GETTING EVEN

You know your children will interact with their classmates, their neighbors of nearby age groups and with adults in their world. Some of those interactions will be positive and others….well some will be less than hoped-for.

Most of my personal interactions were positive, thanks to the good will of folks who were acquainted with my family: father, mother and older brother. I was one who tended to believe and to act, as if everyone had my best interests at heart. But as the Indian chief in the movie, “Little Big Man” said, as he went out of his tepee and stretched out a hide on which he would lie down to pass on to the happy hunting ground. Just as he got settled the heavens started pelting him with big wet drops of rain. He arose after a few drops and proclaimed, “Sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

I barely remember an interaction with a family who were related with the Chambers who lived in the old Cullum Mansion at the apex of Fisher Hill. That family consisted of a father, mother and little girl who was my age peer: five years old. I was visiting with the father and daughter on the back porch of the mansion and evidently holding my own with in repartee with the father. He gave me a coke – the old eight ounce bottle -- and continued engaging me in conversation. Every few minutes he would want me to shake his hand. I did so and continued to visit and enjoy my Coca Cola that I did not have to share with anyone.

I was always pretty naïve and have never gotten over it. So I was always “up” for whatever idea an acquaintance had. Two neighborhood peers thought up a really fun thing to do. They were out front, on Fisher Ave. as I came around the house. They called and mostly beckoned me over to our neighbor’s front yard. I sallied forth and when I approached they each spat a mouthful of saliva they had been saving up right in my face. I was at a total loss as to what to do, so I ran home and tearfully told my mother what had just happened.

Mom patiently cleaned me up and was internally fuming at my circumstance. When I was calmed and cleaned sufficiently, mom handed me a sturdy wooden rod much like those used by teachers to point to items on the ever-present maps on the rolls in the front of all elementary classrooms: she was a substitute teacher when needed. She suggested that I conceal the rod and approach the ruffians with purpose and stealth and whale the crap out them with as much verve as I could muster: in other words, of course.

I approached them and evidently they thought I was going to be cowed and whiny when I laid into them with my rod of vengeance and sent them home wailing and crying with good reason. I never had another run in with them from that day on. They, no doubt, have forgotten about our altercation, but I never forget anything!