Bullying and the rhetorical question, why?

A few weeks ago my wife and I went out with a buddy to see his cousin’s band. Good ol’ Rock & Roll, which I’m always up for. We drove up to Stouffville to meet him at the bar they were playing at. I’m always on edge going up to Stouffville. We only lived there for 6 years (1975 - 1981) but that was more than enough. My wife and I entered the bar and saw my buddy right away and shook hands and settled in to his reserved table. Right away, I was looking around the place, taking it all in and seeing who I’d recognize. Stouffville is a pretty small town, and you usually bump into someone, family, friends, old school acquaintances; there’s almost always someone. Suddenly I recognized someone I hadn’t seen in 30 years, give or take. I had an anxiety attack right there. My buddy saw my eyes watering and asked me if I was ok. I told him it was my allergies acting up and I’d be ok in a minute or two. He seemed to buy it. Of course I was lying. I’ve never been allergic to anything in my life. But seeing that woman brought back a ton of memories that I was, and still am, trying to keep suppressed.

Growing up for the first 10 years of my life in Scarborough, I can’t recall one single instance of bullying. Not one. Never even heard the word or knew what the term meant. In summer of ’75, my parents packed us up and we moved to Stouffville. We were the second family in a brand new subdivision. One neighbouring family down the street was all there was. It was the week before school started. It was tough going into a new school, grade 5, not knowing anyone. I was a shy kid and was slow to make friends. I genuinely liked school and had outstanding ‘Lisa Simpson’ quality grades, until grade 5. Everything changed that year. I guess the newness of everything took its toll on me.

I guess I seemed like an easy target. I guess the shy kids always are. I didn’t know how to defend myself of even if I should? There’s another thing that Stouffville brought to our family that was new… church. So, I was this new kid getting progressively picked on, and then I’m learning in Sunday school that ‘Jesus said’ ….”turn the other cheek” …. (Matthew 5:38-42… & Luke 6:27-31…look it up…) As a 10 year old kid, that’s pretty confusing stuff. At that age, for me anyway, everything is literal. You believe what adults tell you, and didn’t ask too many questions. You just took it at face value. I was ‘taught’ not to defend myself.

At home, I had ‘fights’ with my sisters, and I always got shit anytime I ended up smacking one of them. In our house rule #1 was you can’t hit girls; I have four sisters and I totally get that and agree with that philosophy. But there were times that my sisters would antagonize me and provoke me in overkill because they knew I could fight back. It’s a tough lesson to learn as a kid. So, I learned not to defend myself.

As the years went on, the bullying got worse. It started with name calling from my appearance, to my clothing (heck… I was wearing orange denim and blue plastic ‘moon’ boots… I guess I had it coming!?!) and yes, my hat got taken playing ‘keep away’. Not so bad in public school. You learn to deal with those things yourself. Internally. It high school it got pretty bad. Real bad I guess.

The drunk woman across the bar that night was one of the worst. No need to name names (that’s not what my blogs are about) but I couldn’t forget her. She was good looking, but a complete bitch. She sat behind me in Mrs. Krabi’s class. One day, for whatever reason, she reached down under her desk, and she lit my shirt on fire. Burnt a hole the size of my fist right through my baseball shirt. I had a minor burn, and my shirt was ruined, but the humiliation was off the charts. Why? I still remember the sound of her laughing her ass off. Sends shivers down my spine.

That was one of the worst incidents, but there were many others. One guy constantly tried to drown me in Stouffville creek. Sometimes on the way to school, but usually on the way home. I came home so soaked, so often that my parents thought I was the clumsiest kid around for ‘falling’ in the creek. They never knew I was pushed in with my head held under that cold dirty water. I never told them. What could they do? Tell me to do what Jesus would do? Tell a teacher? A lot of the times the incidents were off school property. The older kid trying to drown me was also my goalie on my hockey team! I felt I couldn’t get away from it. If you ever asked them, my parents will tell you that I went through a ‘phase’, that I was a clumsy kid. When I signed up for ‘stuntman school’ in 1992, they reminded me… “Remember all those times you fell down the stairs as a kid? … Maybe you shouldn’t take that course…” They never knew I fell down the stairs on purpose as a way of getting out of school for the day; because I didn’t want to face those bullies.

So, when we moved out of Stouffville in 1981, I was 16 and figured out a few things. Enough to know I need to make a serious change; on my own. My new school, Uxbridge Secondary didn’t know me, I had another fresh start and this time would be different. I quickly became the class clown. If I made people laugh; they weren’t going to be bullying me, and just maybe, I could make some friends along the way. I did a lot of funny and crazy things, and made some great friends. “Rhodesbusters” was pretty funny. My personal favourite would have been my buddies and I noticing a broken cable hanging down the side of the school building and them daring me to scale the wall like Adam West in the old Batman tv series. I got halfway up the second story looking into the window of the class room on that second floor when the cable broke. I fell down the 2 stories and landed in a garbage can. A few cuts and bruises, nothing serious we all had a big laugh. My point is, that version me knew that if people are laughing at you they weren’t beating you or worse. I’m not saying that is the answer for everyone to counter bullying, but that was just my way that I came up with on my own. And it worked, I never got bullied again. If you ask someone who knew me from Stouffville High School, they’d probably tell you he was a quiet kid. If you asked someone from Uxbridge High School about me, they’d probably remember me as ‘funny’. But those 6 years in Stouffville were tough and sometimes I wonder how I came out of them alive. Who knows how I would have turned out if we never moved away from there to give me a second chance away from bullies?

What the hell was going through these kids’ heads? Why would some chick, who never talked to me, never knew me, set me on fire, in the classroom? Why would some guy repeatedly stalk me, and when he found me, drag me into the Stouffville creek and try and drown me? WHY? I'll never get an answer to these questions, there really isn't one. These people never knew me. They probably knew nothing about me other than I was this shy kid that didn’t know how to defend himself. Guess that made me an easy target. Today, I still don't drink from water fountains, because in my head there's a line up a kids that will sneak up behind me a push my face into the porcelain, again.

Bullying is still around and probably stronger than ever. Just a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine was telling me how his kid got 'swarmed' at school. Kids can be even bullied online. I read about kids these days in the papers. Kids are dying out there; committing suicide in some extreme cases because they don’t know how to stop the bullying. Many times the parents, like in my case, are oblivious to it. I turned out ok. I’ve got a great wife and an amazing circle of friends, and enjoy my life immensely;  I just avoid Stouffville for the most part, that place can still haunt me.

Ok, you’ve read this far, here’s a couple of note worthy articles on bullying. A good insight for you parents out there.

Time to take the bully by the horns
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/editorial/2009/03/01/8576226-sun.html

In a Bully’s Own Words.
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/michele_mandel/2009/03/01/8576361-sun.html

Why Was Phoebe Prince Bullied?
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20360860,00.html

The Web: The Bully’s New Playground.
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20147083,00.html