Another time, a few years later, when I was 17, working at a local lumber yard I was regularly bullied by a guy about 36 years old - a real sadist. One day I was working on the loading dock when the guy cam up to the dock, grabbed my legs and started pounding on my foot with a 16 ounce carpenter hammer, hard.
Just behind and beside me was a four-prong pitchfork, leaning up against the wall. Without looking I reached back, found the handle, grabbed it and sent it straight into the dude’s chest with force. It knocked him to the ground, and only then did I realize that I had not picked up the pitchfork, but a shovel instead.
The guy lived, just had the wind knocked out of him, and I avoided the legal hassle of what would have come my way had it actually been the pitchfork, which I truly intended it to be. But the guy left me alone after that. Word went around, too, and nobody messed with me.
You gotta stand up for yourself, physically if need be.
BTW, the guy later went to prison on a wife-beating beef and met his end there. He couldn’t moderate his behavior is the joint and was put down for it - don’t know the details.
bump
17 vs 36 yr old....even had it been a pitch fork you had legitimate reason to defend your self.