Fighting

Take a gander at the guy on the right. Does he look like a guy that says to you "I want to fight". No? me neither. So what made a decent amount of people in in my school yard life think "lets fight this guy". It's true, throughout my middle school/high school life I must have stared down the barrel of a fight more than the lunch ladies got hair in the pizza. Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Besides getting a day off work we get to remember one the greatest men involved in the civil rights movement. He preached non-violent protests, no matter what do not resort to violence. He even knew the reason for their violence was so far off the mental rocker that he would be justified to swinging a fist or two.

So what made the guys in my education world want to throw fistacuffs with me? After all, I'm not that tough. I chose the one position in football that gets protected during practice. But I am here to tell you that I got stuck in a lot of situations where it was me looking at this clown mouthing off, daring me to swing. I always laughed to myself at that point because I knew I would never swing...come on, I am a guy that plays the odds. I swing, chances are I'm getting leveled by this kid that has nothing to lose. One time I didn't swing at this kid so do you know what he did? He got his older brother, that was a senior at the time, to track me down after school and level me in the face on the way to football practice. I was in 8th grade.

The catholic high school in town might as well had my face on a milk carton with a bold header "REWARD". Those uniform touters hated me. No clue why, they just did. Many a times we would attend a dance after the football games when we were freshman, the uniforms were there too. It was a good bet that I was going to get stuck standing in a circle with one of them, people chanting fight. Me, giving that clown a shit-eating grin, Him, weighing the options in his head. By then a parent stepped in and I saved face. This must of happened a dozen times over the next few years.

In high school there were a few wreckless guys that wanted nothing more than to just deck me in the hallways. Instead of being smart, I would walk by these guys and ask them how their day was going and if I could help them with anything. I probably deserved at least one pop from them.

Call it pure hatred, jealousy, or boredom but I was their target. I never once fought. Never once threw a punch. I was the Mike Tyson of talking. I could get out of any situation and diffuse their anger if I knew there wasn't an out. I could also stoke their anger for me if I saw another way out. What did I learn from all this? I'm not sure to be honest, but I know maybe something my history teacher said about MLK when I was in class stuck in my mind...or I'm just a giant wuss.