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David McElroy

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A bully picked a fight that night — and now I’m dreaming about it

By David McElroy · April 23, 2021

I didn’t get into fights when I was a child. I never picked on other kids. I was taught to walk away from trouble if I could. So I almost never had physical confrontations.

But there was one Sunday night — when I was about 12 or 13 — when a small-town bully left me no choice. I hadn’t thought about that confrontation for a long time, but I’ve dreamed about it repeatedly lately. I’m not sure what my unconscious is trying to tell me.

I was spending a week with a friend who lived an hour or so from my home. His father was the pastor of Oakman Central Baptist Church in the tiny town of Oakman, Ala., so I had been to the church several times that week. And there was a bully there — a slightly older kid — who seemed to think it was great sport to pick on the visitor.

Sunday night was going to be my last time at the church for that week. I was going home the next day. And it was after the Sunday night service — on the front porch of the church — when the bully pushed me one last time.

If you’ve ever spent time in smaller churches, you know there’s a period after the service when many people are still standing around talking. Then the groups start breaking up and one family after another heads for home.

I was on the front porch as the social period was winding down. I don’t know where my friend and the various members of his family were, but I was among a group of young teens at the front of the church. And the bully was among them.

I have no idea what he said, but he was verbally taunting me at first. He was baiting me. He got closer and closer to me as he taunted. I realized uncomfortably that other people had backed away from us. He was poking his finger at my chest and mildly pushing.

I made the sudden calculation that I couldn’t avoid this fight. Without forming a plan, I suddenly threw myself into the bully. I pushed him back — and then I launched the most savage punch that my right fist could manage. I hit him so hard that he staggered backwards and then fell to the ground. I braced for his counterattack.

Instead, he ran away.

I was terrified afterward that I was going to be in trouble for hitting somebody. When adults were summoned, I had to explain what had happened and others backed up my version of the story. For awhile, nobody could find the bully.

The adults grew concerned when they couldn’t locate him, but someone finally found him — in a crawl space under one of the church buildings. He had gone there to hide. He was still crying when someone found him.

I didn’t get into trouble. In fact, not much was said about it. It turned out that the kid had a reputation as a bully, so the unspoken attitude among the others seemed to be, “He got what he deserved.”

The event wasn’t formative in my childhood memories. It’s barely even a footnote. I can’t remember the last time I had thought about it until recently — when the story started playing out again in my dreams.

In each of the dreams, I experience the same panicked feeling of being backed into a corner. I feel like a trapped animal who doesn’t like his choices — and suddenly has to choose the “least bad” of the available options.

And each time I dream about it, there comes a moment when I violently lash out with caged fury — and the bully runs away from me.

Each time I have this dream, I wake up with the odd instinct that it represents something in my life right now. I wake up feeling as though my back is against a wall and that I’m about to have to take a wild chance to strike back against something I’ve allowed to oppress me.

And every time I feel that way, I have that same triumphant feeling that I’ve vanquished the bully and I’ve broken free. It gives me a feeling of liberation and relief each time.

I don’t know what it means, but it feels significant. It was just last week when I was writing about being unhappy with my life right now. And this somehow seems related to all of that — in a vague way that I can’t quite put into words.

I feel as though my back is against a wall. I feel as though I’m running out of time. I don’t quite know how to fix things.

And something tells me the time is coming — in a way I can’t yet understand — when I’m going to have to take a tremendous and scary gamble.

Maybe I’m fooling myself, but deep down, I have a feeling that whatever “bully” is holding me back today — metaphorically speaking — will run away if I suddenly spring into action and knock him out with one mighty blow.

These dreams have reminded me to be proud of my child self — who came through when he had to — and it makes me feel that I’m going to do something similar when I need it most right now.

I hope I’m right. Something needs to change.

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I just remembered that I shot photos Friday evenin I just remembered that I shot photos Friday evening just before sunset. These two shots were only about a minute apart, just with different lenses. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
As far as I know, there were no nuclear devices se As far as I know, there were no nuclear devices set off anywhere near Birmingham this evening, but this cloud formation looked very much like a mushroom cloud rising in the west as I went through downtown Birmingham on I-65 around 6:30 tonight. #nature #naturephotography #sky #clouds #birmingham #alabama
For many years, I’ve believed that I could deliv For many years, I’ve believed that I could deliver some message worth sharing through audio or video if I just had the right platform. It’s always been an intuitive feeling, not a specific plan. And now that I have the technology in place to do a wide variety of media, that nasty old inner critic rears its head, asking whether I really have anything worthwhile to say. And as I sit here practicing, I still have no idea who’s right — my long-term intuition or my harsh inner critic.
Just after sunset Friday evening, there was quite Just after sunset Friday evening, there was quite a pastel light show in the sky to the west of me. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
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Just a minute before the sun slipped beneath the h Just a minute before the sun slipped beneath the horizon, the late-evening light was colorful and magical Thursday. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
I didn’t have a lens wide enough to capture this I didn’t have a lens wide enough to capture this with my “real” camera, so this is just an iPhone panorama. It was beautiful to see in person. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
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For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to Sam. In 2009, I took in a young feral cat who I named for the early American revolutionary Samuel Adams. He was one of the most confident — downright arrogant, in fact — cats I’ve ever been around. He had an amazing personality and I immediately loved him. He was no more than 8 or 9 months old when he suddenly died for reasons that my vet couldn’t explain. Even though I had him only a short time, he was one of my all-time favorites. #tbt #cats #tabby #feral #birmingham #alabama
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Thomas believes that he is the Most Interesting Ca Thomas believes that he is the Most Interesting Cat in the World — and I can’t say he’s wrong tonight. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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Except when he’s asleep, Thomas always looks as Except when he’s asleep, Thomas always looks as though he’s on high alert and ready to run away from danger. His feral early years still dominate his internal programming. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
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My favorite photos of Merlin tend to be those — My favorite photos of Merlin tend to be those — such as this one — in which he seems to be contemplating difficult issues. Feline philosophy or quantum physics or something else that he figures I wouldn’t understand. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #merlin2024 #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama #caturday
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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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