Page 15 - Fire Your Personal Trainer and Kick Your Own Damn Ass

Fire Your Personal Trainer 12
And Kick Your Own Damn Ass

How I Got Started: I Get Beaten Up And

Resolve To Do Something About It

It was the summer of 1970, and I was waiting for the start of my
freshman year in high school with a knot in my stomach. My mother
was pressuring me to attend an all-boy Catholic high school that had
an excellent academic reputation, but I wanted to stay in public school.
I had never gone to Catholic school or worn a uniform. I didn’t want to
go, but rather than have a major confrontation with my domineering
mother, I was enrolled in both schools at the same time. I didn’t know
what was going to tip the scales in one direction or the other.

These were the days when boys had paper routes to earn money and
I delivered Newsday. Two of my customers were technically not on my
route. They were regular customers on other kids’ routes, but they
were constant complainers who didn’t get along with their carriers, so
my manager asked me to take them. This took me an extra third of a
mile out of my way in a different direction from my route for just two
customers, but my manager needed someone to do it, so I agreed. Right

there, an astute reader can intuit some interesting things about me as
a kid: he can’t or won’t stand up to his mother and is easily persuaded
to do something by an authority figure who needs a favor even though
there is no reward.

One day I had dropped off a paper at the first customer’s house and
was riding my bike to my second customer. A ball game was in progress
in the middle of the street, and it involved some kids who hated my guts

for reasons only they knew. I had very little to do with these boys, but
they took a dislike to me and I couldn’t change their minds.

As I rode past, I noticed a kid I hadn’t seen before. The kids I knew
started yelling and cursing at me to get off the street. I wasn’t actually