thursday pondering

[pawesty]

Peaches was the neighborhood bully. taller than most of us, weighing in at much more than any other kid our age,meaner than most of us. i can remember taking the long way home or finding diferent routes to avoid him and his friends. Petes Pizza...off limits, they hung out there. Miner Park off limits as well. one time he caught me while trying to skate a local half pipe and pinned me down, shoulders on my knees,threatening to mame my person. i feared Peaches, i hated Peaches. he made my move to the new town worse than leaving my old friends behind, worse than starting a new school, worse than, well, worse than just about anything. he was a real prick. the year after i moved to my new town i started junior high,sharing school grounds with you geussed it Peaches. but now, he had many other smaller and younger students to bully. i kinda fell off his f#ck with list. an occasional smart ass remark or threat, nothing more. as the years wore on we ended up at some of the same parties,had some musutal friends. he was still a prick, but, a funny prick. he really made me laugh. he was still ill tempered and had a much shorter fuse than anyone i knew, but. the guy was alright. kinda felt sorry for him, he went from the bigger young kid to the overweight kid that never got laid, always showed up at the party univited. missed out on many cool things we all did like camping,hiking,dead shows cause "that's hurtin, the dead suck" etc....thinking back the poor kid probably didn't have the loot to hit the shows and was too embarassed to ask for help. there was store disrectly across the street from our high school called New Market,they sold individual cigarettes for 10 cents a piece(geuss how long that lasted across the street from a high school) where Peaches and his brood hung out, before school,after school,in the eveing,you get the picture. years after we graduated i would still see them hanging out there, i would beep the horn, they would wave and laugh at the bus. last time i saw Peaches was around two years ago, he seemed happy enough and had lost some weight. he still lived in the neighborhood. today while navigating the local paper i came across the obituary of Michael C. Williams, aka Peaches, 34 years old. dead. it's been weighing me down all day long. i've had friends die, working as a paramedic for the past 10 years i've seen death in all lifes stages. but this one, this prick, has really gotten to me. maybe it hits home cause i partied with the guy, i don't know. i do know it's a shame and the landscape of my old neighborhood has lost a great bully, and funny friend. RIP Mike, may the road rise to meet you.

[bottomend]

...

[pawesty]

i hope this isn't an unwelcome post. didn't mean to bring anyone down.

dave

[Sylvester]

i hope this isn't an unwelcome post. didn't mean to bring anyone down.

dave

Not really Paw, just not sure what to say. Just drink the next one for him.

[steve74baywin]

Yeah,,,no problems here either....
Do what you have to do...It is all good.

[hambone]

Great writing man. I think we can relate....I know I can.
It's hard to see reminders and the fragility of things we think of as static, unchanging. Whatever the reason you seemed to have a connection with this man. Maybe because you were able to see past the man and into his true frail self? As tuff as we all think we are, there's still a vunerable pink baby inside each of us under the layers of callus and years...
Memory is a weird thing, this whole other world still living inside us from another time and place, while the outside world rushes by like a mad sped up frieght train of a cartoon. Buildings, people, places...all just a flicker, a momentary stage set with a million variables all happening at once and immediately passing. It's a hell of a pickle, it's a wonder we all don't go insane with the truth of it all....

[Sylvester]

I think I know where you are coming from Paw. This fellow made your life a hell, with the attitude common in bullies. No friends,low self esteem, bad families at home. Back then you were terrified of the individual. Later on in years, you felt sorry for him. Quite a great human emotion, forgiveness it is. Very hard to acquire, even harder to apply. Very nice quality to have, seems for me only attainable as I get older. What you saw later when you passed him in the Bus jeering you, was compassion, not sorry for him, such as "I am better than him now" or such. Need more like you Paw.

[Hippopotabus]

Pawesty
Ya know man I read your story and I have to be the one who says "better him then you". I have no mercy on Bullies today. I mean look at Columbine - 2 kids where bullied for being different by a group of jocks - 12 killed / 24 wounded. VA Tech - granted this Cho piece of shit is a great example of bad sperm, but his NBC rant has a ring of bullying to it (i.e. Rich kid rant) - 31 killed. the Heath Highschool shooting - 14 yr old Michael Carnel kills 3 girls and wounds 5 - Because of his small frame and physical weakness, Carneal was frequently bullied. See the trend...

Look at history - Hitler's Natural Selection order in 1938 is a form of bullying - to the enth degree. We are all created equal someone once said...... Peaches did'nt see life that way and for that he lived a short bitter life.

When I was a little kid my old man saw me picking on a kid at the bus stop. He pulled me by the back of my neck (in front of all these kids) and told me to "cut the shit or you'll have to face this bully". He went on to tell me "it's gonna be people like you who need to take a stand for the little guy, this is how I raised you. Now man up and grow some charicter". It's probably why I joined the Marine Corp.

When will parents teach there kids tolerance so some of these senseless killings stop. In my opionion - "see ya peaches you served humanity no purpose and for this; you go early".

Tim

[RussellK]

Bullies create strange dynamics.

I had 2 bullies in my life. My first abuser later came to me with the statement that if you said you were sorry most people forgave. I think it was his way of holding out an olive branch but I wasn't ready. He cost me too much and I advised he not believe that too deeply. As far as I'm concerned I hope he had a miserable life.

The second was a punk that delighted in beating up the younger kids on the school bus. He'd call the younger kids to the back of the bus for their pounding and strangely the kids obeyed. Everyone hated and feared him. I was a small kid, littlest in my class but maybe a little wacked, when my turn came for the routine pounding I stood up to him and told him for every hit I took he'd get one back. The bus got really quiet and strangely he backed down and started this weird shadow boxing thing with me and going on how he was kidding all along, just in fun right? He never called me to the back of the bus again. Later he slid his motorcycle under my sisters car. He was hurt and frightened. I remember his eyes and feeling sorry for him. A couple of years later he died in a drowning.

[Ryno]

I had the bus stop bully thing too, until my dad taught me how to throw a punch.

[Sylvester]

I am kind of torn on this issue, I guess. I was bullied all through school, just for being different. My natural sons are both handicapped, stepson is a jock with a bit of one upman in him. Reading this made me think of the Kevin Costner movie "The War". But, I also like the quote from "The Shootist"
"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people and I expect the same from them."

[RSorak 71Westy]

In my experience most bullies are scared cowards deep inside. So when challenged ,they back down. The few fights I was forced into as a kid, the guys who started it, ended up regretting it. I'm proud to say I ran away from many more fights than I was forced into.

In my life, it seems only the good ones have died young...The punks are all still around.

[Amskeptic]

From the get-go, I sensed that bullies came from abusive homes. I was able to verbally disarm them with a carefully crafted semi-disgust bored scorn except for Paul Alexander in 7th grade who was really out to make my life miserable. I was easily as surprised as he was the day I hauled off and decked him at PE. Not knowing what the hell to do after he started blubbering, I began to lecture him. Sorry, Paul.
Colin

[Hippie]

I was easily as surprised as he was the day I hauled off and decked him at PE. Colin

That's cool.
Sometimes that's an act of tough love. A lot of these people are punks because their parents abused them by neglect, lack of discipline.
Sometimes the kindest thing you can do to a person that just won't let it go is to bust 'em in the mouth so they can learn how the world works.
Just my opinion.

Pawesty, I don't have anything to add, but your post is thoughtful and I appreciate it.

Rob

[LiveonJG]

i hope this isn't an unwelcome post. didn't mean to bring anyone down.

dave

I think you can tell from the responses that the post isn't unwelcome. Thanks for sharing a personal experience with us. I really don't have much else to add other than sometimes life can come out of nowhere with a hard right to the stomach. Peaches’ death blindsided you, brought back some memories you'd probably not thought about for a while, and as Hambone pointed out, reminded you of the uncertainty of life. Kiss your wife and kid and be thankful that for today, at least, you’re still alive.
-John