Personal Website for TED HENRY
Third Grade Rascal
Walking to my new school on the first day of school I passed a house with a kid looking out a window at me. Without hesitation he came tearing out the door, ran right up to me, put me in a headlock and started pounding the top of my head. Of course he caught me completely off guard. I had never seen him before so it was totally unprovoked. If he tried it again I was going to be ready. Sure enough, he tried to go round two so I swung my metal lunch box with vigor and hit him just below the eye making a significant triangular cut. That put a permanent end the problem although unfortunately the glass insert in my thermous shattered leaking milk all over my lunch. He carried a scar under his eye for as long as I knew him, which would be up through high school. He remained a cocky jerk but lagged behind in size so he was not much of a threat. He was a good looking kid but as far as I know he never had a girlfriend. Perhaps girls can smell his form of evil.
Switchblade Monster
Near my grade school there was a one block unpaved section where a mean, muscular bully lived who had been held back at least two grades. We called him a “greaser” which was a term for motorcycle gang members or wanna-be’s who wore lots of leather and usually had a duckbill haircut swept back and held in place with some kind of hair oil like Vitalis. He had a habit of ambushing kids on their way to school and stealing their lunch and whatever money they had. He would brandish a switchblade and flick it out to put the fear in you. That long shiny blade was definitely scary. I instinctively knew he was to be avoided at all costs. If I saw he was hanging around I would detour to another street. One day one of the largest but very soft kids in my class decided to stand his ground. He “put his dukes up” in a classic boxing pose but the bully just stepped inside his defense and crunched his nose with a great spray of blood. He fell to the ground and was bleeding heavily. I knew my friend needed more help than I could give so I sprinted into the principal’s office blowing right by his secretary and told him my friend was injured by the bully and was bleeding real bad. The principal and the PE teacher tore out of there on the run while the secretary called the police. Thankfully it was the last we ever saw of that bully. He probably had numerous prior’s and I assume he was sent off to JDH (juvenile delinquent home, a prison for juveniles).
Where’s Waldo?
Sometimes standing up to a bully is the best way to go. In high school we had a kid that was a constant source of consternation for teachers and student alike. Waldo was well over six foot and grossly fat. When he decided to attend class he was usually drunk and would sit in the back row and sleep, often snoring loudly. Wise teachers just let him be which was a lot less disruptive than trying to deal with him. But Waldo was a bully in the lunch room. He would wander among the tables and snatch students lunches right out of their hands. Of course he only picked on the smallest kids. One day he singled me out and came for my sack lunch. Even though he outweighed me by a good hundred pounds, I wouldn’t give it up. He grabbed the front of my shirt, hauled me up, and pulled a giant fist back like he was going to hit me in the face. Yeah well, being on the cross country track team I was very fit and I wound up and kicked him square in the nuts. Apparently I made good contact because he dropped like a sack of potatoes, vomited, and laid on the floor crying like a baby. To my chagrin I was the one who was dragged off to the principal’s office for fighting. As soon as they heard the name “Waldo” I was rapidly released. Waldo was suspended for a while but I don’t know why they didn’t just go ahead and expel him. He was already a grade or two behind and was never going to graduate. Or perhaps he would because it’s possible the school may have been moving him along to get him out of the system. I often wonder what happens to kids like that. Prison seems likely or maybe living in a shack in the woods where he would be free to abuse a pack of dogs, or become one of the homeless living on the street. It is a tragedy. I wonder what causes that kind of failure. Size differential makes the bullying possible but it makes one wonder if he was abused at home, or suffered brain damage from a low oxygen difficult birth, or was the product of fetal alcohol syndrome, or just had a really low IQ. Who knows?
Later when our very popular senior class president got kicked out of office for taking scandalous photos of himself in a Photo Booth (a precursor to sexting I suppose), an out-of-cycle election was held for a new class president. Now our class was notoriously rowdy and we had good class cohesion. We were pissed off about our president being removed and did not like any of the new presidential candidates, so we cooked up a write-in campaign and unanimously elected the most unqualified annoying student possible, which was Waldo. Waldo sported a huge grin the next day probably not understanding that he was not suddenly popular. Poor guy. Of course the administration was outraged, canceled the results, gathered us all into the gymnasium stands to receive a lecture, and held one more election. They were sadly misguided if they thought their threats were going to get us in line. This time we elected the head janitor! Ha ha! Can you imagine what a lame duck the next president that was appointed by the administration turned out to be? He was forever branded an obsequious suck-up.
Is bullying worse today?
Today’s world has become quite different from those innocent 50’s and 60’s. With the rise of social media, cyberbullying has exploded and become a thing I never had to contend with. Now that bullies don’t have to be physically intimidating or have power due to rank or position, the pool of potential bullies is much larger. Due to the way the internet was set up from the very beginning, cyberbullies have been able to avoid consequences. Letting people act anonymously on the internet has been a huge mistake with grave social consequences. Too many people of questionable character are all too willing to say things on the internet that they would never say in a face-to-face exchange, not to mention the expanded range of potential victims.