by
Mark William DArus.
I loved to ten speed bike around with my friends. We did this nearly all year round, biking everywhere to see whatever there was to capture in our minds.
I was a recent 16 year old when I was accepted for a Methodist Camping trip that involved biking. A close friend of mine also tried for it but was somehow denied and caps were filled. When I, accepted and him, denied, I told my folks I wanted to back out.
They said no, so off I went into what I perceived as 'ScareyLand'.
Scareyland should always be looked at as a real place in anothers mind when dealing with exceptionally shy teenage boys and girls somehow seeking more or at least something different based on their unique abilities. Scareyland.
Often bullied in my youngest walkings to school, this, learning via my father how to stand for myself and fight back against them, I so remember an xmas years long before this, that he bought he and I matching boxing gloves to teach me how to defend myself. In modern times, parents would be seeking lawyers. Fuck it, though, I think my fathers way was better. Let them hash it out.
Of those days boxing with dad in a cold and clamy basement, and on the other side I made pretty/fragrant candles in the very same area, he patiently softly punched my stomach, head and groin. Each time he connected, he told me how to defend against such jabs. We would go over it, time and again til I got it right. Over and over he I and i would do this.
I, was like maybe nine then, when he taught me how to stand against bullies. My Father was a Marine. When I asked him about his basic training, he'd go blank and tell me nothing.
In his footlocker I found, during a boring lonely summer day of my youth, his Basic Training Marine Corps manuals. I was about 10 then. Frankly, I can see why he didn't show me this while we were boxing. I have little doubt I would have become a total killing freak after reading that piece of work. So, thanks FAther, and also to my Mother, for influence during that boxing time frame, teaching me, impressing on me other avenues avenues of defending oneself against an aggressor. My Mother would say: Mark: Physical confrontation only occurs when both sides have nothing further intelligent to say.
So, I learned how to stand to bullies and not give up my lunch money, the lunch my mother made for me with loving hands.
A lot can be said about physical desensitization
Yes, during my elementary years, there were many. I'd end such confrontations after my dads lessons with perhaps a black eye, bloody nose and or fat lip, but I stood above their asses, saying to them : "You want mine! Really? Give me yours!" and I'd look at thier brutes friends and say, "c'mon, you really want this?"
So I learned how to defend myself. That was most cool in the 1970's but even better nowadays. Wouldn't you agree that the teaching of 8 and older females children should not learn the value of pepper spray?
Think about it, really.... Take time and reread if needed.
ScareyLand goes yet sideways in most avenues of experience. When self and strangers are faced with one another for the first time. This is a place of gathering like the worst of blind dates. A human mental collision of everything we hold sacred within ourselves
Imagine being thrust into a world of others as an introvert.
My parents took me to the place this Methodist Bike Camp would start.
I felt so scared and frightened as they hug and kissed me goodbye, smiling and wishing me luck in my adventure for the next 7 days.
Seven days away from everything I knew, enjoyed.
What the fuck did I know about camping??? For fucks sake we never did that as a family.
Sure. My sister Heidi and I would sometimes make a tent in the diningroom under a table near the air conditioner during the summer.
I thought I was about to die as I met those I'd spend 7 days with. All of us were total strangers to each other.
I met teens from Coshockton, Sandusky, Seville, Loudonville, Girard and about 2 other areas in Ohio.
When meeting, most of us looked like deer's in the headlights about to get run over.
The intro's were so awkward and sketchy as all us stumble with each telling a bit about themselves and where they are from/
Tossed into a world of strangers and....
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