The Buckets by Greg Cravens for June 01, 2022

Looking back I can think of 2 guys who may very well consider me to have been their childhood bully

I never beat them up or took their lunch money, but bullying takes many forms and if their memories cast me in that role my memories support their right to that opinion

I was the one being bullied. One of my bullies was a really short, scrawny, big-nosed git & I was juuust smart enough to realize he was trying to divert attention from himself to me, in a self-preservation move. Didn’t work, but he still bullied me. The girl bullies were worse, b/c THEY followed me to Home Ec, gym & the washrooms, so I had no peace anywhere.

Everyone has their own story to live & tell.

I too had a couple of twin brothers who were bullies to contend with about sixty years ago. I saw one of them in a Mall recently sitting on a bench staring off into nowhere. My sister, who still lives in that city, told me that he is pretty much a vegetable now and that his brother died, drunk, in a car wreck forty years ago. That made me appreciate my good health and sound mind.

Add some orange tint to the bullies face and he certainly looks like another self-delusional idiot.

I didn’t encounter any bullies in school. All my bullies emerged after I graduated college and went into the “real world”: work, relationships…they all had bullies—and they sure made up for lost time…

Bullies beware! One of the people you bully could wind up being your boss, surgeon, in-law, etc.

“Old chum”? He’s been watching Batman reruns.

Interesting if we see followup strips that have this bully examining his behavior, based on what the kids are telling him.