Bullies and Barbed Wire

   A death in my family last week sent me on a 500 mile road trip. Ceremonies ended just a hop and skip from my old elementary school, so I drove past it, remembering kids and teachers and events. It was a big part of my young life.
   Losing my cousin and spending a couple of days with family I don't often see had me in a nostalgic mood which only intensified as I drove along the road past the school.
   Something occurred there many decades ago that I've never forgotten and often wish I could go back and change. Since I can't do that, maybe the next best thing is to think of it as hard-earned experience and write a little about it.
   If you have a child who is bullied, who lives under threat, I have some advice for you. I know it is good advice, and here is how I know:
   I was a very young six my first day of school in that little brick building. Skinny and clueless. Almost all my life so far had been spent on a farm among adoring family. I was pretty smart. My mother had taught me the alphabet using nickel match boxes. Lots of color and big letters. And I could add and subtract. Feats that had gotten me applause on the farm.
   The teacher asked a lot of questions, to all of which I knew the answers. So, of course, my hand was up a lot, probably waving in the air for attention. Nobody applauded and the teacher got tired of me and finally just ignored my hand and called on other kids. At lunch time a little pile of muscle in the second row told me that after lunch he intended kicking my butt for showing off.
   I'll call him Blackie. He is probably a retired east coast mob boss by now. My defense was that I didn't know I was showing off. He didn't care. Things had to be put right.
   I lived less than a quarter mile from the school and walked home for lunch. Afterward I tried to convince my mother I had a stomach ache. She didn't buy it and sent me out the door. I could see a pack of boys in the road running back and forth around a central figure. Blackie.
   I did not want to fight. Innate cowardice? Possibly. More likely a lifetime of admonitions about turning the other cheek and being a good boy.
   At a bend in the road, I slipped through a barbed wire fence into an empty field and circled around to the schoolyard from another direction.
   Class resumed.
   Never, from that moment, during the many years we spent as classmates, did Blackie ever repeat the threat. In fact, we became friends of a sort. But I knew better than to raise my hand much, and I kept my head down.
   Here's the advice: Do not counsel your child to avoid confrontation. Do not tell them to turn the other cheek. Urge them to walk right up the middle of the road and fight. Getting hit does not hurt that much. Whether the fight is won or lost does not matter. Not at all. Confronting the threat is what matters. Confronting the threat instead of sliding through the fence will make all the difference. They'll keep on raising their hand and not caring much if someone doesn't like it.