I used to get bullied by an older kid when I walked to school, and I had one of those lunchboxes with the plaid thermos inside.
I always wondered why bullies seemed to pick me out, and when I grew up, I realized it was my black, plastic Navy-issued glasses and my larger frame for my age which must have triggered some predatory instinct in them. I wasn’t fat, just a bit bigger for a eight year old kid and clumsy, to boot. But mainly the glasses.. I got them again when I joined the Navy, where they were called “BCD”s which stands for “Birth Control Devices” as in, if you wore them, you weren’t going to attract any girls with them!
However, looking back now, on my eight year old face, they are “Bully Magnets”.
So, as I walked to school, I could see the kid waiting for me up ahead. There was no detour or alternate route I could take, so I had to go right past him.
The first thing he would do was to knock the lunchbox out of my hand, then my books (all covered with brown grocery bag paper) then he would start slapping me around.
When my lunchbox hit the ground, it always opened, and the contents would spill onto the ground.
When he had his fun, it was never enough to draw blood, merely a diversion for him, I guess. Putting me in a headlock, shoving me to the ground, that kind of thing. But he waited for me every day.
I hated school, and that just made it worse.
When he was done with his daily amusement and walked away, I would gather up my lunch and put it back into the box. When I put the thermos in, I would raise it close to my ear and gently shake it, and every time without fail, I would hear the gentle swishing of the pulverized glass fragments inside.
When I got home, my mother was always infuriated with me. We had six kids in our family, and I was the only one who came home with my thermos broken.
When she asked why, I told her about the kid and she would say “You’re bigger than him-just sit on him!”
I wasn’t bigger, and “sitting on him” was a far more difficult proposition than she seemed to understand.
But a few years later after my family moved to Japan, I did finally fight back and attack a kid who was bullying me in the same fashion, and it all changed. I didn’t get seriously bullied again after that.
But...I always remembered that depressing moment, picking up that plaid thermos, knowing it was going to make that swishing sound that were shards of fragile, mirrored glass sloshing around in my Campbell’s Beef and Barley Soup, and knowing there would be no soup today!
In the Marines, we called them BCGs (Birth Control Glasses).I still have mine, but am happy to wear Oakleys these days.
I had a bully who always picked on me when we were talking through the city streets to go to a park for PE. That was in 7th or 8th grade. One day I had had enough of it. I turned on him in a rage, surprised the hell out of him, took him down, and pummeled him. He cried like a baby. That was the end of the bullying for me. Fortunately, we didn’t have to move to Japan.
Good post
Very interesting story.
I recall the BCD’s, only we called the BCG’s - birth control glasses. And I recall the glass thermos, which kept liquids cooler or hotter a lot longer than the metal ones.
Your post reminded me of Christmas Story. Sorry you were bullied like that, I had my moments too but still have so many fond memories.
I had a bully. Mark Manning. I charged after him, yelling SUPER PUNCH, and he ran.
That’s when I learned, for that age, acting crazy was enough.
My 6th grade teacher, Miss Mary McCarthy, gave our class a lesson on bullies and recounted how a student (grand father of a current class member) had tamed a bully with a suitable stick. She encouraged such activity.