The Gooch
I was driving through my old neighborhood the other day and parked my car in the exact location where I had my very first fight. It was against the neighborhood bully who also happened to be the son of the superintendent of the apartment building we live in. I was 9 years old and my opponent was a few years older and nearly twice my size.
It all started when my cousin, who was riding my bike in front of the Con Ed building across the street from where we lived, was approached by the bully and told to give him the bike. My cousin responded by saying no. I guess that wasn’t the answer the bully wanted to hear. He started throwing Now and Later candies at him which caused my cousin to cry. I was enraged by what he was doing to my little cousin and although he was much bigger and older than me, I was not going to let him get away with it.
I asked him to quit bothering my cousin and he responded by saying “What are you going to do about it?" Someone should have told him that I had a nasty temper. I ran towards him and punched him square in the face. I will admit that this was probably the only good punch I got off. This kid whooped my ass! What made it bad was he laughed at me in front of some girls! Once again, someone should have told him that I had a nasty temper and I’m a prideful Gemini who hates losing. I picked up a rock and smacked him upside his head with it and sent him home crying with a large lump on his head. I know what I did was dirty but I was not going to look like a punk in front of some girls!
Comments
fighting sucks lol
Posted by: april ortiz | July 19, 2005 01:44 AM
The merge of your original photos and your anecdotes is wonderful.
Posted by: Berry | February 20, 2005 01:16 PM
Nice story. "i guess he had to pay the price". takin out you suckers
Posted by: quimby | February 9, 2005 01:42 PM
You re a funny ass dude D... thats material cut from all of our personal movies.... funny thing is, maybe all of us have a lil' gemini in us after all.
Posted by: Jovonn Alexander | January 28, 2005 02:41 PM
everybody has that one fight they remember. mine wasn't with the biggest dude on the block, but the craziest. the dude known for carrying knives, and smoking weed, and drinking at age 11. then only the flip side you got me, a nine year old grant hill type. you know, a good guy. i was the underdog big time, but the whole block was routing for me. well, some how, some way, i came up with this bruce lee kick from no where, busting dudes lip. the minute he saw blood, it was a tko. 4th round knock. another win for the good guys.
Posted by: hardCore | January 24, 2005 10:44 AM
I love the photos....
Posted by: Moca | January 24, 2005 12:07 AM
Glad to have come accross the site (props to Notes from a Different Kitchen). I'll be back... often.
Posted by: Mike in Bmore | January 23, 2005 07:34 PM
Beautiful picutre of a beautiful child...
I guess we all got a few cavities from the Now & Laters.
My take on the fight: In street fighting, DIRTY is acceptable and so is fighting on the offensive (bombing first) so you did the right thing. As long as you are not in the ring, the rule is that there are no rules, it's all about self preservation. I think in that case, there was no excessive use of force and the bully got what was coming to him. We all gotta take some lumps sometimes. Builds character.
However, on the flip side of that...after having worked with young people in a mentor capacity, I know that I would have hated to work with your little bad a**. Moonin' old ladies and hittin people upside the head with rocks. Haha.
On the serious tip though,kids these days will go to jail for the kinds of things we got away with when we were young. We were able to chalk it up to going to the school of hard knocks, but these days, they have 3 hots and a cot waiting for our young people the minute they act out. I know at least in Oregon, we have a ballot Measure that passed (Measure 11) that treats anyone age 15 years and older as an adult for certain crimes. There are some seriously troubled and confused people out there and they can be dangerous for society. The little "bad" kid growing up in an institution can grow up to be a troubled and angry adult. So, I'd say now as an adult, we do have the responsibility to teach our kids self defense, and even the art of fighting, but ideally in a safe environment such as martial arts training or at least good home training. We have to teach them to fight smart since they don't have the luxuries we had of being carefree kids who could just knock somebody out on the block and go back to school the next day as the champ.
All right, I pontificated enough. See ya.
Posted by: Jacqueline | January 21, 2005 03:02 PM