My First Beating

I Receive My First Beating

This happened a long time ago.

When I was a very little boy my family: mom, dad and brother Joe and sometime soon baby Bro Jack lived in a cottage tract called Hillside Village—one of the instant communities which sprang up during the Second World War to house the thousands of people swarming into Los Angeles--people who were employed in the “war industries” making the things needed to whip the axis as we used to say in those “good old days”.

Pop (my father) got a job in an essential war industry making screw drivers at the Plumb Tool Company—this was very good for him and for us and the for US Army.

Good for him because though he was young and healthy he was classified “3-S” (Hardship--Sole support of family with young children.) which kept him from putting on the uniform and going away to fight for freedom somewhere. (Thanks Brother Jack!)

Good for us because that meant he was home evenings and week-ends and could take us to places like Long Beach and buy us triple-decker ice cream cones at Lyons and help me learn to ride a bicycle.

And especially good for the US Army because he was about the most peaceful and non-combative man I have ever known.

We lived near El Sereno which was in trolly striking distance of downtown LA so Pop could commute—and Bro Joe and I could ride our bikes to Farmdale Elementary School (Farmdale ! ? Oh really-- these hopelessly picturesque and misleading California Realty names for humble places!) over the path across Dinosaur Mountain (our name for it) to school every day.

There was a big grassy sports field before we got to school and on the hill above this field was a park featuring the community swimming pool—called “The Plunge” in which we kids indulged during the summer months.

This grassy field was the scene of my first—and I think last—beating.

I was in the first grade and small for my age as they say. There was some kind of evening do at the park. My family was there. These was a softball game and picnic lunches and all of us were having a real good time.

Me especially!

I had somehow learned to make my voice go from a high pitched hoot through a glottal break into a lower pitched hoot (four notes down)and was running around doing it. It was dark and shadowy at the edges of the field and there were the usual trees and bushes—I would guess eucalyptus and oleander and maybe a shabby palm or two—I was enjoying myself immensely in the shadows of the trees when suddenly and without warning I was attacked by a small group of older boys. They knocked me down, jumped on top of me and held me down while one sat on my chest and shoulders and slapped and pounded my face.

It must have been good fun for him because he did it for several minutes—then the young gangsters piled off of me and disappeared into the shadows.

I was not cut or bruised—just kind of deeply hurt, humiliated and most of all surprised. In spite of the no-holds-barred adult war going on at the time, I literally did not realize that such malicious wickedness existed in the real world.

I found my family again but felt so ashamed of myself for being “beat up” that I didn't say anything to anyone.

The next few days at school during recess I sat on the ground by myself in the schoolyard thinking it over.

I remember watching water slowly fill one of the rings of dirt that they surrounded young trees with to give them a start in life.

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This happened a long time ago—but I can still easily remember the astonishment and the hurt and the disappointment in human nature I felt—and still sometimes feel.

Tomasito. 2008

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