The Bully Pulpit

Here is my contribution to the current dialogue about the devasting effects bullying can have on a child (and the resulting adult):

I am utterly convinced that my fourth grade bully is now a Lexus driving, front row, center court seat owning Knicks loving asshole of a lawyer.  I have no proof of this as he has not bullied me in over 41 years but little pricks usually grow into big pricks.  And like a Viagra fueled penis, he is most assuredly a priapismic dickhead whose ego is permanently engorged with the love of his own thoughts.  This might seem rather harsh but my blog is my art and my art is my catharsis.  Besides, it's this or therapy and Google does not yet have a free therapy app, or do they?  Hold on while I check......Okay they do.  Click here for the site.  In any case this summer of discontent occurred back in 1970, yet unlike many of my fellow baby boomers the unease that had settled over me was not attributable to the War in Vietnam.  I was only ten years old at the time and besides, my parents had already promised us that we would love Canada if the war wasn't over by my brother's eighteenth birthday.

The bullying did not take place at my elementary school while I was attending the fourth grade.  Except for a few random purple nurples in the hallway or a goober or two hurled my way in gym class, I escaped elementary and middle school relatively unscathed.  And if any bullying did occur in school it was usually a one time deal.  To be honest, I can't say that I never hurled a verbal assault or two down the ladder myself.  But for some reason I allowed myself to be victimized while at summer camp between my fourth and fifth grade years.  And this was at a summer sports camp for nice Jewish boys.  When I asked my parents why they sent me to a jock camp in the first place they replied "because that's where all your friends went".  True, but I was no jock.  By third grade I had already rejected soccer and little league in favor of Boy Scouts and the Milben Beginner Chemistry set.  And at the age of ten I knew that one should always add acid to water not water to acid but I had no idea what the infield fly rule was. 

The main premise for the entire summer at Camp Alton was, in fact, an eight week long sports competition between two sides: The Gray team represented by even numbered bunks A through L and the Green Team represented by odd numbered bunks A through L.  In other words, right from day one the kids who slept in Cabin K1 were the mortal enemies of the kids who slept in Cabin K2 and B1 teens would never socialize with B2 teens even though we were all little Jewish kids from the suburbs.  Everything we did, and I mean everything, was judged and scored, then tallied up at the end of the summer to see which team won.  If our bunk beds were not made up properly we lost points.  If a candy wrapper was found under the bed we lost points.  Every arrow we shot and missed in archery and every strike out in softball was calculated, correlated, kept track of and used against your entire team at the end of the summer.  How's that for self-esteem building?  One half of an entire summer camp went home losers.  And I don't believe there were grief counselors in those days on the bus ride home from Lake Winnepesaukee.

So I imagine that right from the first pitch, on July first, it became quite obvious to my bunk-mates I was not going to be much help in securing the Green Team's brass nameplate being placed on the plaque in the dining hall, permanently proclaiming the winner of the summer of 1970.  And if my lack of batting power didn't seal my fate then the soft gentle weeping into my pillow at night because this was the first time I was away from home certainly did.  All these years later I don't even remember the details of the teasing but I do remember that it got so bad that my counselor marched me down to the camp director's office one morning for some fatherly advice.  This is what Chief (you read that correctly) had to say; "Just walk right up to Jeffrey [the bully] and punch him in the nose without any warning.  He will never bother you again".  This was the adult male camp director's advice to a homesick ten year old child.  And he further instructed my eighteen year old senior counselor to advise me when the perfect opportunity arose.  But much to my everlasting shame I never did the deed.  My older brother, who was in cabin G2, did it for me.  Bless his little twelve year old heart.  My brother did what I didn't have the guts to do.  He walked up to Jeffrey after he had been teasing me one afternoon and socked him square in the nose.  Knocked him right to the floor.  I don't remember if I got any respect after that but I knew at least my brother had my back. And ironically, Jeffrey became a camp celebrity because he survived an attack by an older camper.  He bragged about it all summer.

It might seem pathetic to still be thinking about this now that we are all adults and Jeffrey could very well be a grandfather by now.  But I was clearing out my Mom's attic one day and I came across the Camp Alton yearbook from 1970.  And there, on page 12,  were me and Jeffrey sitting and smiling along with our eight or so other cute little ten year old friends from cabin K1.  How could I have let such a cute little ten year old be so mean to me?  And staring down at his little innocent cherubic face all I could think about was how nice it would have been to smash my fist into it.


So Jeffrey R. from Long Island, NY, if you are out there, Facebook friend me because we need to talk.