October 2015

Dear Finley and Henry,

When I was 19 years old, I got beat up. Just the once. But pretty badly.

It popped into mind, Finley, when you came home with your  glasses broken from a little  playground kerfuffle the other day.

I was still a high-school student when it happened. I was walking home from a bar with a couple of girls. It was very late. Very dark. A car rolled by, drove right through a puddle and splashed us. I yelled something. I don’t remember what. But I probably thought I was pretty clever. Until the brake lights came on.

Four guys got out of the car.  Two of them held me while the other two took turns punching me in the face and stomach. One of them hugged me and said “it’s alright, you’re ok” before reaching back and punching me in the face again. Is that from some gangster movie? Can you google that for me? I never really understood that part, though it always really bothered me. They broke my nose. They gave me two black eyes. Most of my torso was purple and yellow for a long time.

I’m over it now. And it has become a part of my story. It feeds into the blue collar persona I like to invoke when dealing with privileged, private-school types. In a weird way, I like the fact that I was beat up. I know things that people who have never been punched in the face don’t know. I used to argue (stupidly) that everyone should be punched in the face once, just for the educational value.

And then I had kids. And I realised that I don’t ever want you to get punched in the face. Finley, when you came home with broken glasses, it broke my heart and boiled my blood.

So I hope, first of all, that you are never punched in the face. But if you are, I hope you can learn your lessons from it faster than I did. It took me about 20 years to sort this out, so forgive the long prelude, but here are the key lessons I learned from being punched in the face:

  1. Being punched in the face hurts a lot. For real. If you are someone that cries when your brother takes your balloon (and you both are) then you definitely do not want to get punched in the face. Not joking. It really really hurts. For a long time. It’s awful.
  2. But you can get through it. Not because it is easy, but because you are strong. You keep your feet. Or you stand yourself back up. You call a friend that played some Junior A hockey to set your broken nose. And you get back about your business. Eventually. You are a resilient human being capable of surviving adversity, and it is empowering to know that. Don’t crumple.
  3. Some people in this world are just tougher than you. They can punch you in the face whenever they want to. So step carefully. Shut your mouth sometimes, so nobody feels compelled to shut it for you.
  4. Or say screw it, and speak up if you think you have to. Be prepared for some remedial instruction in lesson #1, and try to remind yourself of the importance of lesson #2. There are consequences for speaking up, and I guarantee you there are times when it isn’t worth it. So please be thoughtful and please be careful. But you may, on rare occasion, find yourself in a situation where the inevitable consequence of your righteous action is the prompt receipt of a punch directly in the face.
  5. People who are routinely subjected to violence deserve your sympathy and need your help. I got beat up once. And, no exaggeration, it was a solid decade before I really processed it. And those were just random goons that hurt me. Imagine suffering daily abuse delivered by someone close to you. It would be devastating, and orders of magnitude beyond anything I can speak to directly. So just please don’t ever take the suffering of others lightly.

I actually think I know who one of the guys that got me was. And I’m pretty sure he had a brutal childhood. A little obsessive googling suggests that he might be doing really well as an adult. After 20 years, I think I can say I’m glad for that.

But, if I saw him walking at the side of the road on a rainy night, would I stomp the gas and rip right through the deepest, longest, muddiest puddle to soak that summabitch down to his socks? Heck yeah I would.

Then I’d scoot out of there like a cool breeze.

Love,

Your Dear Old Dad