What Kind Of a Fool Am I?

Most of my life has been dedicated to Martial Arts. My first recorded experience was in 1945. Since that victorious battle against three opponents I loved the taste of victory. It was great to feel unafraid of bullies, the personal satisfaction of confidence and a higher degree of esteem made my life a lot nicer to live. The ability to protect myself and to stand up for others who were afraid and weaker than their antagonist, gave me a sense of direction that has governed my lifestyle for all these years. I'm no hero by a long shot, however, I believe strongly that justice and fair play are important. I remember one time in the 7th grade, I think at St. Mary's Junior high or grammar school, whatever it was called back then in Orange, Texas. There was a certain bully who cherished seeing the pain in other children as he tormented them with mental abuse or physical beatings.

It was just a month or so after my conquest of the East Side Navy addition gang. HA! I thought I was pretty tough. On this particular day after school as we were all leaving the building that the bully was picking on a weaker foe that was terrified of him. The bully was kick, stomping his foot into the spokes of the other kid's bike. The victim was just setting on the school steps crying, and I could not stand to watch this scene any longer. I screamed like a crazy man, charged the bully and before a teacher could get there to break us up I must have hit that bully a good number of times. From that moment on, I became known as the Captain marvel of Mercy, the patron saint of the weak and meek. Dear God, how does one get into situations like that. God does act in mysterious ways. Catholics somehow appear most likely to become aggressive if provoked, than other denominations.

Forgive me father for I have sinned. I beat the stuffing's out of some fellow at the dance last night. (Priest response) My son you must try to control your temper more, ok? Now say three Our Fathers, three Hail Mary's and a good Act of Contraction. Control my temper? Yea! Right!

It's a good thing there's confession every Saturday. The problem with being a "super hero," pardon my jest, is that how does one keep up the pace? I mean really! There must be a needed protection act going on every day, somewhere. By the time I was in High school I had toned my fighting skill to a sharp degree. However, things were different at Saint Michaels and at Crowley High School. Besides covering my own skinny self, and the other Nerds, Geeks and misfits like myself, there was a new dimension to consider. For some reason I had become a big brother stereotype. Gad! Some of the most beautiful girls in school were suddenly crying on my shoulder because their boyfriends were treating them badly. What a smuck! I should be so lucky to have just one of these beauties as my sweetheart. But No, all I ever got was "Oh! Billy, you're so sweet, you're like a brother to me. Cheesh! Here I was a fellow who would have gladly treated any of these beautiful girls like Princesses, but they preferred the fellow who treated them like an old shoe. Women? So what would happen was I had the dubious self-proclaimed duty to negotiate between the two.

When these negotiations came out friendly, which was three out of seven, I felt happy, like I had accomplished something good. When they didn't because of the boyfriend's attitude of " what it's to you" or "this is none of your business" Or "beat it squirt, before I pound you." These words usually set me off into my Spiderman mode, which left the culprit knocked out or wishing he had been. As for me, Let's see how many times was my nose broken? Black eyes? To many to count, and bumps on my head, woo-boy. The sad part is many times I was chastised for beating up my friend's boyfriend. Talk about feeling foolish. I didn't start any of the fights, no, not one, but what's a guy going to do, when another fellow takes a swing at your noggin?

Then a thought came to me in about the tenth grade. A Honking big football player, although bleeding like a stuck pig, had my 128 pounds of boxing charm down on the ground and it appeared like I was about to be pounded into a pulp. (Just because I told him to treat his girlfriend with more respect). Then someone suggested that this big football player get off of me and fight like a man, not roll around in the dirt like pigs. I think my opponent realized that his advisor was the current three times Louisiana State Heavyweight boxing Champion. Well, the football player got off of me, and we stood facing each other. His eyebrow needed around 8 stitches, and people in the crowd were yelling for someone to call an ambulance so he could go to the hospital. One of his friends offered to drive him instead and they left. God saved my hide again. Twice in just a few minutes. However, I still felt like a fool for trying to help someone. Some folks might call my foolishness, meddling, or sticking my nose in where it doesn't belong. I suppose they might be correct, but were there is injustice I suppose I am a fool for at least attempting to change things. The thought I realized that day was, it would be a lot easer on me if I just taught others how to fight for themselves.

I would teach special friends what to do in case of their being attacked by a bully. But I was too young to really create a fighting style. I was a pretty good football player at Welsh High, even though I weighed only 128 pounds. On the Players rooster they put me down as 148, to make it look better. Ha! I was so light that I couldn't play offense because if I ran with the ball or caught a pass the opposing team could just instead of tackling me to the ground would pick me up ball and all and run down the field with me on their backs embarrassed beyond words.

Basketball was a total bust for me. I could dribble like meadow Lark Lemmon (I'm really dating myself here, remember the Glob Trotters?) Yes, well with all that skill I couldn't shoot a basket if my life depended on it. Old hooplamis would have been a good nickname for me. My temper got the best of me during a game and I threw the ball right into the face of the fellow, got myself kicked off the team for that. It just appeared to me that the fellow who was crowding me by bumping me inappropriately, at least I thought it was. No man can do that, so if he wanted the ball that bad, I just backed up and booty bumped him back far enough for me to slam him in the face with the basketball. Certainly not a very sportsman like conduct.

Boxing was the only thing I was blessed with and that was just a teeny blessing. In baseball I was a fair player with a great pegging arm from center field, even did a triple play unassisted, while playing second base. The thing is, however, I couldn't hit a curve ball and my temper was too uncontrolled when the pitchers hit me with the ball. Well what does this have to do with foolishness? Just think about it a moment. Only a fool would lose his temper and do the things I did. Not to mention butting my flat nose in other folks business, and getting it punched.