and how she never forgot that back in high school, when we were all at a dance, she was there with a drunk class mate who was threatening her. She remembered that I took her away from that incident and drove her home.
It IS a decision. At a young age, I made the decision to protect someone who I felt could not have protected herself.
I have no fucking idea where I was going with all of that!!! I'M SORRY!!!!! :oD
@ Heff... who is she?? I still wonder why she came up on a 'gobbles' search...
~shoes~
~shoes~
Never stayed anywhere longer than 5 years so I don't remember any bullies. I don't go to reunions though either.
ReplyDeleteI moved 40 miles from where I grew up. I am glad I do. When I got on Facebook a group of HS people in my class started talking about a 41 year reunion. People I did not know were asking me to friend them. I had to get the annual to figure out who they were. I didn't go to the reunion as many of them lived in Louisville or suburbs of it and no one ever looked me up and I had forgotten them absolutely!
ReplyDeleteThat's the best way to deal with bullies. You forget them, move on, make new friends who are as kind as you are. There is no rule about having to put up with hate and meaness.
I can totally relate. I was very socially awkward growing up and I was a much later bloomer than you were. I was hit hardest in middle school everyone, even the fat kid made fun of me. Things got better for me in high school. But I was so glad to become an adult, I don't look back on my childhood very fondly.
ReplyDeleteKids can be so cruel and they don't have a reason for it. He had no reason. He did it because he could.
I really believe that he was sorry that day and wanted to talk and probably didn't realize how much of a douche he was.
IMHO, the basic personalities of people don't change over the years, ithey just manifest in new ways. So that old bully, is most likely still a bully, but probably not to you now - maybe his wife, his kids, his employees, his co-workers. You made the right decision to ignore him.
ReplyDeleteThe picture is of Scarlett Johansson. (Scar-Jo)
i didn't have this kind of experience in high school; there were people i didn't care for, but no bullies or anything. it was an odd high school that pulled kids in from all over the county, so there weren't loners. everyone had at least one other person to identify with. so when 10th reunion time rolled around a couple of summers ago, i went, hugged people, danced, and laughed uproariously at how the few people who were rotten then were out of shape and pathetic 10 years later.
ReplyDeletekarma. it's a bitch. :)
I'm laughing at the poor turkey...
ReplyDeletegobble gobble
I never had anything like this happen to me... but I watched my older brother go thru it all and vowed never to BE a bully... or let anyone I knew be a bully... or be bullied by a bully. So... I'm raising my man-child under the whole "non-bully" policy.
I DO however believe in "what goes around, comes around"... I'm with magnolia - "karma. it's a bitch".
Oh - and I am so into the way you "bloomed".
just sayin'.
xoxoxoxoxo
:-D
I never could figure out why some people have to be so rotten to others. They seem to get some sick pleasure out of it. Good for you for putting him in his place. I tend to be a big forgiver too, not always in my best interest.
ReplyDelete@ Bathwater... I always said I would never go back to any class reunions, but I tend to go at the last minute. For the most part, I get to see the people I want to see throughout a period of a few years anyway... but I do know what you mean...
ReplyDelete@ Charlene... you are absolutely right... move on... make new and better friends...
@ Senorita... I'm not sure if he was sorry and wanted to talk. He was probably wanting some sympathy for his situation... There's another story I need to post sometime!! HAHAHAHA...
@ Catch Her... I agree... leopards and their spots tend to not change, but I could have been wrong. I am certain that how he treated me won't cause him to go to Hell... if going to Hell is THAT easy, we are ALL screwed!
@ Magnolia... yeah, those 'It' people, for some reason, over time don't seem to be able to retain their 'Itness'...
@ Red.Neck.Chic. Yeah, karma is a bitch. I am a firm believer in it, and try ever so hard to not hurt or take advantage of others... Did you see the South Park episode where Gobbles was the prop for their Thanksgiving play? LOL...
@ Just Another Girl.. I guess I tend to forgive from afar... I don't need to let that person know that I've forgiven (or chosen to forget) about what they've done to me... Now, the sister that fucked us all over when Dad died... I've forgiven, but I will NEVER forget...
~shoes~