Getting To Know Copyranter: Part Two
I don't think I came out the womb angry. It all started when I started school.
2nd part of a Continuing Series: Getting to Know Copyranter.
I spent six years in therapy trying to get at my anger issues. Never quite got there. (She was a top NYC therapist, too.) This Copyranter “act” is not 100% fake, FYI.
Kindergarten
On a show-and-tell day, the class bully—Jack, threatening violence—made me eat the dandelions Suzy had brought in to “show”. Jack wore tight white t-shirts and looked like a mini-serial killer. This was Jack’s private little show and tell: He showed me the flowers and told me to eat them. I still remember chewing, tasting, them. I don’t know what the fuck our teacher, Mrs. Hoblitzell, a 6’ behemoth, was doing. But she was very mean to me all the time.
1st Grade
As I recounted in my last article—Ten Men I’d Punch In The Face—a different class bully, Albert, slugged me hard in the stomach during recess. Why? Because I was there. I bawled my eyes out, and continued bawling back in class where all the girls laughed at me.
1st Grade
After school one day, two “big” third-graders were throwing hands on the front lawn. I put my Batman lunch box down (in the circular driveway) and went in to get a better look. A schoolbus ran over and completely flattened my precious lunch box, sans thermos (see current going price, below). I carried the Batman now-platter home, dejected. (I did get a nifty Rat Patrol lunch box replacement which my Mom many years later sold at a yard sale for ¢25 (more anger).
3rd Grade
One day coming in from recess, Melanie, the prettiest girl in our class, was assigned to hold the door open (only the pretty, smart girls got to hold the door). Ralph, another bully, forcibly kissed her on the lips. Seeing what Ralph did, I did the same thing. I got sent to the Principal’s office. Ralph did not. (I’d probably be sent to jail today.)
4th Grade
Mrs. McKinley—also very tall, very mean—gave us the assignment to do a Family Tree. I asked my Dad what his Granddad did for a living in Ireland. Dad said: “He was a horse thief”. I was fucking stoked. McKinley was not. She gave me an “E” (my grade school’s equivalent of an “F”) for lying and making a mockery of her assignment, and said she was going to call my Dad. I responded: “Go ahead and call him, he’ll cuss you out!” She did, and he responded: “It’s none of your goddamn business what my Grandfather did for a living.” Dad did not punish me. But he revealed, years later, that he had indeed lied to me. (Great Granddad was a farmer.)
6th Grade
Yet another class bully (Marty) insisted that we fight after school, behind the school. I barely knew Marty. He gave no reason. He had quite a few pounds on me. Word got around as it does and there was a good crowd. He hit me hard a couple of times and rassled me to the ground. It was at that moment that I learned two valuable life lessons: 1—I’m not afraid to be punched in the face, and 2—when my anger reaches a certain level, a switch triggers inside of my brain where all fear disappears and intense rage appears. I proceeded to beat the living Shit out of Marty, his eyes nearly swollen shut. He ran home crying.
Soon after this enlightening encounter is when I started to play Hockey more seriously. (Below, me, rare appearance between the pipes at the local church parking lot. Yes the Mylec® street hockey ball’s in the net).
11th Grade
German class. Test time. I turned around to ask the girl behind me for an eraser. Fräulein Stürges (teacher) walked over, ripped up my test. I protested: “I was asking (girl’s name) for an eraser!” Stürges walked back to her desk and started writing. I got up to see what she was writing; it was my parents’ phone number. (flashback to 4th grade): “Go ahead and call my Dad, he’ll cuss you out!” Stürges: (pointing at door) OUT! (which meant to the Vice Principal’s office). Get to his office, he looked up and told me to get out and go back to class. Home. Dad: “Got any more teachers you want me to cuss out?”
choleric old curmudgeon