Bullies have turned me into a raging dick...

I'll wrap this bully-baiting bit of bloggin' up with this lil' gem from a fella named Trevor Romain. When I see this type of thing, my honest reaction is that the dude responsible is a clueless hippy dolt raised in the suburbs who had to deal with little else in his life other than his parent's docking his allowance once in awhile. Y'know, Kyle's Mom. Then, I read this, from the Washington Post:

"As a child, he says he was held back by dyslexia, attended special education classes until fourth grade, was spanked by teachers for his tendency to daydream, and was told that he would never amount to anything, especially not the writer and artist he aspired to be. Often bullied courtesy of his small stature, he learned to run fast to escape his tormentors.

Running kept him fit, eventually enabling him to qualify for paratrooper training when, at 18, he was called to two years of mandatory service in the South African army. It was the late '70s, apartheid, and his company was building field hospitals. Early on, he encountered a small child who begged to be held and a sergeant major who forbade him to get emotionally involved. Disobeying orders, Romain says he picked the child up. "Both his legs had been blown off" by a land mine. "Something happened in my soul. I bent down and picked [him] up and I've never been held so tightly in my life. He put his head against my neck and he started to cry and his tears ran down inside my shirt, and that's when I felt that that's what I wanted to do. I actually felt a physical shock in my system."

O.k., let me just state that my childhood weren't no picnic...I won't get into a pissing contest with details. Yet, as bad as things got, I never had to pick up a kid with no legs beneath the knees. That's gotta do something in yer head. You either turn into a character from a Raymond Chandler novel, or...well, just watch the cartoon above. Half the time, I think the people who write kid's books are trying to whitewash reality...or their memories. In this case, from what I've read so far, mebbe this dude is just trying to adjust this reality a lil' bit so it dont' suck so much? Hell, I know a fella like that.

Ah, freaky pete. The places a blog post'll take you, neh? This cynical, sardonic ol' pooch tells ya, don't be judgin' no books by their cover. That Mr. Roger's garb could be coverin' a soldier's hide, and no doubt. Alright, enuff. More light n' fluffy later. Meanwhile, I gotta go leave another comment for this dude on YouTube. Cuz I did judge, dammit. Later.