Bully, Bully

Mine was a very protected upbringing. I grew up in the suburbs, went to school with a ton of kids who had very similar backgrounds and attended church every Sunday.

I experienced schoolgirl crushes, listened with rapt attention to the weekly rock and roll countdown on the radio and watched all the prime time programs I could.

In the summer, I played outside until the street lights came on, rode my bike all over the place and made up games to relieve boredom.

Then came high school. And the bullying.

Every nail that sticks up gets knocked down, and I was no exception. First, it was the clothes my mom made me that incited ridicule. I soon learned to modify or eliminate certain items in my wardrobe, but I couldn't bring myself to tell my mom what was going on. My sister finally did. Mom, bless her, got a few new patterns and started to sew bell bottoms in material I picked out, and that helped.

Then I stuck my head up again.

In an expression of individuality (or weirdness), I latched onto the idea of making caps. Using leftover material (and some that I purchased from the fabric store), I made several and wore them to school. Some of the kids thought they were cool. Then came the note from one of my classmates.

"We don't want you to sit at our lunch table anymore. You're scaring away the boys with your clothes."

I was crushed. I didn't yet possess the emotional security to tell them to go screw themselves. I simply sat by myself for awhile until I found a new group of kids who welcomed me into their fold.

Even more distressing was that about this time my friend, Carolyn, abandoned me, too. She and I had been inseparable in junior high school. She told me I was immature.

I gave up. I spent the remainder of my high school years so desperately quiet that most of my classmates forgot I was there. I never went to a prom. I hated school so much that I never entertained the possibility of attending college. The only thing I loved about that time was working in the print shop in my senior year.

There has been a lot of attention paid to bullying, and that's a good thing. Although telling kids not to bully doesn't work. Giving the bullied kids the tools to deal with their tormentors is better. Exposing the bullies for what they are to take away their power is the best.

If only we could do that to a certain Republican presidential candidate.