When I worked on newspapers, I sometimes wrote about my pet subject, bullying, a topic that is rarely out of the news these days.
It’s an emotional issue and I would often get more than the normal response to my columns when I wrote about the problem. Strangely, I suppose, I never heard from any bullies, because, I guess, there aren’t too many people out there who will admit to ever being one.
My favourite response was from a man in his 80s who recalled this story from his early years. Having been bullied at school by a bigger guy who showed no mercy, the boy complained to his father. The Dad tried to help by signing his son up for boxing lessons.
That summer, at camp, the recreation director included boxing matches for the boys as part of the activities. The first day he asked for a volunteer and the boy who was now secretly equipped with some boxing skills, was the first to come forward. He put the gloves on the director handed him.
Then he was asked who he would like to box.
“That guy,” he said, and he pointed to his longtime tormentor who also happened to be attending the same camp. The bully came forward with a big smile on his face.
But the bully’s longtime victim, to the bully’s surprise, laid a little Muhammad Ali on him. After that day, the young boxer never had another problem with the bully.
Another man, however, wasn’t quite so lucky. His dad taught him how to box but the training enjoyed limited success.
“Instead of knocking me down right away, it used to take them five minutes to knock me down,” he said. His newly acquired pugilistic skills didn’t pay him many dividends.
Maybe what he needed was the theme from the movie Rocky playing in the background
©2011 Jim Hagarty
