Dear editor:
This winter, when I saw beautiful ice daggers hanging from my roof, a wicked little smile crossed my lips. I remembered back to those years when I was five in cold Wisconsin and had to trudge about a mile to school along with other little kids.
On the way home, we liked to stop and slide down a small hill next to the sidewalk. Usually, pieces of cardboard were lying nearby for our use.
Our nemesis was Jack, a large bully, whose family thought he was destined for the priesthood.
Jack liked to break off big icicles from nearby houses, ram those icicles down the back of our snowsuits and then give our backs a whack so that the icicle crumbled inside. We hated him, but we never whined to our parents.
By the time I was nine, Jack had become a newspaper boy. When I was walking my dog, Skippy, one warm summer day, a spontaneous action hit me.
Jack’s bike was parked on the sidewalk, about a quarter of a block from my house. I quickly took a stick and “frosted” Jack’s bicycle seat with a thick mound of fresh dog poop.
Jack saw me in action and rang the doorbell of my home to complain.
Mom appeared. Suddenly she called me, and with a stern face asked me why I had done something so mean.
That’s when I revealed Jack’s bullying. Mom didn’t say anything more than, “You’ll have to clean that off.”
She quickly appeared with a bucket of hot soapy water and a rag, and I returned to the “frosting.”
As I cleaned the bicycle seat, I noted with malicious joy that the horrid smell had permeated the fabric of the seat. From a distance, I could see my mother talking with Jack at some length.
He never bothered us little kids again.
Marilyn Hansen
Summerland
