Today I wanted to share a chapter with you from my forthcoming book Dad Was Right: 10 Life Lessons a Father Taught His Son. As I stated on Wednesday when I announced the approaching release of this book, Dad Was Right is a short memoir about me and my dad. It covers ten of the major life lessons he taught me and that for the most part I didn’t care to listen to. This is one of those lessons.
Be Smart When You Have To Fight
You’d think that as a teacher, my dad wouldn’t condone fighting at school. You’d be wrong.
Fighting is a part of life. People are going to have conflict. People are going to get into your space and try to take what’s yours without your permission. People will attempt to intimidate you into abandoning your principles and doing their will.
You have to stand up for yourself and what you value. If you don’t you’ll be walked on and walked over, then you’re going to have to fight.
My dad did have one main rule I had to follow when it came to throwing punches: never leave the school to fight.
During junior high and high school, I only found myself in two fistfights. The first was in the seventh grade and the second in the tenth.
The seventh-grade conflict started one morning before class. I got hit in the back of the head with a rubber band by a kid named Jeff. That really pissed me off.
My pride, however, was more wounded than my skull, as it was only a rubber band. Somehow an exchange of words, taunting, and adolescent peer pressure escalated things to a physical altercation. The weird part is that we scheduled the fight.
Neither of us wanted to fight then and there, so we discussed fighting after school. That wouldn’t work, because we both rode a bus home. We agreed to fight Monday after school. That would give us the weekend to figure out how to get home some way other than on the school bus.
Come Monday, I’d pretty much lost any desire to fight. I figured Jeff had as well. As I was heading for Bus 16 after the last bell, other students surrounded me and reminded me of my scheduled fisticuffs. I thought about brushing it off, but apparently Jeff was waiting. If I bailed out now, the entire school would know I was a wuss.
Reluctantly, Jeff and I met behind Norco Junior High. We had a good crowd of about thirty there waiting for our bout. At this point I’m not even sure if either of us still wanted to fight, but, not wanting to disappoint the fight-hungry spectators, we fed their adolescent bloodlust and fought.
I use the word “fought” loosely, as it was a pretty lame fight. We didn’t inflict any real damage on each other. I don’t recall any punches or kicks connecting, but we did grapple and flail around a bit. I’m pretty sure there were some open-handed slaps included too.
We “fought” so poorly that the teenage crowd gathered around started booing. After fifteen minutes of acting like idiots, Jeff and I shook hands and never mentioned the altercation again. Nor did he ever hit me in the back of the head with a rubber band, so I suppose I had a small victory.
But it was very small. A couple students turned me in for fighting. I had to go into the office of the assistant principal, Mrs. Lightbody. She gave me three days of after-school work detail. And since I was such a stand-up guy, I proceeded to tell Mrs. Lightbody who I fought so Jeff could pick up trash with me. After all, he and his stupid rubber band started it.
When I faced my dad at home later that afternoon, he was livid. Not because I’d gotten into a fight, but because I left campus. He reminded me of all the bad things that could happen when fights moved off campus. He was glad nothing horrible happened, but basically told me not to be so stupid next time.
From my dad’s experience growing up and as a teacher, he knew that dangerous problems occurred when the fight went down somewhere other than school. Off campus, a one-on-one fight could quickly turn into a ten-on-one fight, with others jumping in to gang up on you. Even worse, a fistfight was likely to turn into armed combat with one of the participants, namely you, left unarmed.
It was far less likely for a fight to become potentially deadly if it was still on campus. You were safer at school even if you got in trouble for fighting.
As I said, the next time for me was three years later in the tenth grade. Not only did I heed my dad’s words and stay on campus, I decided to fight right there in the middle of second-period language arts.
Maybe decide isn’t the right word. I lost it. I was being goaded by the guy in front of me, Jason, for not allowing him to cheat off me during a spelling test. Yes, I’m well aware this was a pretty lame reason to fight, but teenagers do plenty of things for lame reasons.
Jason kept talking and talking, berating me for not allowing him to cheat, then finally he stood before me and put his hands in my face, pretending like he would hit me, taunting me by saying, “What you gonna do, Floyd?”
He swung and came close to my face. I feared he’d hit my glasses, so I caught his hand like I was a badass ’80s action movie hero. Jason glared at me with contempt. “What you gonna do, Floyd?”
Floyd showed him.
My adrenaline was pumping and I went full-on Rambo. How the fight went, I don’t recall. I actually blacked out. Eyewitness accounts reported I punched Jason and knocked him over the empty desk. Then I leaped over the desk and continued to punch him. He attempted to get away, but I didn’t let up. I took Jason over to Mrs. Smalley’s desk and repeatedly banged his head into it.
When I came back to my senses, I had Jason in a headlock. I looked up at the other thirty students in the classroom. There weren’t any cheers or boos this time. There was only stunned silence that two of the least physical guys in the school were doing a real life Punch Out demonstration. I knew I had to say something cool, so I did. What would John Rambo or Marion Cobretti say?
“Do we understand each other?” I asked Jason.
He didn’t reply, so I clinched my arm tighter and repeated the question.
“Do we understand each other?” I bellowed.
“Yes,” he finally said, and I let him go.
We caught our breath, picked up the papers that had fallen to the carpet off Mrs. Smalley’s desk, and picked up the student desks we’d knocked over. A few minutes later, the assistant principal, Mr. Dipaolo, arrived to escort us to the office. Sitting across from the desk, I watched as he called my dad at work.
I could only hear what Mr. Dipaolo’s side of the conversation, but it was enough to know all was well with my dad. “Mr. Floyd, I have your son in my office for fighting…it was in the middle of his English class… Yes, in fact, I do believe he won.”
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What did you think of this chapter from Dad Was Right: 10 Life Lessons a Father Taught His Son?
If you’d like to read the rest of Dad Was Right, I’m more than happy to send you an advanced copy.
All you need to do is click this link, type in your name and email, and I’ll send a copy right to your inbox.
But like I said, it’s an advanced copy. The cover design isn’t completed yet, so you’ll get a PDF of the manuscript for free before Dad Was Right goes on sale in the coming weeks.
The only thing I ask in return is that you let me know what you think of it. And if you like it that you tell others who might be interested in Dad Was Right to give it a read too.