School in Fairmont and the gauntlet

My stepfather, who I always called Murphy as that was his last name. I never did call him dad but my sister did from about the first week after he and my mother got married. Lol, used to piss my mother off that I wouldn't call him dad. She beat me a few times for it.

Mof when my daughter, who was given up for adoption, found me one of the first things she told me was she didn't know what to call me. I told her using my first name was fine. Her dad was the person she had known since she was a week old.

Murphy has some relatives in Fairmont too. One of them farmed and had 3 or 4 boys, one was a DJ at the local radio station, and a girl or two. I used to be required to play with them as they also had a son my age.

Back then they were strict Catholics, didn't eat meat on Friday, except fish. BTW, how is it that fish isn't meat? Never did understand that one. Heh, it was all so a mortal sin for hem to set foot in another church. They all went to Catholic school.

Back then you could still bring visitors to school so on a day that public school was off but the Catholics had school Pat invited me to come to his school so I could see what it was like. I didn't really want to but Murphy insisted so I went.

It really wasn't all that much different from going to public school except it was a lot more strict and the prayer times during the day and the religion that was taught. They were about a year ahead of the grade levels at public school but that wasn't a problem for me. I got it all. While I won't get into what I think of the education system I will say if I had kids they would go to a private school or be home schooled. Education was better for them that it was for us public school kids.

The food in their cafeteria was no better than the food in public school tho and they didn't have quite as much recess as we did at my school. So we went out and played at recess and it was pretty rough play. Not so rough I couldn't deal with it but because I was a visitor I was getting the usual crap.

About the time recess was getting over the boys lined up in two lines with enough space for a person to walk between them. I was dared to go between the two lines while they got to hit or kick me on the way through. Pat had told me this was going to happen and I think he wanted to see, as the rest did, if I had the balls to do it or if I was to chicken. Lol, little did they know.

So I got into my position and I stood there waiting for my advantage to come. It was going to be a very small, slim advantage but I wanted every chance I could get. So I waited and they started calling me names and making fun of me. Heh, boys will be boys.

Then all of a sudden the end of recess bell went off. Just what I'd been waiting for but not for the reason they thought. I knew it was going to distract them when it went off and that was my minimal little advantage.

When the bell went off I punched the guy on my right and took off down the line. I made it about half way before they recovered and started hitting and kicking, I hit a few more but mostly stayed hunched over with my head down and ran through the line.

I made it all the way through but the last guy in line stepped over right in the middle of the path so I just lowered my head and ran into him like I was a fullback going for the goal line. He went down in a heap and thee I was, through the gauntlet, with a minimum of damage and I'd managed to hurt at least two of them plus the guy at the end of the line.

Forgot to tell you but my step cousin was in the line too. After that I got treated with respect by all of them for the rest of the day and by most of them for the rest of the time I lived in Fairmont.

I had a few fights with some of them and a few with the public school kids but it didn't take them long to learn that I wasn't afraid to take some damage to inflict even more damage on them so after the first few months I mostly got left alone.

One of the big differences about Murphy was he didn't like fighting so he'd beat me for fighting instead of losing a fight. Didn't matter as I already didn't care, winning a fight and making others leave me alone was more important than any beating Murphy was going to give me. Him using his fist and feet on me didn't make me more compliant or even scared, it just made me tougher and better able to handle the pain of it.

BTW, I never took the opportunity to visit my step cousin at his school again.