"Them's Fighten' Words."

I think as I have heard the story, I was a tiny, underweight, somewhat fragile newborn boy.. The weight gain that might come to most, especially, living on the red meat diet of a rustbelt family, didn't come to me until much, much later.. All through school, including high school I felt singled out and teased because of my slight build and poor coordination..
An aside (as is allowed when writing to an audience of one) I tried and failed just about every sport in junior high and high school.. And I was lousy and tenacious at them all...

Back to the fights.. I don't remember being truly bullied as a little boy.. In fact, I've written about my independence and lack of fear of strangers.. I was beat up by one of two bully brothers who lived just across the small field that was our back yard.. Dale Green kneed me in "the balls" when I was around 10, I think it was.. I suffered great pain, but other than icing me down and perhaps comforting as best she could, my mother did nothing else about the incident.. I don't know if Frank Stephens the chief of police for Lowell was called, or if Dale was talked to..
I don't know why he did it to me.. Or  why he became a local poet of some reknown years later..

His younger brother; half or step, or something, became a bully as well.. One day I caught him beating up on my younger brother Tom out on the edge of our back yard... I was problably in junior high at that point. Tom would have been around 6 or 7 years old.. I was suddenly filled with rage and lit into the boy; Terry Richards, with all the speed and strength my out of control body would muster...
I grabbed him around the neck with both hands and put a choke hold on him until he let go of my little brother. I choked him until he could no longer breathe and until I realized I was about to kill him..
I let him go. He recovered and quietly walked away, back down the street to his home on the other edge of our yard.. He never bothered my brother again, as far as I know...

I was left not with the sense that my power to hurt Terry had saved my brother, but a sense that my power would hurt and even kill.. I never let that physical anger act out again.. And Terry became one of my best friends for years after that.. My brother did not...

A few years later as a young high school student who weighed in around 90 pounds I again faced a bully in school. I was teased by one boy who loved saying "Maybe they call him "Van" because he's big as a truck." "Van" was the shortened name a coach had given me. I suspect all boys with long Dutch names were saddled with that lazy label bestowed by those who couldn't remember or spell their names..
In later years I used a cartoon I drew of a moving van as my signature for my art...in the highschool yearbook..

Now the "fight." One day as I walked outside the new elementary school building, I was confronted by one of the more popular boys.. He may have fancied himself as athletic and popular with others on the sports teams.. In the most cliched of conflicts he demanded I give up my lunch money. At least that's what I remember as the target of his assault... I told him I didn't have any money to give him. (I usually worked in the cafeteria  to earn my lunches and had no money independent of that to pay for them).. My refusal enraged, or motivated him.. He struck out at me; puching and swinging as any aspiring bully might do.. But, I was faster. I blocked each of his fist punches with my bony forearms.. He flinched and cried out as he stuck bone, not tender flesh.. He struck at my arms not my confidence.. He continued to try to hit and strike m, but never was able to get through my defenses. Then he gave up, complaining the he'd never anyone with such skinny arms...
He never bothered me again.. We did not become good friends..

Many years later as a returning veteran during the Vietnam era (I never fought there or saw combat anywhere) I was living in the biggest city near where I'd grown up; Grand Rapids, Michigan.. Life there is another chapter I'll share at some point.. College girls dorms next door.. Cruising boulevards in my 60's Baracuda, and making friends with future jailbirds and blonds..

One night pulling into the eastern terminus of the cruising route I was entering the parking lot at the City Library..And I was entering in the "Exit" drive just as another car with 3 guys were leaving.. I had chosen clearly the wrong way to leave.. And this upset them... I was with a friend who was very popular on the surface with the girls we met while in our clean fast cars.. I say "on the surface" as there was little substance to him other than his job at the railroad.. Even his hot looking Mustang GT fastback was phony. It had only a 6-cylinder engine under a huge hood scoop that suggested something much more agressive... He still fancied himself quite the player.. At least when he came out from him mother's home to socialize..
So; the guys in the car facing us were quite upset. The driver was so angry at my refusal to back out and reenter using the "Entrance" drive ( I told him, I'd left using the "Entrance" drive earlier, so I was using the "Exit" drive this time.) I must have sounds obstinant though I doubt he'd ever uttered that word.
First the driver got out of their car and then the other two followed.. He came over to my window and demanded I get out of my car and face him... He told me if I didn't come out he would pull me out of the window... He reached in a pulled my out of the window.. and onto the pavement of the parking lot.. Meanwhile, my friend with the phony hood scoop sat passively in my car.. I was alone facing 3 bullies who were itching for a fight... While the two sidekicks stood back, the well muscled driver in his tight T-shirt, started grunting and spitting out Asian words that must have sounded like the script of a Ninja movie, but to me it was all jiberish.. And I told him so.. "I can't understand a word your're saying man, but if you want to beat me up go ahead. I have a medical disharge from the service, but you've drawn quite a crowd here and they expect something out of you. Go ahead.. " Well, he stopped his hatchet chops and grunts and sheepishly climbed back into his car. The others got in as well and he backed up and left by the Entrance drive.. My friend assured me he would have joined me had the ther two joined in the fight as well...
Later driving through town the driver pulled up next to me at a light and could barely look over at me.. I learned that for me fighting was done more with words than with muscle.. One I had in surplus. The other was yet to come...