Divine intervention?

Courage is a Super Power

Just an interesting story. I was living in Allston, MA. Back then Allston was a tough area, what I would call the high end of the ghetto, right next to the Fidellis Way projects in Brighton, MA. I was 16 years old and with my cousin Bob who was 6 months younger. And going to the pool hall on Harvard Street in Allston which was probably not the the best idea. Im taking a shot and I notice one of the pool hall punks picking on my cousin, making fun of his pimples, which he had a really bad case of acne. So being very protective of my family, I got got in the thug's face and sneered, "why don't you pick on someone your own size like me"? He then took a swing at me, so threw him up against a stone wall with a two hand push to the chest. He hit the wall hard and slid down to the floor with the pool stick in his hands, He then thrust the tip of the stick upwards towards my groin (back then the dress style was skin tight jeans and Lucky Strikes rolled up in your t-shirt) and tore my jeans from my groin to my belt, but somehow never touched my groin with the stick and only tore my pants. We were in the lions den surrounded by thugs and I had just escaped being castrated, which would certainly seem like there was someone from above looking over me. The punk then got up and I rabbit punch him twice in the neck, causing him to go down to the ground again. I then yelled an order to my cousin, "Bob get on the phone and call Aaron and the boys and get them down here" in my gruffest voice (primping) which I repeated again, The owner of the pool hall then approached me stating, "Look we don't want any trouble here". There actually was no Aaron and the boys, I was bluffing. We remained at the pool hall and played two more games of pool while I would intermittent looked up and angrily peer at the other patrons (Sprouting my feathers) after which we left. But I look back at that incident in amazement surrounded by neighborhood hoodlums that we got out of there alive. And one might look at what I did as an act of courage, But quite frankly after my initial response to the thug picking on my cousin, which was pure instinct, I was totally terrified throughout the whole ordeal. My initial action took no thought at all, I was so revulsed by the thug's bullying my cousin that I had to act, I had no choice, it was total instinct. But quite frankly I might not have responded so brazenly had the thug been picking on me instead of my cousin. No question that my short winded ferver had something to do with why we weren't eaten alive. Not sure.

Remembering these times are especially important to me because back then I was a gentle soul living in a harsh environment where "might was right" ruled over sensitivity, compassion, and consideration from others, traits certainly not associated with manliness in those times. I could have followed the leaders just to fit in and allowed myself to join their cruel and inhumane man's club sorority, where you take whatever you want if your bigger verses following my own path, but my heart would not allow me to assimilate with others whose culture was more like a pack of wolves getting ahead by taking advantage of the weak. To this day I stand my ground and make decisions and overtly take action or recede based on the concept of trying to do the right thing. Although I don't always get it right, I maintain a relatively high success rate of transparently shooting from the hip and that method most often works well for me. Although the selfish wolf pack mentality seems today to be most prevalently engraved in mindset of the masses, I am who I am and can't and don't want to change that part of me, It's always refreshing to find others who are willing to stand up in the face opposition and take on the status quo in order to do the right thing by others, for which I feel we have a kinship.