Once upon a time, when Papa was just a little boy,
he faced something (almost an ogre from the fairytales) that everyone, at one time or another in their life, must face. This is a case where the Little Papa did something he probably shouldn't have done, but in more ways than one displays that the person we are to become is a seed when we are a child, and this particular story happened a couple of years before The Knight in Grandpa's Cap, so Dougie shouldn't have made the mistakes he did on that day when confronting two big bullies tormenting a poor loyal dog. At this point in Dougie's life, at three years of age, he hadn't learned much about forgiveness, as he would much, much later, about how important forgiveness is, and about how revenge is best left to God to figure out in His wise judgment.
One time when Dougie and his big sister Donna were walking home from the house of some neighborhood friends, they came face to face with a mean kid that lived somewhere not too far away. An older boy, who liked to give little kids a hard time. The sad truth of the matter is, this boy probably had a sad life at home, there was probably someone older than him who liked to push him, and hit him, and treat him in ways that children should never be treated. Most bullies are sad children that in turn were bullied and treated badly, and they want to make themselves feel better by doing unto other what was done unto them, which is just the opposite of what they should be doing, and it is usually a long unbroken chain of anger and frustration stretching out over the years from child, from parent, from grandparent, from great grandparent and all the way back to who knows how far away in the past.The big boy pushed past Donna and grabbed Dougie by the throat and started choking him. Dougie didn't move. The mean kid was much bigger than him, and everyone knew that this mean kid liked to hit little children. Dougie couldn't breathe as the bully choked him."You better leave my little brother alone!" Donna shouted at the bully, but the big bully was much bigger than Donna, who was five years old. This mean kid was probably ten years old, and that is quite a bit older than a five-year-old and a three-year-old, even if there was a way to put them together so that their ages added up to eight years of age."You better just shut up," the big bully said to Donna.Donna was frightened but she didn't run away, she stayed close in case she had to help her little brother."Do you know what I like to do to little kids like you?" the big bully said to Dougie, with a very mean face, and as he spoke he squeezed his hands together on Dougie's throat and lifted him up off the ground so that the three-year-old was standing on his tippy-toes.Dougie shook his head. He didn't know what the big bully liked to do to little kids like Dougie, although his imagination was pretty good, and he had a pretty good idea what the big bully would like to do to him.The big bully smiled. He lowered Dougie back to the ground and eased his hands on Dougie's throat. He smoothed out Dougie's shirt collar."Why, I like to fix their collars," the big bully said, smiling nicely. And then he pushed Dougie away and laughed.Dougie and Donna ran all the way home.This should have been the end of the story, but Dougie was very upset. He didn't like it that the big bully had choked him, and scared him, and then worst of all, laughed at him as he ran away. And the very next day Dougie was outside playing on the front lawn of his house when down the street he saw the big bully riding on his bike, and surrounding the mean kid were about five or six other kids, all about the same age.Dougie was very angry. He knew he had to do something to the mean kid, because it wasn't right what the mean kid had done to him. Dougie wasn't thinking about the words of Jesus who said: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you..." even though he had heard those words before. His Grandma Larsen loved to quote the words of Jesus to Dougie. But Dougie thought that the best thing to do was to be mean to the big bully, just like the big bully had been mean to him.Dougie saw an old newspaper laying in the gutter. He picked it up and hid behind some bushes out by the street. He peeked and watched the progress of the big kids as they rode their bikes nearer, and nearer. His body trembled. He knew this was wrong, what he was about to do, but he felt it was his duty to do it. Even though he wasn't wearing his Grandpa's cap and gloves and boots, he still felt like a knight, and he felt he was bringing some justice to the world.It seemed that there was a voice in Dougie's ear saying: "Don't do it. Quick, run into your house." And even though he was shaking, and the voice seemed to be making perfectly good sense, Dougie felt that he had to do this thing. It was his duty. The big bully had been bad, and now Dougie was going to teach him a lesson.Just as the big bully and his friends arrived parallel to where Dougie hid with the newspaper clutched tightly in both hands, Dougie ran out from behind the bush and charged at the big bully. The mean kid's eyes opened wide as he saw the little boy running out in front of him, and he swerved his bike.But just then, as the big kids started swerving their bikes and crashing into each other, Dougie threw the newspaper, with all his might, directly into the mean kids' face.In the next moment there were five bicycles lying in the street with their wheels spinning, and all five boys were struggling to their feet. The mean kid, the big bully, was crying. And he was angry.Dougie started running. All the kids started chasing him.He made it to the curb and he was running with every molecule of his being. The angry children with scuffed knees and hands were faster than Dougie, they were bigger, they were meaner, and they were close behind him.Dougie ran up the sidewalk with what felt like a mob at his back. He made it to the front door which stood open and he dashed inside and slammed it behind him. Safe!But the angry kids were right there and they stopped the door from shutting. Dougie leaned against the door and pushed with all his might. But the angry kids pushed the door back open."Help! Help!" Dougie screamed as he pushed the door back toward closing, but the many children pushing on the other side muscled it back open again. And they did this several times, pushing the door open and closed, back and forth, Dougie shouting: "Help! Help!"Finally, Grandma Larsen came into the living room. Grandma Larsen was blind, but could see a little bit in the corner of one eye. She could see that Dougie was battling with someone on the opposite side of the front door. And she could most definitely hear the terror in his voice as he screamed for help (her ears, as with most blind people, were very good)."What are you doing!" Grandma Larsen shouted, coming awkwardly for the front door. The angry children saw her and the angry children forgot their anger. They backed away from the door, terrified of Grandma Larsen, who was very tall, and very severe, and when she looked at you, she wasn't looking at you, since she could only see through the corner of one eye she would look up at the sky toward the corner of her head and it always appeared she was in a trance, or seeing a vision from God. And people who might be looking at God all the time are just naturally scary people."What are you children doing here! You don't come into the house!" Grandma Larsen scolded them. Even though she didn't know the story, she had very definite ideas about the behavior of children, and if she could hear children, or see them, they must certainly be doing SOMETHING wrong.They yelled at Grandma Larsen. They blamed Dougie (he did, afterall, throw an old newspaper into a little boy's face and cause quite a few bicycle accidents), but Grandma Larsen, who wasn't always so understanding, instantly queried: "And what did YOU bad boys do, first?" The mean bullies departed, most of them shouting to Dougie: "We're going to get you!" And they very well might have gotten him, too, if this happened in the world today (but in the early 1960s children rarely practiced arson on the homes of little boys who threw old newspapers in their face).Grandma Larsen, who seemed to love to punish children, queried Dougie about the incident, she asked him many questions, and although Dougie feared she would snap him with her long bony fingers, when he finally told her all about the choking and then the newspaper, Grandma Larsen merely chuckled.Then she gave Dougie the very rare Grandma Larsen hug, and sent him on his way. All Stories © 2009 Douglas Christian Larsen
important - FIGHT THE FLU WITH HERBS - important
