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Bullying & Tom Feary |
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| This westward view looks along Highland Avenue from the southeast corner of the Arrowview athletic field (yes, it’s more grown-up, now: certainly not a playground, however much it may resemble Bradley’s). As the venue of the little red shorts and associated communal showers, this is where much of the bullying happened. |
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By which hangs the tale of another valuable learning experience. It was in these days that I had my first real, paid job, delivering by bicycle and by the dawn’s early light (or less) fiftyish copies of the San Bernardino
Sun-Telegram, across town in the neighborhood of
Berdoo High. As we waited for the
esteemed Jack Jolley to deliver our papers for street-corner folding, I
became better acquainted with Tom Feary than I’d otherwise
have done. Tom was a tough, street-wise kid, not at all “my
type,” but we spent perforce enough time together to get well past the
stereotypes that had kept us at arm’s length in campus society.
Not really sure what Tom learned about me, but I was moved to find out that his widowed mother was very sick, then dying, then deceased. As a consequence, newly-orphaned Tom was being sent to Boys Town, in Nebraska or someplace equally remote. It played hob with all my preconceptions of “tough guys” to see Tom break down in tears one morning under the pressure of all this real life, while slipping little green rubber bands on his folded papers. Well, it was in the vicinity of the handball courts (visible here as a white rectangle near the right side of the photo) that several of the “tough kids” decide to relieve their chronic boredom by tormenting wimpy little me. As they approached, I was more than relieved to see Tom Feary rush in and shove the biggest of them away, with threats of more than pushing if they molested me further. I think of Tom less frequently than my debt to him would justify. I do hope his life has turned out happier than it started. |
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