When I was growing up I remember going to a neighbor's trailer to try to take care of something.
I rode the bus to middle school and high school. I had to walk down our long driveway and then half a mile down the road to the corner to get the bus.
There were other kids that did similar things and we all met at that corner. Two of the kids were bullies and would regularly call me names and beat up on one of the little kids. One day I had had enough.
That afternoon they had the little kid over on the side of the road. One of them was holding his arms behind his back. The other one picked up rocks in his fists and then punched the little kid in the gut repeatedly.
The kid couldn't even defend himself. So I was outraged. I sat at home and thought about it for a little while and then I went out to the garage after are talking to my mother about it. I went out to the garage and got a walking stick. I walked down my driveway and then down a little ways and then into the trailer park to go back to these two bullies' parents' place.
The parents had the nicest trailer in the trailer park. I think they were the managers and oversaw things, making sure rent was paid and all that. They did not own the place though. I knocked on the door but before I got there the two boys were pestering me as I walked up the driveway wanting to know what I was doing and why I had that stick.
And what was I going to do? The reason I brought the stick was I was going to beat them up if they made a move on me, but they didn't. I knocked on the door of the trailer and the elderly man came to the door.
He was their father and I explained to him what had been happening and how concerned I was. I asked him if he could do anything about it. I was a teenager that couldn't drive yet. I can't imagine what the guy was thinking.
But I do know that if I were approached that way, I'd probably laugh it off and then tell my boys to cut it out. My boys weren't anything like that. So I didn't have that concern.
He said he'd talk to his boys and it got better for a little while. They called me more names, but they never got very close to me.
They never got close.
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