Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Violence on the Playground


(Continued from last Wednesday, August 14 . . . )


Bloodthirsty cries overshadowed the laughter of the fifth graders surrounding me on the icy playground at St. Peter and Paul Grade School in Omaha, Nebraska, on Friday, January 15, 1960.
         “Kill ‘im, Ron! Kill ‘im!”
         “Bash his head!”
         “Looka’ that blood!”
         “Bill, break his nose!”
         “Kill ‘im, Ron! Kill ‘im!”
         “Go for his eyes!”
         “Bash him a good one!”
         “Kill ‘im, Ron!”
         The words shocked me into action. Alarmed, I rushed toward a circle of boys gathered in the shadow of the school building. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, three deep around a center I couldn’t see, shouting, punching the air with clenched fists. Frenzied, I tried to move them aside.
         “Excuse me! Let me through. I’ve got to get through.”
         The boys, in their thick winter jackets, seemingly unaware of anything beyond what was happening in front of them, refused to budge. Their churning circle tightened. Contracted.
         I shoved. Pushed. Tried to pull them apart.
         They shoved back. Snarled at me. Cursed.
         Struggling to pull them apart, I edged forward toward the center of the shouting circle.
         “Keep bashin’ his head, Ron! Kill ‘im!”
         Hearing those vicious words, I instinctively looked to the left. A boy, blond hair flapping over his forehead, stared avidly at the scene before him. His body moved back and forth to the thumps coming from the center of the circle. Saliva dribbled onto his dirty white shirt. Most of its buttons had popped off so that it gaped open over his stomach, which pooched out over his tight belt.
         I followed his maniacal gaze downward to where two boys struggled.  One atop the other. Blood matted the hair of the one on the bottom. The boy tabled above held his opponent’s head between splayed fingers. He bopped it up and down, up and down, against the ice. The boy’s head thudded. Blood spurted.
         The eyes of the boy on the bottom rolled back. His limp hands lay at his side.
         “Kill ‘im, Ron!”
         Those words galvanized me. My hands gripped the shoulders of the boy doing the bopping. I tried to pull him backward.
         He punched out at me. Grazed my cheek. Socked my eye.
         His own eyes were glazed, staring unseeingly at the force trying to stop his crazed battering of the boy beneath him.
         “It’s a nun!” the boy with popping buttons shouted. “Don’t hit her! You’re be excommunicated!”
         The shouting stopped. Silence.
         The boy on top fell to the side and lay panting on the ground. The boy beneath him opened his eyes, tried to rise, fell back.
         Just then Sister Julian came running from around the back of the school building. “What’s happening?” she shouted.
         The boy with the popped buttons tried to head her off. “Nothin’s happenin’, Sister. Just a friendly fight.”
         She stepped aside, avoiding him, and headed to where I stood, surrounded by boys, their eyes downcast. She glanced at the two struggling to get up, turned toward me, and asked, “Are you hurt?”
         “He just grazed me.”
         Julian ordered me to go over to the convent and ice my face. She’d get my fifth-graders settled in their classroom.


         As I walked away, I could hear her voice demanding an explanation from the boys. Wondering how that boy had learned the word excommunication and whose classroom he and the rest of the boys were in, I felt grateful that I hadn’t had to teach them for two weeks. The next day I’d travel to Walsenburg, Colorado, and never see those boys again. Thank heavens!
                                                      (. . . to be continued next Wednesday)

Photographs from Wikipedia.

46 comments:

  1. You told that so well I was right there in the fight with you. I could even feel myself pulling at their coats, trying to squeeze through. What a scene to come upon, but how fortunate you were there and that you weren't hurt worse.

    Looking forward to the next installment! What a fine series this is-

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    1. Dear Shelly, I'm glad you like this series. I think there'll be a couple of more on Omaha. And I'm glad the writing drew you in. I wasn't sure of this one. Peace.

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  2. I breathed a sigh of relief when it was all over.

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  3. How frightening. Shelly is right: You tell the story so well that I feel as if I'm there right now and can't escape. People think violence in schools is a brand new thing. Is it really so much worse now, or are we more aware of it?

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. Dear Janie, as you say, violence isn't a brand new thing. Remember the movie "Blackboard Jungle" from the 1950s? That's what this reminded me of when it happened in 1960. Later events solidified that impression within me. Peace.

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    2. I read the book and saw the movie. You're right: Violence in schools is nothing new.

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    3. Dear Janie, as Penny pointed out in her comment perhaps the difference between now an then is that the boys on that Omaha playground used their fists. Today, some children use guns instead of fists. Peace.

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  4. My goodness, I just realized I was holding my breath! lol

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    1. Dear Chantel, I think I was probably panting when it happened. Maybe hyperventilating! Peace.

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  5. Wow that was quite the fight, sure must have been a fright

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    1. Dear Pat. bot the fight and the fright are accurate! Peace.

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  6. That was indescribably horrible! But you managed to draw the readers into the fight.

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    1. Dear Susan, and there's more coming. Peace.

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  7. Li8e Chantel, I was holding my breath & didn't even realize it--you CAN tell a story!!

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    1. Dear Fishducky, and you can tell a wonderful joke as well as "fracture" fairy tales! Peace.

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  8. OH, how terrible! I am glad you escaped almost unscathed, but those poor boys, especially the one on the bottom. I hope to hear they both recovered. You told the story so very well, Dee. I was scared for you, and for them.

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    1. Dear DJan, it truly was terrifying. I'd been in the quiet of the novitiate for eighteen months. All so peaceful and then this. It shook me up. Peace.

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  9. I can see your shoes with sensible heels and leather soles, crunching firmly, not slipping. How did you do it. You don't know until it's over. How fortunate someone with more authority and expertise was arriving, too.

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    1. Dear Joanne, it's true, I don't recall my shoes slipping. But the incident and the bopping of the head and the words the boys were shouting is so vivid to me after 53 years. It was one of those happenings that we never forget because I think it was so emotion laden. Peace.

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  10. Talk about having a reader on edge, this was great

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    1. Dear Jo-Anne, I was sort of on edge also--when it happened--not sure how it was going to end. Peace.

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  11. That account was told so chillingly and vividly, it dragged the me right into the fray. I felt my shoulders jerking, trying to mentally pull that bully off that poor child on the bottom. I will never understand the blood lust that can be stirred up in humans and to think these were only 5th graders.

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    1. Dear Arkansas Patti, I must not have made clear that I was with 5th graders on the playground but that the boys who were fighting were older. Later I found out that they were in 7th grade. Peace.

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  12. The details one can remember after decades always amazed me, Dee. You've told this well, your details as crisp as the ice and snow, and, as has been already said, fraught with emotion. When we hear about violence in schools, we wonder what has happened with children. I think that it has only graduated from using fists to using guns.

    I look forward to your next installment.

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    1. Dear Penny, I wondering if the details we remembered aren't embedded in our mins because of all the emotion involved. I know that I was terrified and yet I knew I was the teacher and needed to do something. It was the same thing I did years later in Minneapolis when I got between two young men fighting. I blogged about that once when I did the series on social justice.

      I agree with you that in schools the children have gone from fists to guns. It's tragic. Peace.

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  13. YIPES...... That is a story that I wouldn't be surprised to hear about THESE days --but back then???? I luckily was never in a situation where there was THAT much anger. Scary!!!!

    I do so worry about today's kids and how much exposure they get constantly to VIOLENCE. It's like those Okla. teens killing that student simply because they were bored... Unbelievable! Where are the parents these days? (Guess you were saying the same thing back then too!!)

    Life taint easy, is it? BUT--where does all of the anger come from????

    Hugs,
    Betsy

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    1. Dear Betsy, I was never again in a situation like that, but once was enough for me. Like you, I'm greatly concerned about the amount of violence children see on television and in video games. Peace.

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  14. There has always been violence. Children have never been immune. In fact, they sometimes have even less ability to judge the consequences of violent action. Stepping into the fray is something that quite shakes me up after the fact--but at the time you are propelled on automatic response. I can hardly wait to hear how all this shifted your world! :)

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    1. Dear Rita, yes, the response was automatic just as it was all those years later when I tried to protect a young man who was being beaten by a group of guys in the University area of Minneapolis. We instinctively I think want to protect people. Peace.

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  15. What a tale! I can’t believe that kids were fighting already then. All the way through many schools I never saw anyone fight. You must have been scared and no wonder that you never forgot.
    I am interested in reading your memoirs as I have never spoken to a person who took the veil, or even knew one. When in France, if I saw a “sister” (that’s what they are called “soeurs”) I was afraid of them – they wore black all over, not their face, but were just like the Saudi women nowadays, and I was scared of them. If anyone of them had spoken to me I think I would have been speechless – I mean when I was a kid. But even older, I never met one. I am sure that most were quite nice, but I read some books were the nuns were very strict and mean with kids. In my whole class of 34 plus kids there was only one girl who went to church and she told us that when she did not know her “catechism” and made a mistake the nun would strike her fingers with a ruler.

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    1. Dear Vagabonde, I'm sure, as in all groups of people, some nuns did mean and spiteful things to the children in their care. But I tend to think they were the minority--at least in the '40s, '50s, and '60s when I was attending Catholic schools and teaching in the convent. The Sisters of Mercy who taught me in grade and high school were excellent teachers and there was no physical discipline.

      But there was one nun who taught my brother and she threatened the first graders with a ball bat and with a golf club. Fortunately she did not return to that school. I think they sent her to the mental ward. I'll have more to say about that in my next postings.

      I've already written a lot about the convent, Vagabonde. You can find those postings under the category "convent" on the right-hand side if you have some interest in them. Peace.

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  16. Dee, you could teach Charles Dickens a thing or two about writing in instalments. I can't wait for the next one.

    Your description of the fight and the blind violence which gripped those boys, both the fighters and the watchers, is immensely powerful and will stay with me for quite a while.

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    1. Dear Perpetua, to be mentioned in the same breath as Charles Dickens is to win the Olympic gold medal in dreams fulfilled!!!!! Thank you. Peace.

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  17. Dee
    Sorry I missed this and today is Wednesday and the next one due. I haven't been reading many blogs lately. The yard work is overwhelming. Winter will soon take care of that dilemma.
    You are a brave one to go into the middle of a boy's fight.

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    1. Dear Manzanita, yes, today I"m posting the next episode in the Omaha story. I do understand about yard work. It niggles at us to get out there and do something and we do and get absorbed and time passes and soon we're ready to be hung out to dry! Peace.

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  18. Oh my, Dee. You taught under such harsh conditions! I would like to know so much more about these little hooligans. I know that there is more to their story, too, and don't you wonder where they are today. Your calling into the church came with some really unsettling lessons. Yet these children, rough as they were, were also so fortunate to have had your calming presence. What a scene you've painted here! Debra

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    1. Dear Debra, I do wonder where they are today. They were probably 12 or 13 at the time and its 53 years later, so they would be 65 or 66, retiring. I wonder what they'd think of the story I wrote and whether they'd recognize themselves. I also wonder if Ron continued to be a bully and if he found contentment in life. And I wonder if John--the young boy encouraging Ron to bash Bill's head in--ever rose out of poverty. Peace.

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  19. well you certainly have MY attention!

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  20. Dear Mimi, I see that you read the episode following this one. I'm glad the story has captured your attention. Your comment for that posting made me shiver inside. Peace.

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  21. How cruel! And did you find out if the beaten lad was given medical help for a concussion?
    Makes me think more about DJan's post on evil and being cruel.

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    1. Dear Heidrun, I can't remember that. Sorry. And you're right, it is sort of an experience that speaks to her posting. Peace.

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  22. Oh, my goodness! I don't think I saw a fight like that until middle school!!!

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    1. Dear Nancy, these children, come to find out, were in 7th grade. The 5th graders who were clustered around me were frightened by what they saw. Peace.

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