It all began when I was about 5 year’s old living near Los Angeles before it fell to idiotic politics. I had been playing in the backyard and the kid next door had climbed the fence and offered me a cookie. I reached up and grabbed a chocolate cookie he handed me. With the cookie in my mouth I turned when I heard my Mom calling me in and as I walked to the sliding glass patio door a rock struck me in the head from behind. The goo of half eaten cookie fell from my mouth as I cried and the next door kid quickly hopped off the fence and went inside his house. Although Mom saw what happened she simply checked me out and put an ice cube on the back of my head with a towel and told me to sit down and relax.

I didn’t realize it then, but something was about to happen to the mischievous next door neighbor’s kid. A few days later he was out in front of his home when a neighbor’s dog got out of its yard. A German shepherd had mauled the young boy. He survived the attack but was going to be scarred for life. Although I was shocked to hear the news I had not put two and two together as of yet.

In the neighborhood was an older guy that loved playing pranks on the younger boys whom he often terrorized because he could get away with it. He would flatten the tires on a boy’s bike, steal toys from other kids. Once he had lured me into his Dad’s garage and told me to take a sniff from a jar telling me it smelled good. Well, it turned out to be an insecticide that almost choked me into breathlessness! This boy was more than a nuisance, he was dangerous. A few days after this incident he was running across the street without looking and was struck by a car! He did live but spent several weeks bedridden with injuries. He was never the same again and quit his incessant pranks he had been playing on others. I didn’t really think much of it at the time, but there was a pattern developing here.

One day I was out flying my kite that my dad has just bought for me. My little brother was too young to be out yet with me at the park but an older kid was watching me fly it. It was a windy day and I had just about let out all the string as the bright blue paper and balsa wood kite was high and several hundred yards out. I was proud of how far I had been able to let out the kite and I thought the older boy was impressed. I think he told me his name was Dave. When suddenly he produced a pocket knife from his back pocket and cut my string. Though the wind was strong when the tension on the string suddenly went slack the kite faltered and dove straight down onto the top of a roof some distance off. I cried asking him why he did such a thing and Dave just laughed saying he was testing out his brand new pocket knife. Being that he was a bit older and taller than me, he told me he would beat me up if I said anything to his parents and he walked away amused at what he’d done.

When I was a kid growing up there weren’t computer games yet. We had TV’s to watch kid shows with, but it was much more common for us to spend hours riding our bikes with suicide handle bars, banana seats, metallic pain finishes, and playing cards we used clothes pins to attach so that the spokes of our bikes would make the sounds of a motorcycle engine! We spent hours at the local creek at the edge of the neighborhood where we skipped rocks across the water, caught tad poles, and explored for hours. Back then child kidnappings and molesters weren’t as common as they are today. Most parents let their children play for hours outside without giving it a second thought. I had just barely gotten over losing my kite and having to explain it to my Dad when I heard what happened to that bully, Dave. It turned out that he was at the creek a few days later when he was bitten by a cotton mouth, a poisonous water snake. He was alone, didn’t know anything about using a tourniquet, and by the time he got home was almost poisoned to death. His mother rushed him to the hospital where they luckily had some anti-venom to save his life, but Dave would have permanent nerve damage from the snake bite the rest of his life.

For the first time it became apparent to me that every time someone did something unthinkingly cruel to me that they suffered very painful consequences. I hadn’t even really wished anything upon them, but still it seemed like without fail if they did something to hurt me, they suffered greatly for their trespass. In my 6^th grade class there was a very pretty teacher I had a big crush on, but she had favorites in the class room and they were the bad boys whom she’d allow to get away with stuff that would have someone like me standing out in the hallway or sitting like a Dunce in the corner of the class like a fool if I pulled a stunt like those trouble makers she favored. This went on for some time and I had quite a chip on my shoulder as I still liked her a lot, but she treated me badly compared to the two guys she seemed to allow to get away with murder in the classroom.

One day my teacher didn’t show up for class and a substitute teacher took her place. When everyone in the class asked what had happened the substitute, an older lady who has pretty strict, explained that she would be back as soon as she felt better. As for the boys that had gotten away with so many stunts, they found out this teacher wouldn’t put up with it. The trouble makers were sent to the principal’s office and disciplined with a paddling while their parents were called. Needless to say. They straightened up quick. As for my teacher, she showed up a few days later with a black eye, stitches along the top of her lip, and bruises on her arms. She claimed to have fallen down a flight of stairs, but rumor had it that she had an abusive boyfriend who had beaten her up! For the rest of the class year she was never quite the same again, and I lost my crush on her as time went on. Again, I noticed that those who had treated me badly seemed to run into bodily harm, and it was starting to scare me.

I wasn’t one who necessarily spent a long time bitterly hating others who had hurt me but it did seem that it didn’t take much for a terrible retribution that would befall my antagonists. I once tried to talk about it with my Mom and she simply told me it was my imagination. I knew it wasn’t though. Either that or perhaps I was just going crazy, but then it happened again! That same year in 6^th grade I had joined the YMCA football program. I had been a book worm most of my life as a kid but now I was becoming interested in athletics so I signed up for football for the first time. Dad had to take me to the Sporting Goods store to outfit me with all the gear I would need. The a practice jersey, helmet, shoulder pads, cleats, and the works, everything it would take to put me on a playing field. In the YMCA though, they didn’t assign kids by their age or grade. In order to keep kids from getting injured they went by height and weight. I was big for my age. At 14 years old I looked like I belonged in 9^th grade, but as teenagers go there’s a big difference in strength and coordination between a 14 year old and some kid who was 16 and has been playing the sport for a while. I was a newbie and they took full advantage of that! Even though I could hit hard I was no match for the older guys who tripped me up, clipped me, ganged up on tackles against me, and body blocked me. By the end of the week I’d taken a beating and was thinking about quitting even though I was starting to wise up now.

It was going on two weeks now and we were to have our first scrimmage before the first scheduled game of the season. In two weeks of training I felt more like a human punching bag when my Mom got the call from my coach. It looked like the team was going to have to withdraw from the season due to an accident. It seemed that with the loss of three of the oldest key players he did not have enough of a team to begin the new season with. It turned out that the three 16 year olds who had made a crash test dummy out of me on the playing field had been out riding around in one of their dad’s cars and lost control of the Chevy at high speed. The car had rolled over in a ditch and left all three in critical condition. They were in the Intensive Care Unit at the local hospital. I was stunned! In a way, I’ll admit to being a bit satisfied that they had met their misfortune, but soon it dawned on me that this seeming power I had could really get people hurt if not killed. Now guilt rained over me as I wondered what to do about it! What if I got mad at someone I loved because for some reason they had hurt me? What if I felt my mom or dad had really done me wrong?