It’s no exaggeration to say that some of the worst physical trauma in my life has been caused by alphabetical order.

This is because for p.e. class the p.e. teacher (Mr. Wenzlau and/or Mr. Veneklasen?) used to make us sit in alphabetical order on the front row of bleachers in the old Quonset hut gymnasium in Hayden, Colorado. This put me between Mr. K and Mr. M, who happened to be the two largest boys in my class. I was taller, but that’s useless when you’re rail thin and clumsy and suck at football in a football town. This seating arrangement by itself wouldn’t have been bad except the favorite activity while we were waiting for the teacher to start class was “Pass it Down”. This involved one of the people on the end (Mr. B or Mr. Z), punching the arm of the person next to him and saying “pass it down”. This went down the line until it reached the end and then started back the other way. This basically made me a pinata for Mr. K and Mr. M.

I didn’t like it–and now days there’d be meetings and music talk therapy sessions and cognitive meditative gestalt therapy, and that’s just for Mr. K and Mr. M.– but it was my job to sit there and take it. Mind you, Mr. K and Mr. M made their punches sting, but they were never cruel, except in forbidding me from punching them. (I also remember a couple of times when they forbid the people on their other sides, Mr. H and Mr. Smaller M from punching them. Instead they had to punch me which meant I got punched twice.)

In one of these cases, Mr. Smaller M decided he was also going to forbid me from punching him. I punched him anyway. This led to angry threats and especially hard punches from him, especially after I hit him again. Then, on the way out to the football field, I got pushed from behind and barely managed to keep my feet. Mr. Smaller M had decided to make a fight out of it. What happened next was arguably a draw–I got a small cut on my jaw and Mr. Smaller M got a black eye–but when you’re a rail thin and clumsy guy who sucks at football in a football town, a draw is a stunning accomplishment.

I remember the main comment being “I didn’t know he (meaning me) could fight.”

Unfortunately, the next game became trying to push me into another fight with Mr. C, a fellow trumpet player, who wasn’t well liked at the time. Because I was basking in the glow of a my draw and my sudden modicum of credibility, I got egged into starting the fight even though Mr. C was actually a friend. My heart wasn’t in that one, so my first punch was more of an announcement that the fight should begin. That one was also a draw (mostly because Mr. Grimes broke us up quickly) and I ended up accepting all the blame for that one and received my first and only in-school suspension because it was my job to sit there and take it. I also apologized to Mr. C. and received some advice from the people who’d egged me on that my first punch was too weak.

I haven’t been in a fight since. (There were days, though; there were days.)