I'm straight and I was bullied in grade school.

[hfojvt]

19. I was picked on here and there

I don't know if I would call it bullying. When I was in the 5th grade there was a 6th grader from another school who used to make snide comments to me/about me. We played in an all grade school band, and she played clarinet. Her name was Sherry Lusch. There was another guy, who sorta went to my church too, who got mad at me because I wouldn't let him copy my science paper in the 9th grade. So he picked on me for a while. His name was Scott Rink. Then Alvin Haugen decided he would take Scott's side and for a while in industrial arts class, he would hit me and ask "Do you want pain?" and would keep that up until I told him "no". Given that it was industrial arts, I am still not sure why I didn't just go get a hammer and ask him to please repeat the question?

Then for a while there Wayne Salmen was hassling me, even pushing at me while I walked home from school. Finally, when he turned away from me, I gave him a shove and then took off running. He chased me for about half a block. I was about a block ahead and saw him walking. Oddly enough, he never bothered me after that. We used to be in the same cub scouts group and he thought I had insulted him when I made some stupid joke (a stupid joke not even aimed at him). To some extent, I still feel like I owe HIM an apology for that misunderstanding.

There was anothrer kid, Dougie Mills who was a bit of a thorn in my side, but he was like five years younger than me. I coulda destroyed Dougie in a fight. In fact once, I was delivering papers and this little kid comes running out of the woods and bumps into me. I just sorta shrugged him off with a "watch where you are going kid" and kept walking. Then I heard him yelling after me - it was Dougie, who had tried to ambush me. I had to take his crap, because his older brother would stomp me if I defended myself. His older brother was two years older than me. I watched that older brother and Steve Miller throwing rocks at some people over a dispute about a bike Dougie supposedly broke. I understand Steve Miller became a cop. Dougie died in a car accident, my brother thinks he may have committed suicide as he pulled out in front of a speeding truck.

Drew Herrick, who now works for NSA (or somehing in homeland security according to the face), and his buddies used to throw snowballs at me while I deliviered papers. Heck, Lyle Bonebrake once threw a golf ball at me. That incident was kinda funny though because I accelerated on my bike as he did his wind up and the ball sailed harmlessly about twenty feet behind me to their cries of amazement. Doug Hirtzel nailed me in the head with a snowball while I delivered papers. Not a huge incident maybe, but it really hurt. I woulda kicked his a$$ too, or tried (he was small, but so was his big brother, who I found in a game of playground football to be pretty tough when my assignment was to block him - he knocked me on my a$$), but he was with Jim Blue.

I could probably name dozens of other incidents and accidents, and I used real names to show they were real events. Those names do not deserve protection from the truth of their actions. But I don't think of any of those people as particularly evil. Maybe not super nice, but not super evil either. I could also remember incidents where I was the bad guy - mostly to my little brother and sisters, but sometimes also to classmates or neighbors. Drew, for example, used to be friends with me. We lived next door. We stopped being friends though, because I was a jerk to him. I didn't beat him up or cut his hair or anything, but it was not my finest moment. So if he googles his name and reads this, once again, Drew, I apologize, I was a jerk.

Further, that wasn't the only time, and it probably won't be the last time.