Here comes the second part of my little Streetview based memoir.

I should warn you that because this edition will talk about my elementary school, it will, to put it mildly, have a distinctly different tone.

All of my memories concerning my home and my neighborhood are pleasant or neutral.

That’s because most of the bad stuff happened in school, especially elementary school. Back then, nobody gave a shit about bullying. Adults ignored it completely. I was the victim of dozens of assaults and just as many thefts and SO MUCH HARASSMENT, and the teachers – including the ones monitoring the playground, who cracked down so hard on things like running too fast or fighting – did absolutely nothing while I was being beaten and harassed by my schoolmates.

As this is the place where most of my really bad childhood happened, this will not be fun or pleasant journey.

Welcome to Tales of the Parkside.

Looks harmless enough, I suppose. Probably looks like thousands of other schools all over North America. But that’s the thing about bullying.

It happens in perfectly normal places in full view of everyone, including many adults. It’s the most ignored crime in the world. You could ask people who were definitely there on the playground when all the violence happened to me, even people who were active members of the approving audience egging the bullies on, whether they had ever seen someone be assaulted and they would say no.

It’s like this massive cultural blind spot. It was considered “normal” and therefore blended in with all the other normal things like playing on the monkey bars or building sand castles in the sandbox.

It’s changed a LOT – my god, how did that thing get more garishly painted AFTER the Seventies – but that is still the hell that was my childhood.

Part of me still wants to blow that place up while playing this song on my boombox at full volume and laughing.

Have I mentioned lately how glad I am that the meme of the school shooting wasn’t around when I was a kid?

My Dad had guns. He taught me how to use them. I totally could have.

And the next day, the news would say I had done for “no reason”.

Let’s talk about some of the things that  happened to me there while adults watched and silently approved of it all :

1. Had my school bag stolen and thrown up onto the power lines
2. Someone filled both of my shoes with snow and rocks
3. Had a foreign exchange student hate the fact that he got me as a partner in our Secret Santa one year that he bought me the ugliest gift he could find – a rubber vulture (not kidding) – and when I seemed to like it, screamed “No! It’s ugly! Because you’re ugly!” at me.
4. Had people attack me for absolutely no reason and then got blamed for the “fight” because I was “bigger”.
5. Got the brush off from both teachers and administrators when I tried to tell them what was happening to me on the playground, as if nothing could be less important to them and they resented my even bringing it up
6. Pointed out to a teacher that I told the difference between the greater than and lesser than symbols by imagining the symbols wanted to “eat” the bigger number,  only to have her say “You would. ” and then the whole class laughed at me
7. Got yelled at by multiple teachers for quietly reading in class when I was finished with my classwork
8. Had a Grade 2 teacher who actively and openly resented me for being so bright and tried many times to figure out a way to punish me for it without getting in trouble (Fuck you, Mrs. Mcnally!)
9. Almost got thrown down a flight of stairs by two bullies then got admonished by a teacher and told I should be more careful, and
10. The piece de resistance, the time when my bullies literally stomped on my head with the playground monitor less than five feet away.

I could go on and on but those are the lowlights.

Oh, but don’t worry, boys and girls. I eventually learned how to escape my tormentors and to be sage all through recess and lunch.

By hiding in this thing :

No,. that’s not the world’s first and only stone dumpster.

That’s some sort of large decorative planter. I think. That’s my best guess as to its original intent, anyhow.

I have never seen it in use for anything.

What you can’t see is that the thing is only about a foot deep. So to hide in it, I had to lay down completely flat and stay that way.

For the entire lunch hour.

I experienced many things that way. Because no matter what was in there –  whether it was water or snow or sharp pointy rocks – I had to lie on it for as much as an hour at time just to be safe at school.

Sometimes I read in there – all the time terrified that the sound of my turning pages would alert the bullies to my presence – but most of the time I couldn’t because it there was too much water or snow and the book would get wet.

I want you to picture this : an eight year old boy laying face down in a pool of icy water in a cage that’s only a foot deep and barely wide enough to fit him – willing himself to turn invisible and terrified of the sounds of his fellow students because he was sure that at any minute, they were going to come get him and drag him out of his horrible hole and inflict serious violence upon him that he was powerless to prevent.

And remember, this kind of thing was considered normal.

I guess that’s enough for today. I am too emotionally drained to go looking for pictures of the inside of the place. All the really bad stufff happened outside anyway.

To this day, the sounds of a busy, active playground makes me feel like collapsing into the fetal position and never ever coming out of it ever again.

For me, it was never a playground. It was hell.

And everybody knew that.

And nobody cared.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.