The Bully Conundrum

When I was a child, I lived in fear of bullies.  I was a bully-target.  I believe Bancroft Elementary had an after-school club whose charter was:  “Our members will devote every waking hour to ensure Greg Cohen’s life is a living hell.”  They had a waiting list for membership.  This club was very high demand.

I digress.

Anyway, I did everything I could to avoid such bullies.  I dreaded going to school because I knew that that would be the day I would be pummeled into a pulpy pile of former human.

During this era of American suburban life, the common parental advice for dealing with bullies reflected the advice given to new convicts:  As soon as possible, select your biggest, scariest adversary, go all Rambo on them and take them out before they can get you, thereby earning respect and establishing that you are no one with whom to be messed.

Thank GOD, this is not the advice I received from my parents!  I would never have lived to see my 10th birthday.  I was not built to take out any adversary, regardless of size or fear-inducing aspect.  I was little and skinny.  I had the general musculature of a Biafran refugee.  This was not a possibility.

Luckily, that’s not the advice I got from my parents.

To be honest, I’m not really sure if my Father was ever aware of my tribulations.  He was a workaholic and was not around when I was trying to come up with an excuse not to go to school or when I was returning, breathless from my duck and cover run back to the safety of my house.

If he had known of my troubles, I’m sure he would’ve regaled me with his lawyerly advice in a manner similar to this:  “Reason with them.  Present them with logical, yet passionate arguments as to why inflicting bodily harm on you would not be prudent to their eventual character as an adult.  Be sure to start with a well-organized opening statement and end with a concise and expertly crafted closing.”

It’s a good thing I didn’t get this advice because I am convinced I would’ve ended up as a bloody pulp shortly after stating, “Should it please the court…”

My mother, on the other hand, immediately came to my aid.  My mom, a very creative writer and staunch pacifist, steadfastly skirted the “hit-em-fast-and-hard” advice and came up with a brilliant, yet ultimately unsuccessful solution.

She created a set of small cards for me to carry (mind you, this was before the era of personal computers; these were crafted on an IBM Selectric typewriter, copied on card-stock on my Dad’s office Xerox, and expertly cut with a somewhat dull pair of scissors).  In short, they were meant to appear as an official medical document from the office of my pediatrician.  They stated, if perfunctory yet very impressive language obviously garnered from watching Dr. Kildare and Ben Casey, that I was the carrier of a highly virulent and ultimately fatal disease with a very complex and multisyllabic Latin-sounding name.  The possessor of the card (that would be me) was legally obliged to hand the warning prior to contact with anyone who just might, for whatever reason end up with my blood on their body.

This was a brilliant solution.  It appealed to my creativity and intelligence and I carried them with me to school the next day, eager to pass them out to my various tormentors and thereby protect myself from inevitable physical injury.

Sadly, my mother forgot one vital bit of information when developing her plan:  The bullies tended to have lower-than-average reading abilities and absolutely NO attention span.

That’s how I became a very good runner and a very fast joke-teller.