Open Left

My Final Solution

was making friends with the two biggest guys in school.  No one else was even close.  It wasn't calculated, really.  But it sure was convenient.

I re-connected with one of them four or five years later, in the high school hootenanny circuit.  He went by "Tank" then, a solo guitarist who vaguely reminded me of a whiteboy Big Bill Broonzy, and I was in a proto-punk jug band called "My Mother Loved Me But She Died."

Point being: the number one way to deal with bullies is perception management.  Stop acting weak, stop seeming weak, and they stop bothering you.  Bullies are all cowards at heart.  They only picked on me when it looked cost-free to do so.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Tue Jan 26, 2010 at 13:11:26 PM CST