Dens of Iniquity

    My brother Harold and his sons, like Big Dan for example, were both blessed with great strength. Those strength genes just passed my side of the family by, but I did have one strength when I was young. I could run a long way.

  But fortunately, I never really needed strength to get by in this world. Even as a young man, just out of high school. I had and still have a well-thought-out self-defense plan, consisting of these 6 steps.

 1. Never become a regular at Honkey-tonks, where most of the problems arise. My Dad never let me get accustomed to such as that when I lived in his house, and I just never got the urge to change that. However, I heard somewhere that it’s a felony to hit a man my age, so I’m tempted, armed with this new layer of protection, to investigate some of those Dens of Iniquity. If not now, when? If somebody would just tell me where they are…

 2. Be humble, which I have always been, especially when I’m in a dangerous situation. Some call that fear, but I prefer to think of myself as possessing great humbleness and humility. Just sounds better, somehow.

  3. My fake big man status. I say fake because I weighed 160 pounds, 6'2” right out of high school. No fat. That's the size I still am underneath the fat, but somehow, I now have trouble stretching myself out to six feet tall. I eventually got up to 260 pounds fat and all, now trimmed down to 220 pounds. So I'm a fake big man, because the fat really does not figure in on the positive side where self-defense is concerned. Just slows you down, and makes you hit the ground harder when you do go down. Though I guess that fat would help some, protect these now brittle old bones.

    But fortunately, this is the first time I ever confessed all this, and most possible trouble makers don't really know I'm not an honest-to-goodness big man.

 4. Bluff. That goes back to step three. Though I did try this a time or two during recess at Fourche Valley School, and it never worked a single time. But I didn’t have the protection of step three in those days. I was just a scrawny kid, and everybody could easily see that.

 5. Don't be too proud to run – far. Which I was able to do as a young man. And fear will help out with the lack of speed problem that always plagued me. Though I have trouble getting out of a slow jog now, and this one may be a little outdated and I may have to rework that. 

6. Don't be too proud to lie flat on the ground and beg for mercy, if none of these other steps work. I have no pride. Actually, bragging about a lack of pride is a form of pride in itself. But I always take great pride in my lack of pride.

So far, thank goodness, I've never had to go past step 5.  But it could happen, and when it does, I'll be ready. Remember this general rule to live your life by:

A MAN WHO CAN RUN FAST AND FAR, AND IS NOT TOO PROUD TO DO IT, DOES NOT NEED TO BE A FIGHTER.

     Of course, this rule will only work with a young man. Maybe my dad was right. Maybe I should just stay away from those Dens of Iniquity.