This Nostalgic Life #36
Childhood Bullies
This Nostalgic Life is a free weekly publication rich with nostalgia brought to you by co-creators Eric Vardeman and Mick Lee. If this is your first time reading, you can subscribe using the button below so you don’t miss receiving any future issues delivered straight to your inbox.
Welcome to the 36th edition of This Nostalgic Life. In this issue, Eric and Mick are telling us about their childhood bullies. We all had at least one, and some were worse than others. So settle in and learn about some pains that Mick and Eric went through growing up.
King of the Castle
by Mick Lee
The photo above is of the classic LEGO set King’s Castle. It plays a pivotal role in this tale as it captures the essence of what I went through dealing with a bully when I was young.
My bully wasn’t the typical schoolyard type. You know, the ones who would pick on you on the playground. No, my bully was family, and he tried yo make my life miserable at my grandparent’s house.
His name was Stevie, and he was my cousin. You may remember him from the audio presentation “An Appalachian Christmas Carol” that we ran in this publication just before Christmas.
Stevie was three years older than me and quite a bit taller. He liked to use that seniority in age to bully me when we would both be staying at our grandparents. Stevie was always looked at as the favorite around there by the rest of us grandkids. Both of his parents worked, and Stevie would get dropped off at Granny’s house every morning to eat breakfast and catch the bus, and then would be dropped off there after school to wait for his mom to come pick him up.
When you spend that much time at the grandparent’s house, I guess it’s only natural for them to take more of a shine to you. I was sort of the opposite to Stevie in that regard, as my mom didn’t work, and I caught the bus to school from home. But on occasion, I would get dropped off at granny’s to just hang out for a while, and before I would get there, I was always hoping that Stevie wasn’t there that day.
Stevie just seemed to get the most attention. As an example, when we would get something to drink, he always got first pick of the glass, and would then proceed to tease me constantly by parading the fact that he had picked the glass I wanted.
Or in another example, when we would play with Hot Wheels, he always insisted that we do a parade, and also insisted that he get to control the vehicles in front.
In yet another example, if we were eating breakfast, he would get to eat Fruity Pebbles, while any of us other cousins had to eat oatmeal. This one is a little more acceptable since his mom bought the Fruity Pebbles to leave there for him, but he would always run it in that he had them and we didn’t. And as a side note, he sometimes would put Mtn. Dew on them instead of milk. How would you like to have been his teacher at school after a breakfast like that?
But the rudest example I have of his behavior towards us revolves around that LEGO King’s Castle set. All of us grandkids loved LEGO, and this set resided at Granny’s house. When we wanted to get it out and play with it, he INSISTED that he be the one to assemble it. There was no working on it together. He, and he alone, would be the one to put it together. And to make matters worse, he wouldn’t even let us watch. He insisted that we take one of the minifigures into another room and pretend to hunt for food the entire time he was building the castle. When he was done, he would usually declare that he didn’t want to play anymore, break it apart, and put all of the pieces back into the box. He was just too much.
While my bully wasn’t typical, as he rarely would punch me in the arm or employ any of the other usual bully tactics, he could mess with your mind. And that’s what made him such a despicable bully.
Some of the best lessons I learned in life came from him though. I learned at a very early age not to treat people badly like that. Not to be a total d*ck, and don’t try to put yourself above others like that.
I’ve told this story on the old Retro Network Podcast, but a few years ago he applied for a job where I work, and I was part of the team that interviewed with him. While I hear he is great at what he does, he didn’t interview well, so he wasn’t going to get the job. When the interview was over, I was the one to walk him back out to the lobby and the front door. I told him that we didn’t think he would be a good fit for the job. He understood. And in a moment of weakness, as he was leaving and the door was closing, I turned around and said, “Go build your f*cking castle!” The look of confusion and disdain on his face was priceless. He knew exactly what I was referring to.
It’s probably very lonely being King of the Castle when you’re the only one there.
I Shouldn’t Be Proud…
by Eric Vardeman
As a kid, I didn’t have one specific bully or nemesis, like Ralphie Parker and Scut Farkus in the movie A Christmas Story. That’s not to say I didn’t get bullied, though, because I did. You see, I’ve had a stutter all my life. It’s not severe by any means and over the years I’ve learned and developed coping mechanisms to live with and work around it. As an adult, most people have told me they’ve never even noticed it when it’s happens to come up in conversation. But when you’re a kid, everyone notices. Especially bullies. Bullies traffic in shame and embarrassment so making fun of someone who is having problems getting a sentence out without stuttering is right in their wheelhouse. As far as shame goes, one thing I’m not ashamed of is admitting that, in elementary school and junior high, I punched a few jack holes in the mouth when they mocked me for not being able to get a word out without stammering.
As kids get older, that kind of mockery and bullying usually decreases so those types of experiences and interactions become less and less. By the time we reach high school, most of us have closed our friend ranks around us and those kinds of things just aren’t issues with our tribe. However, fast forward to my sophomore year of college. I had started seeing this girl, Jessica, and was going to her dorm one night to hang out with her. At my junior college, guys weren’t allowed to just enter the ladies dorms and go straight to a room. We had to check in at the front desk and the front desk would call whoever we were there to see, and that person would have to come down and get you. This relationship was fairly new and I had never been to Jessica’s dorm before so I didn’t know the girl sitting behind the glass partition of the front desk. She didn’t look friendly and when I stepped to the window she asked, in a monotone voice, “can I help you?”
“Yeah, I’m here to see J-j-j-essica in room 224.”
She looked me dead in the eyes and said “J-j-j-essica? Do you st-st-st-stutter?”
The look on my face had to have been pure shock. Mostly because I was nineteen years old (nearly twenty) and it had been so long since someone had mocked my stutter that I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I wish I could say that I’m not proud at all of what happened next. You see, it would have been one thing if she had done this with no one else around. But there were people sitting in the lobby, people behind me, girls who lived in the dorm were coming and going. An odd embarrassment immediately filled me. An embarrassment that quickly turned into anger. So, I stared her right in the eyes and, as loud as I could, yelled…
“Y-Y-YES I F-F-F*CKING ST-ST-STUT-T-T-TER. WH-WH-WHAT W-W-W-WAS YOUR F-F-F-F-F-FIRST CLUE?”
Every syllable exaggerated, enunciated, full of spittle and slobber that landed on the glass divider between us. I squinted and blinked my eyes like I was having a seizure. I balled up my fists and pounded them on the counter as I forced the words out of my mouth.
“PL-PLEASE C-C-CALL J-J-JESSICA IN R-R-R-R-R-ROOM T-T-TWO T-T-T-TWO F-F-F-F-FOUR.”
More spittle on the glass. More rapid eye blinking. Everybody stopped what they were doing and stared. I was unbothered. The girl behind the glass was white as a sheet. She picked up the phone and, with a shaky voice, told Jessica she had a visitor. As I waited for Jessica to come down and get me, I leaned in and calmly whispered through the circular cutout in the glass…
“You shouldn’t make fun of stuttering. It’s contagious.”
Jessica showed up moments later and escorted me up, leaving the girl behind the desk in near tears. Like I said, I shouldn’t be proud of what I did…
Thank you for reading this issue of This Nostalgic Life. We’d love to hear your childhood (or adult) bully story. If you’re so inclined, drop us a comment below!
