Joe,
I sat down and started typing you my life story then hit upon a subject that I think has had a profound effect on me and I think many others. Plain old bullying. My background is similar to yours in that my father's father moved to the Washington, DC area from Berryville, Virginia after his stint in the Navy in World War I. Though my father was a very intelligent man, we sort of backslid financially throughout my childhood.
I grew up on the Maryland-Washington line and had many dealings with the law and reform school. I don't think I really grew up until I was fifty. Anyway, most of what I see is a government no different from the street or jail house bully that projects these values on the world.
Where I grew up the worst thing you could be called was queer and you had to fight verbally and physically to dispel that notion -- especially a short pale white boy like myself.
So many years later I feel the bully mentality is responsible for many ills in the world. I was wondering if you have seen the bullying sites on the Web and if perhaps you could address the many forms bullying takes from emotional to physical.
Sincerely,
Don
P.S. I lived in Section 8 housing in Winchester for several years so I can relate to your stories.
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Donald,
I can relate to the bullying issue. As a young boy, it was one of my biggest problems when I moved to town from the farm. Once I was tied up and left dangling in a tree all day by neighborhood kids. I was the artistic type who read too much and painted pictures. That automatically made me a queer in their brutal adolescent system, which today I think is called the Republican Party. Strangely, today those kids are grown men and even sort of half-assed friends. But they still chortle over what they consider our childhood adventure. It pains me greatly every time they tell the story, no matter how much beer we drink together.
In art and labor,
Joe
