In my early school days, there were a lot of kids who hadn’t a clue about acceptable behavior in social situations. There were no preschools in those days, in fact, kindergarten was new and not required in all school systems. I doubt if prospective teachers had much training in teaching social behavior other than “Keep your hands to yourself” and “Take turns on the playground swings.” In essence, kids had to figure out by trial and error what it took to get along.

Playground fights and bullying usually took place out of sight of teachers and were seldom reported (called “tattling” and considered to be “sissy” behavior.) Anyone who dared to complain ran the risk of retaliation. Fighting back was admired by friends of the victim, but obvious admiration posed the risk of becoming a victim by association. It seemed safest to stay out of risky situations, give in rather than resist, and pretend you were tired of playing with the ball or jump rope the bullies had grabbed from you.

I remember one older girl who, aside from being a bully, was a great liar who seemed to think that her lies changed the facts. I’m pretty sure that she came to believe her own tales. It didn’t take me long to catch on to her body language and, even today, I’m pretty good at spotting fibbers and bullies by the defiant stance, the squinty eyes and jutting chin, among other clues.

I learned at a fairly early age that some bullies back down if you call their bluff. It takes a lot of nerve and doesn’t always work, but if it does work, once us usually enough. During the summer after my sixth birthday, my dad’s water spaniel Curly had our cat Mickey cornered where he couldn’t escape up a tree. Curly enjoyed deviling the cat but had never actually hurt him (typical bully-bluffing behavior.) Afraid to get too close but wanting to rescue Mickey, I was jumping around, shouting encouragement, “Scratch him on the nose!” I yelled, and miraculously, Mickey did just that. Curly yelped and backed off. I told Dad about it and he chuckled.

“Good for Mickey,” he said. “That’s the way to handle bullies.”

A couple weeks later, a boy in our neighborhood blocked the sidewalk in front of his house, refusing to let me ride my tricycle to the end of the block. When I told Dad about it he reminded me of the way Mickey had handled the confrontation with Curly.

“Curly hasn’t bothered him since then, has he? Maybe you should scratch that guy on the nose,” he teased, “it worked for Mickey.”

Not too many days later, I was walking down that same sidewalk to a friend’s house and the bully again blocked my way. He was a sturdy boy two grades ahead of me in school, but he wasn’t expecting me to double up my fist and bop him on his nose. I didn’t hit him very hard, but it was enough, apparently, to solve the problem once and for all. By summer’s end we were fairly good friends and he eventually became my regular ride home from college for holidays and term breaks.

I learned, at about that same time, that you can’t buy friends no matter what you have to offer. I’d known Suzy since kindergarten where she’d been glum and unfriendly. Nobody tried to cultivate her friendship because she was usually dirty and smelled bad. By the time we were in second grade, she often walked part of the way home with me and my best friend Charles who lived near me. I learned that she lived in a run-down house with several siblings, her mother, an aunt who was three years younger than Suzy (a fact that mystified me no end) and no father that she ever mentioned. Suzy often came to school with a bag of assorted hard candies that she doled out at recess time to anyone willing to stand in line and pretend to be her friend. My intuition told me hers was a needy family and I wondered where she got the money to buy all that candy. Something kept me from getting in that line and begging her for a few pieces of candy. The very idea made me feel ashamed of myself as well as of her and I believe that’s why we became, and remained, friends well past our high school days.