The day I, Melody, Brianna, and Jesse got into a whirlwind fight with some neighborhood bullies.
It was either 1994 or 1995. Summer was in full swing, the grass was tall and dry in the cow fields, and we were all free from school. It was hot and beautiful out in our Pfafftown, NC, neighborhood, and the four us made a plan to go on a picnic with Nicole Jones (who lived just a few houses down the street). We were headed out past the neighborhood to a section of land through which the road sloped gently upwards toward some fenced farmland.
We called the grassland on both sides “the cow fields” even though the cows didn’t actually pasture there. We had taken lots of walks along the fields with Mom, wherein she showed us where the tasty “sourgrass” grew (woodsorrel), demonstrated how to sip nectar from the delicate individual flowers within the red clover buds, and showed us the beautiful blue cornflower (also known as chicory).
I remember several specific things about this little kerfuffle with the neighborhood kids, though I am sure the rest of us have our own take on these memories.
My hindsight recollection must first note how petulantly selfish I was being as we started the adventure.
We four met at Nicole’s house, and were just about to start our little trek when a little girl from down the street arrived to see Nicole. We didn’t really know her at all, and I (being me) immediately viewed her with suspicion as an outsider. But Nicole did know her, and immediately invited her to stay and come with us on our picnic.
I didn’t want our cozy little group made awkward, and felt she had no right to join us; it was our own prior plan, after all. Melody, always so nice and inclusive (humph! but also correct in this case and many others :)), spoke up gently and said she thought we ought to include her, rationally agreeing with Nicole that this girl had walked a long way, having come from several streets past the neighborhood pond that was just past the Jones’ house.
Feeling that it quite imposed upon the spirit of our companionable endeavor, I agreed, though I suspect with visibly poor grace.
My high spirits somewhat dimmed, we nevertheless settled down cheerfully out in the fields for our picnic (probably spreading a little blanket to share). I don’t recall whether we got to finish eating or not, but shortly into our happy gathering, several unknown neighborhood boys came trotting up, all derisive glee and bullyish aggression. They started taunting and teasing, trying to bother us and attempting to make us leave. Here my memory breaks down a little, because I don’t know what they really hoped to get out of bugging us.
We asked them to go away, and I believe we attempted to ignore them. They kept on, and soon we stood up to try to shoo them off. I felt that we were trying to be clearly implacable in our right to be there, but also civil in not attacking them in doing so. The bullies continued to be rude, however, and charged onto our turf, and soon we were grabbing tufts of long grass and handfuls of wild onions, waving them aloft and showing our intent to defend our blanket patch. Soon tentative swats were being either threatened or enacted.
In the midst of this mild scuffle, one of the belligerent creatures made the mistake of turning his rude harassment into something personal when he sneered tauntingly at Jesse, “You’re a shrimp!”.
The outrage! That was our Jesse he was insulting.
Suddenly I was I furious, and all decorum fled my mind as I snatched up a handful of wild onions, and with a flailing of little, clattering bulbs, launched myself at the beast, thwacking furiously at his insolent calves and knees. All of us has had a similar response to the uncalled for denigration, and Brianna recalled later how incensing his comment was. We all charged forward in righteous rage, wacking indiscrimately with our handfuls of surprisingly effective greenery, driving the bad creatures backward. It sounds quite silly, and I’m sure it was, but within moments of this furied reprisal the band of loud-mouthed miscreants was routed.
Apparently they had underestimated how frenzied half a dozen peaceful picknickers could become when one of their band was insulted and their lunch gathering wrongfully threatened, and ran off to find better things to do with their afternoon.
We all looked around at each other, feeling a little breathless and dazed, suddenly aware of how ridiculous and surreal the encounter had just been. But we were glad and relieved we had won.
We called a close to our picnic and headed home. I don’t know about the rest of the group, but I was feeling both rather sheepish and inordinately proud for having defended the right to picnic peacefully and the impugned honor of my cousin. I think Brianna, Melody, Jesse, and I all felt a little pleased that all our detailed plans for routing “bad guys” that we had talked through for all those years beford had proven true: we really could defend ourselves if we needed to.
In the strange but satisfying glow of our successful skirmish, I put an arm around Melody, both of us feeling like something sweet had been won, and we companionably walked the quiet road home in dusty, tired, childhood glory.
Ballard Creek Pastures 