TEENAGER
For some reason I was easy to bully. I don't know why, I just seemed to draw it on myself. Maybe I didn't look like I would fight back. In fact, I would not have fought back because I didn't believe I should. I think the origin of that attitude would have been my Mother's teaching, it wouldn't have been my father's. (I don't remember any teaching from my father except, "don't join the armed forces", which, as you know, I did.)
I did not believe, and still don't believe, that brute force or intimidation should be used when some other way is possible.
One day I offended Billy Collins. I was a hallway monitor at the high school and made him walk around me the way I made everyone walk around me. My job was to make sure all walked around me on the proper side. Billy didn't want to do it. I said if he didn't I would report him. He told me he would see me outside after school, and he did. Billy met me and pushed me around right at the front entrance of the school. He tried to get me to swing at him so he could have a brawl, I suppose. I would not fight him. A whole crowd gathered around, boys and girls. Everyone watched, no one did anything except Billy Collins who punched me a couple of times. Billy and his tough boy friends were amused by the affair. I suppose the others were amused too.
I don't know how to think about this. Why should I even allow Billy a place in my memory?
As it was then, so it is now, that my deliverance comes not from strong-arming the Billy Collins's but by relying on the deliverance of the Lord. For I am indeed weak, but He (the Lord) is strong.
A couple years later I picked up Billy as he was hitch-hiking home. By this time he was in the Coat Guard and he was in uniform. He accepted the ride, but even then I don't think he was happy about it.
6/5/2012
