Chapter 2

Not long after that episode, Dad was promoted to captain and transferred to Ft. Lewis, Washington. We followed a few months later after a short sojourn in Arlington. I spent a little while in the 2^nd Grade there before we headed to Ft. Lewis. There was no family housing available on the base, so we wound up in off-base housing that would have made a sharecropper cringe. Remember, this was Washington state, and the weather got COLD here, at least if you were used to the South. The “house” had a single layer of ¾-inch-thick plywood for all of the walls, even the exterior walls, and the only heat came from the kitchen stove that burned coal. There were two bedrooms, and they got very cold at night if the bedroom door was closed.

Well, we stayed in that house for a little over three months. Finally, an apartment opened up on the base, and we moved in. I was enrolled in that school for two days when Dad received orders transferring him to California. I must point out that two days was the shortest time I ever went to any school, but I didn’t miss it when we left for California.

We were able to find a house in Altedena close enough to a school to be within walking distance and close enough to Altedena Junior College that the Army had taken over and was using as a sort of college for training officers for Combat Engineers. Dad was a teacher of explosives use, and we spent a whole school year there.

California was on the semester instead of school-year system, so I was put in what they called a class of 3b/4a students. The 3b meant that I was in the second semester of 3^rd Grade and would finish the year in the first semester of the 4^th Grade. The school had wanted me to skip the entire 3^rd Grade, but my parents objected, so they compromised on skipping half the 3^rd Grade.

Suddenly, Dad was transferred to somewhere in the Pacific Theater, he couldn’t tell us where—it was a military secret. Okay, we moved again, this time back to Arlington, so I was returned to that consolidated school. Boy, did that cause some confusion! Of course, Alabama was on the straight school-year system, and had no provision for semester promotions. There was a meeting of Mom, the school Principal, and several teachers.

The 3^rd Grade teacher wanted nothing to do with me for obvious reasons, and the 4^th Grade teacher felt pretty much the same way, so the 5^th Grade teacher was stuck with me. That was okay with me because I liked her immediately. Anyway, that was how I wound up skipping the first half of the 3^rd Grade and the last half of the 4^th Grade.

I found the 5^th Grade to be fun, except for the bullies. I was the object of ridicule for a while because of my California accent, but that faded fairly quickly enough. However, I still had that balance problem which kept me with the walker. My height had gone up with age, and my walker had been heightened to keep up with my growth. Nevertheless, I had pretty well reached the limits of the usefulness of that machine, and I needed something else pretty soon. That was when Grandfather came to my rescue again.

I have no idea where he found it, but he managed to come up with enough telescoping aluminum tubing, a near miracle at that time, to make me a staff just over five feet long. That way, it could be used as a walking staff or a walking stick just by changing the length. Fully extended, it was also long enough that I could use it as a balance pole such as wire-walkers used.

However, to make it work as a balance pole, weight had to added to each end. Grandfather had an ulterior motive with that. The added weight at each end converted the staff/balance pole/walking stick into a potent weapon when used properly. By this time, I had developed some semblance of balance if I did not try to do too much walking.

In its fully collapsed state, my staff became only about 20 inches long, and that was its preferred length for fighting. There was a grip at the middle of the staff with a button that would retract all of the extensions immediately, resulting in my 20-inch baton. At full length, the staff was much like a medieval quarter-staff such as Robin Hood might have used, and we all know from the stories how effective a weapon that was.

Grandfather spent very nearly the whole of my 5^th Grade time in teaching me how to fight with the baton and the quarter-staff. By the time I entered the 6^th grade, I was an expert with both weapons, and they would serve me well for the rest of my life. But Grandfather did something else for me.

He combined two bicycles into a tricycle that I could use the way most kids used their bicycles. I was limited to paved streets, but that was no problem. I now had transportation to and from school and around town, so I was as independent as any kid my age.

I was in the fourth week of the 5^th Grade when I first had to use my baton. Grandfather had started me out with it because we both felt that it would find the most use. I still wore my bracers because we all assumed that, without the walker, I was in even more danger of falling.

I was walking home one day using my staff when I was accosted by two bullies from the 7^th Grade. “Hey, Gimp, let’s see how fast you can run with that third leg.”

I ignored the smart-ass, and that only inflamed him more, especially with his friend there to egg him on. The insults kept getting worse and worse, until finally I could take it no longer. I finally broke with an insult of my own, “I don’t need to run. You are the one who needs to do that. I’ll bet a piss-ant like you can’t even run over here where I can reach you.”

That seemed to trigger even more aggression in both of the two bullies. The talker said, “Yeah, well here I come. See what you can do about it, Gimp.”

As soon as he started to move in my direction, I pressed the button and shortened the staff to its baton-length. It snapped into its retracted position, but both of the bullies failed to notice. Maybe they just did not realize what they were getting into as both of them approached me at a minimal run that gave me plenty of time to get ready. As they ran, the loud-mouth said, “You hold him up for me, Bob, while I pound him into mush.”

Well, that told me my order of priorities. I was going to have to take care of Bob first because I would be in serious trouble if I wound up on the ground. He could easily push me down if he ever grabbed me.

Bob did run a little faster and reached me first. That was perfect. As soon as he got close enough, I poked him in the solar plexus with the end of my baton. Of course, I did not want to kill him. All I wanted was to hurt him enough to take him permanently out of the fight.

Naturally, Bob bent over as a result of my jab, and that gave me time to strike him in the right elbow hard enough to shatter it. In those days, that was a wound that could never be repaired, so Bob was now a permanent lefty. His scream of pain was subdued because of his loss of breath from being hit in the solar plexus, so his friend had little warning. Bob didn’t fall to the ground, so there was nothing immediately obvious to show how badly he was injured.

The main troublemaker came within reach just after Bob backed off—involuntarily, of course. I wanted to make an example of him, so I went after his hips. I struck his right hip hard enough to shatter bones, and he fell immediately at my feet. Unfortunately for both of us, my anger had temporarily taken over my emotions, so I extended my baton to the first notch and had a short staff about three feet long. That was perfect for administering the final blow to the boy’s left hip, also shattering bones.

This was enough to calm me down, so I had a chance to consider the consequences of what I had done. I was afraid that I would be accused of murder if either of the boys died, so I had to get them some sort of medical help. Back then, there was no 911 to call or any sort of normal emergency services available. Arlington only had 2,763 residents, including babies, at this time, and the only thing approaching a hospital was a small clinic about a block away. There were a doctor and a nurse in residence there, so that was where I was going to have to send the boys for whatever help they could get.