Some places I was an outsider and some places I was on the verge of being physically bullied—definitely an outsider. I had a certain amount of leeway, because I was friends with the stoners who had cache with the in group. I didn’t get bullied as much as I was shown contempt. The actual bullying I saw that happened to people was horrifying. There was a guy, Neal, in my high school who writes letters to the editor to this day about what he went through. His facebook page is public and he is still a mess because of what he went through. There were people in my high school who committed suicide for bullying. I was shown contempt from the cool kids, the A-listers. But I was not put through the actual bullying. There was a kid raped with a broomstick at a party and thrown in a closet and just left there.
This was not Baltimore, but Westminster, rural Maryland! This was Westminster high school. There was a girl who was gang raped. She was this really sweet delicate type with white blond hair and it all had to do with a boy she was in love with and thought he loved her and then she shot herself on the hill above the bus stop. It was horrifying, the stuff that went on, and continues to go on, in high school.
When people talk about school shootings, then won’t address the bullying, I’m surprised there aren’t more school shootings. Teachers engage in bullying, allow bullying, encourage bullying, and high schools are horror shows. I won’t say its like a wolf pack, because wolves don’t do this. I’d say it is chimp behavior, hurting other people just for the joy of it. I don’t know what you could do about the problem, there are so many pedos left and right, both male and female, after both males and females, sadists who hate children. There are plenty of good teachers but many horrifying ones to. I don’t know what the system is designed for, weeding out the strong to survive and teaching others of us to keep our heads down and not attract attention?
I remember there was something vaguely wrong with Jimmy, more concern than mean gossip, there were no specifics. Our family wasn’t cruel like that, it was more a note of worry.
Another amusing memory was my Grandmother Alice being appalled that there was a picture of Jimmy sitting on Mary’s couch in his boxers on Christmas morning. Some times they had to argue passively argue about who was more proper through their grandchildren. Your grandmother and I used to butt heads because I would mouth off to her. I wouldn’t give her the proper deference because she was my elder. She could be bitchy and I would give it right back to her.
Once they were all sitting around drinking and my grandmother was crying about her mother and Mary spoke up and said, “Cut it out. She has been dead for years!” My grandmother said, “God dam it Mary, she was my mother and I’ll cry when I want to.”
They would sit and drink and sing the Beer Barrel Polka and the Old Gray Mare. Once she showed me a picture of one of her grandchildren, it was a baby, and said, “Isn’t she beautiful?” and I said, “I don’t know,” you know because baby’s are not always beautiful. Alice said, “Don’t you know he is just trying to antagonize you?”
Then she would do very nice things for me like hem your pants. she just had that ascerbic personality.
My grandparents had a paint stick with Bobby Burns written on it so if you didn’t behave you were going to get spanked with Bobby Burns, the paint stick. But they never physically did it. Oh, fuck, andactual yard stick—not just a ruler! [1]
They were probably trying to make up for the fact that John, my mother’s husband, was beating the crap out of me all the time. That goes into the violence and bullying. There was an aspect of the downward aspect of bulling and I pushed it downward to my brother and two of our cousins. I didn’t physically—but we would pick on Dennis and Jason. I feel bad about both of them—not something I’m particularly proud. Dennis is gone so you can use his real name.
Christine, Johnny and I would gang up and pick on those two whenever we had the chance. At home I would pick on Johnny until he learned to defend himself. One time he shocked me and punched back and that was the end of it.
I wouldn’t take well to the discipline, the group-think or mob situations, even like big concerts where it starts tuning into a mob that is acting as one organism, makes me very uncomfortable.
I also remember visiting you in Pennsylvania and we had just gone to see Kiss and your dad had taken you and wore ear plugs the whole time. I like concerts. I just didn’t like that point in any large group situation where the individual disappears and the group begins to think for itself, individuals doing things because everyone else is, which has caused me problems at work, not so much now.
People don’t realize it but mosh pits have rules and their are expectations of behavior in a mosh pit that people are not expected to be killed and trampled on—rules even there, not just an orgy of violence. I wouldn’t go to a show where there is not assigned seating. I don’t like the whole concept—I hated Amtrak for a long time because of that, because there was no assigned seating and you had to rush. In New York, everyone is trying to figure out where the gate is going to be before it is announced, and run down there and get your seat and your stuff stashed before it got mobbed. Now, at least if you do business class you have an assigned seat. Northeast Regional was a free for all unless you were in business class or Acela.
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Notes
-1. Grandma Mary Kern kept a yard stick to beat her grandchildren, which she thankfully broke on our cousin Fred. I related this to Michael during his monologue above.
