I'd Take Sticks And Stones Over The Words That Hurt Me

Generation X ain't as tough as they seem.

Jun 15, 2024

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Tomorrow, someone is going to get beat up, or at least stuffed into a locker.

That’s the second thought that jumped out at me when I turned to the “Senior Ads” section of my daughter’s yearbook, the first being that if there was ever justification to bury the lead so deep that it never saw the light of day, this was it.

For this is this section in which parents placed elaborate (egregious) and heartfelt (paid) photo montages so they can celebrate (gloat over) their children’s high school accomplishments and encourage (pressure) them to reach even greater heights (support them financially).

Littered amongst the future frat presidents, senators, college bust outs, CEOs, venture capitalists, inside traders, high-functioning alcoholics, crypto influencers, and terminal basket cases, one young man stood out.

Not for his accomplishments, but for the extreme peril he was now in, thanks to a $750 full page display of parental idolatry so grandiose it would make a Roman Emperor blush.

It wasn’t so much the photos - a typical smorgasbord of “Look at our boy! Isn’t he the embodiment of perfection?” - as much as the text, a gushing litany of adoration bordering on the sycophantic, the details of which I’ll spare you because the damage was done in the salutation.

“Congratulation to our Golden Boy!”

“Do you know Hansen Chu?” I asked my daughter.

“Yeah, why?”

“I think he’s in trouble.”

With all apologies to Mr. French from The Departed, when I was in high school there were guys you could pick on and there were guys you couldn’t. Now, I wasn’t quite a guy you couldn’t pick on, but I was almost a guy you couldn’t pick on.

This left me in a perpetual state of fear, worried that at any moment I’d stumble across a tripwire that would land me with a nickname, that well-known first step in a progression, a slippery slope of increased attention, increased scrutiny, increased danger.

There are three rules for nicknames.

A nickname can never be self-appointed. It’s a moniker only given by others.
A nickname shouldn’t highlight your highest virtue, nor your lowest vice, instead, landing somewhere in between.
Your nickname never changes, and, if bestowed during high school, follows you for life.

Rules #1 and #3 are immutable, and in civil society, so is #2.

High school is not civil society. Therein lies the danger.

A nickname bestowed not in the spirit of camaraderie but of cruelty is a declaration of intent. A target for the bully and a burden for the bullied, that signals to others you are fair game, you are the prey.

For the child on the receiving end, it is a source of constant dread.

The fear of hearing that name, of turning around to see the sneers, the laughter, the malice. The fear of what comes next. The fear of the locker room, the cafeteria, the walk home. The fear of the inevitable.

I arrived in high school a tall, gangly, awkward teen who barely weighed a buck twenty soaking wet in shoes holding a brick - a prime candidate to be forever known as “Twig,” “Bones,” or “Beanpole.”

Those names may sound divine to the post-adolescent struggling to maintain a healthy weight, but trust me, to a 14-year-old who was already fully laden with insecurities and a low self-worth, it was a terrifying prospect.

Spoiler Alert: I made it out of high school with my given name fully intact, but just barely.

Growing up in a balkanized, pre-internet world in which information did not flow was a disadvantage for the cool kids, who had to reestablish their bona fides with each new social situation, but it was a godsend for the popularity-challenged like yours truly.

Summer camp, for example, was a tabla rasa, a fresh start. Somewhere I could go freed from my well-established history of awkwardness and uncoolness, to potentially reinvent myself as one of the beautiful people.

But perpetrating this illusion wasn’t without risk.

The sudden appearance of a familiar face who could cross-pollinate my backstory into my new setting was always a possibility.

And that’s what almost happened on one random Sunday.

Let me introduce you to the main players in this drama, Jerry Nash and Trent Harker.

Jerry Nash was the neighbor you wanted next door. A friend who brought you meals when sick, lent a hand should you need one, and always gave the perfect advice in any situation.

Jerry was active in the church and the community, including coaching my little league team three seasons in a row, and it would be fair to say that nobody, and I mean nobody, had a bad word to say about Jerry Nash.

And I hated his fucking guts.

Outgoing, gregarious, and ridiculously cherubic, Jerry was the life and host of every party, even if it wasn’t his, and his signature move was to shout the arrival of each guest using his nickname of choice.

“Hey, there’s the ‘Silver Fox’,” he’d yell.

“Whoa, good ole ‘Stone Face’ is in the house.”

‘Well look here, ‘Mr. Champagne’ has finally decided to show up.”

Men, women, children [foreshadowing alert], no one was spared from his terms of endearment.

And that’s where mine - and my hate -comes in.

“Hey,” Jerry would shout upon seeing me, “there he is, ‘The Stick Man.’”

Trent Harker and I didn’t like each other, and thus, when free from outside constraints, stayed clear of each other’s company. The problem was that our parents were friends, and each year spent a half dozen Sundays and a two-week vacation together, during which time Trent and I resigned ourselves to being frenemies.

It was on one of those Sundays that our paths crossed at the 50th birthday party of some old person so old I couldn’t believe anyone could get that old.

I spied Trent across the room, and it being a solid 25-years before Steve Jobs would launch the device that could bathe me in digital distraction, blissfully tuning out any human interaction in the process, I figured I might as well say “hi.”

After the obligatory grumblings, Trent revealed that, anticipating boredom, he’d brought a couple of M-80s to the party. Personality, temperament, and adolescent rivalry may have kept us apart, but goddamn it if pyromania didn’t bring us together.

“Dude, let’s go around the back of the house a blow these off,” he said.

Not yet cool enough to say, “Okay, twist my arm,” I likely retorted with some form of ”bitchin,” “awesome,” or simply, “okay.” In any case, the message was clear, and away we went.

But as we rounded the side of the house, we were stopped dead in our tracks by Jerry, who, always the party host, was scooping ice from cooler to bucket so he could replenish the bar.

I knew what was about to happen and froze panicked.

“Hey?” he said.

I beg-pray-pleaded with no one in particular, and yet the words still came.

“There he is. There’s ‘The Stick Man.’”

“Think, think, think fast,” I said to myself.

“Hi Mr. Nash,” I blurted out, “can we help you with that ice,” hoping I could shift the focus.

But who was I fooling? Trent was already on it like a Northern Territory dingo detecting the faintest whiff of a toddler.

“‘Stick Man?’”

“Did he just call you ‘The Stick Man’?”

I could see Trent doing the synthesis, connecting the dots, and only seconds away from putting two and two together, after which he’d be ready to arrive at first bell Monday morning like the town crier, determined to spread my new nickname far and wide.

Then, just when I thought all was lost and I’d have to beg my parents for a transfer, I caught Jerry’s eye. Reading my flushed face, watery eyes, and quivering lips like the mensch he was, my nemesis, my bête noir pulled off the most epic Jedi mind trick I’ve ever seen.

“Yeah,” he said. “Brian was the best hitter on our team three seasons running.”

“What do you mean?” said my daughter. “What’s going to happen to Hansen?”

“He’s going to get beat up,” I said.

“And just two weeks from graduation,” I continued. “He was so close.”

“What? Why?” she said.

“Look,” I said. “Right here,” showing her the ad in question.

“What, what? I don’t see what you’re talking about,” she said. “Hansen is one of the most popular kids in school.”

“Was one of most popular kids in school,” I said, pointing to the offending line.

“That was before his parents called him ‘Golden Boy.’”

“So?” said my son, alerted by the rising tension and wanting to throw his two cents in.

“So,” I said. “Someone is going to stuff him into a locker.”

“We don’t have lockers anymore,” said my daughter.