During a recent get-together with our three sons \u00e2\u20ac\u201d one brought his family all the way from Denmark, one brought his spouse from Albuquerque, and the third son brought his wife and kids all the way from next door \u00e2\u20ac\u201d our conversation turned to what life was like in our youth.<\/p>\n
You first, Dad.<\/p>\n
Well, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve already written a million words about how it seemed that there was a tough guy on every corner, who set the stopwatch he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t own, waiting to pounce on a peace-loving kid from the Railroad Avenue barrio.<\/p>\n
Early in life I discovered that an adrenaline rush must have provided reason enough for Gibber, Roy, Trigger and others to take liberties with my face and those of some neighbors. But to report bullying is problematic, for the kids being bullied. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why: On the playground, kids are admonished to report instances in which some halitosis-hexed bully plies his skills.<\/p>\n
The bullying persists for several reasons. First, he does so because he can; no bully has ever picked on someone his size or bigger. In addition, bullies enjoy the cheering section, even if they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realize that the cheers are really protection insurance, the cheerer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s way of ingratiating himself to the bully in hopes of averting a future victimization.<\/p>\n
But in my opinion, the main reason bullies thrive is because they know they won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be reported. Telling an authority often makes things worse. Sometimes the bully promises the familiar \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It’ll be 10 times worse\u00e2\u20ac\u009d if the victim squeals.<\/p>\n
One teacher I knew would break up the warriors, drag them to a boxing ring and tell them to settle it with gloves on. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something the bigger guy welcomes: a chance to pummel someone smaller and even earn the teacher\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s approval.<\/p>\n
A friend and distant relative once asked me to write a column \u00e2\u20ac\u201d naming names \u00e2\u20ac\u201d about the intimidation her daughter suffered daily at school. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been in the principal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s office complaining five times this semester, and my daughter still gets picked on,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said.<\/p>\n
Could that be the reason the bullying persisted? Those who picked on the girl loved watching the girl\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mom marching to school regularly. How\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that for exacerbating the situation? That reality makes it problematic for the parents.<\/p>\n
And to demonstrate inconsistency: In my wife\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first job, in an elementary school on the reservation, the principal chided pupils and teachers for failing to report any abuse, but the assistant principal was of the belief that, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like tattle-tales; take care of the problem yourself; I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to hear about it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
But rather than turn this into a school-yard bullying treatise, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s get back to You First, Dad.<\/p>\n
All right. Something in the water must have made many on Railroad Avenue, Pecos Street and Commerce Street big, strong muchachos. Getting to school was a game of trying to outrun mean, wiry boys, and finally reaching a relatively safe place, Immaculate Conception School, where we faced different kinds of issues.<\/p>\n
Fleeing from kids in our neighborhood might have explained why I.C. had some respectable track-and-field teams during the few years that our coach, Nick DiDomenico, was around. At I.C., the fights we observed or joined generally ended with the recess-ending bell, and for the most part, the pugilists shook hands, with the understanding that the next day all would be forgotten.<\/p>\n
A rare fight that involved me, came six weeks after a classmate named Joe approached on his bike and told me, in front of my small coterie, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153As soon as I get rid of this cast, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to beat the (bleep) out of you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The cast he wore was really a metal splint, girding his middle finger.<\/p>\n
Of course, one can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hit a handicapped person like Joe, so for six weeks, I waited for the splint to come off. The strange part of the arrangement was that there was no reason whatsoever to mix it up with Joe. It was obvious that the finger splint meant he wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be able to fight \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at least not at the moment, but Joe hoped to receive plaudits for issuing the challenge anyway.<\/p>\n
So, a grading period later, in view of a handful of schoolmates, Joe, sans the splint, landed a roundhouse right at my face. We all heard a pop, and probably imagined my face had been modified.<\/p>\n
No such luck. Joe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s finger got re-broken. No more challenges, no more dares. Joe and I got along from then on.<\/p>\n
Though all three of my sons admit witnessing \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and occasionally participating in \u00e2\u20ac\u201d schoolyard fights, they insist that off-school activities were benign, far from what my generation experienced in our youth. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is there any place in Las Vegas where you ever feared walking through?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I asked.<\/p>\n
All agreed that there were indeed places where one can find trouble, but for the most part, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve felt relatively safe in any section of town. My sons, now in their 30s and early 40s, believe that even now, decades after their high school years, this town is safe.<\/p>\n
And what did our homeroom teacher, Sister Mary Mucho Cuidado, tell us, back in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc40s and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc50s? \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t cross the bridge.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What did some school personnel in West Las Vegas tell their students? Probably the same thing.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Only 40 miles north, on I-25, rests the pin-dot community of Wagon Mound, my late parents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 childhood haunt. The village has a scrappy basketball team that just this weekend won the third state championship for the Trojans.<\/p>\n
They did it by slaughtering other Class B teams in the tournament and in doing so, repeated what their grandparents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 generation did in 1954 and what their parents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 generation did again in 1976.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
During a recent get-together with our three sons \u00e2\u20ac\u201d one brought his family all the way from Denmark, one brought his spouse from Albuquerque, and the third son brought his wife and kids all the way from next door \u00e2\u20ac\u201d our conversation turned to what life was like in our youth. You first, Dad. Well, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=886"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":888,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886\/revisions\/888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}