Fist fighting

              This was not an everyday event or even an every week event but fist fights were something that happened every so often. We did not have school monitors during recess. The teacher did whatever it is that teachers do during the recess time and the students played outside.

Occasionally a fight would break out between two boys. They would fight until one boy was beating up on the other or until they were tired. I never knew of boys getting into trouble with the teachers for fighting, it may have happened but I don’t remember it.

            The last fight I had in school was when I was about 15 years old. Vernon Serratt and I got into a fight. I have no idea what we fought about. We went at each other for about 5 to10 minutes. He was a year older than me but no larger. We most likely weighed about the same.

I was wading into him and giving it my all. I backed him up the width of the school building. He gave me as much I gave him. I thought I won the fight but he gave me a black eye and there was no end of the teasing I had to endure because of that black eye.

            I went toe to toe with my older brother many times and I always came out the loser. I would give him some good licks before I turned tail and ran.

            One day at recess we were playing basketball and my second cousin and I were bad mouthing each other during the game. One of the school bus drivers decided take up for my second cousin. He started coming on to me pretty strong and my second cousin and I both turned on him. In the course of our encounter I made a statement about the character of his mother.  He went to the principal and complained. The principal came out and got my side of the story. He told me to apologize which I promptly did. The bus driver did not like it that the principal did not give me a whipping. So the principal and the driver got into an argument in which the driver told the principal that if he did not give me a whipping that he would give the principal a whipping.

The principal said here I am come on and do it. Thankfully the bus driver backed down. My take on the situation was the principal did not think that an adult bus driver should mix in with boys at play.