Kickin’ It Old School

Way back in the mid-1980s, when I was but a wee thing in third or fourth grade, I was being bullied pretty relentlessly by one of the larger and older boys in my neighborhood. The bullying primarily took place at our suburban school bus stop before and after school, which was more or less a lawless wasteland of no adult supervision whatsoever. 

This was waaay before the current practice of parents walking/driving their kids to the bus stop and waiting with them until they boarded the bus. And anyway, my parents left for work before I had to leave for the bus, so no solace for me there.

The incident that was the tipping point was when my bully decided that the fun thing to do one morning was scoop up a bunch of dog crap on the end of a stick and wipe it all over my new coat. Up until this point, my parents had been kind of half-heartedly reporting the bullying to the school in a “this is a problem” sort of way and hoping it would resolve itself. But for whatever reason, this time my parents flipped out and demanded a meeting with the teacher and principal. Only to be rather primly informed that since the bullying wasn’t taking place on school grounds or during school hours, there was nothing they could (would) do. 

So, my parents did what any reasonable parents did at that time; they signed me up for Karate classes so I could learn self-defense.

A couple of months after that, I ended up kicking the crap out of my bully when he tried to play keep-away with my backpack at the bus stop. To the best of my recollection, I kicked him really hard in the junk and then punched him in the face a couple of times when he went down. He ended up with a split lip and a bloody nose. 

I’ll never forget the meeting with the teacher and the principal that followed. My Dad quietly sat with his hands folded and listened to the teacher and principal rage on about how they were going to punish me; I was going to be suspended, this would go on my permanent record, etc.

Then when they were done, he quietly leaned forward…

Dad: “It is my understanding that you have no jurisdiction over anything that happens off school grounds and outside of school hours, and can’t punish students for anything they do that isn’t at school. Isn’t that correct? That’s certainly what you told me when I complained about how [My Name] was being bullied by [Bully’s Name] at the bus stop.”

Teacher/Principal: *Dead silence.*

Dad: “Yeah, I think that we’re done here. I certainly hope this is the last I hear about this.”

He took me to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream and told me that while he never ever, ever, ever wanted to hear about me starting a fight, he was proud of the way that I had finished that one.