Growing up I always thought I was not a good looking guy. Most of you who read this are probably nodding your heads north and south in confirmation as you have visual recalls of me. Thats okay because the picture I share with you here is of my youngest progeny, Jarran who is more handsome than any GQ magazine or any so called good looking celebrity. Hes getting ready to go pick up his prom date. I never went to prom because as a young teen I really was quite homely, pimple faced and extremely scrawny. I figured no one would agree to go if I asked them out so why bother. This was reinforced by the couple times that I did get up the courage to try to ask a girl out and was turned down. That doesnt mean I didnt like girls or not interact with them. I even managed to get a couple to kiss me once with the emphasis on once. I even got in a couple of fights with a friend and classmate, Vernon, in eighth grade because during a falling out between us he made disparaging remarks about a girl named Teresa that I had a crush on but never dated or asked out because she was my sisters friend. I still recall in vivid clarity all the kids gathered around as Vernon and I went at each other. I bloodied his face with a lucky punch and that ended the first fight. The next day we fought again because I think some other kids pressed Vernon to have another go at me. They thought Vernon should have won the first time because I was smaller. I bloodied his face a second time and then the teacher who was the school bus monitor and watched the fight, made us shake hands before he would let us get on our bus for the journey home. Those junior high days seemed to be the dangerous ones for me. I was given several opportunities for fights. Some I won, some I lost and most I just walked away being called a coward. The fight with Lee was one I think I won. One day during lunch break he caught me behind the junior high with a few of his friends. This was the second or third time hed tried to get me to fight. I had walked away before but this time I was surrounded and the bell wouldnt ring for several minutes. Lee taunted me with lots of derogatory names. He disparaged my mom for being Japanese. He kept poking me in the chest and punching me in the abdomen while taunting me to fight. After a particularly hard punch in the stomach my anger reached a boiling point where reason was overcome by action and I hit Lee back - hard. I hit him so hard that he fell back onto the ground. You might even say I knocked him on his a-- :). Fortunately for me Lee and his friends were so shocked by my sudden and fairly decisive strike that they didnt seem to notice that I walked quickly away to the other side of the school and went inside near the office in case they decided to try another fight. I guess they figured that I would fight back after that and left me alone. Another kid named David, who was smaller than I was also decided he wanted to try to fight me too. I thought I could probably win if I only had to fight him but if I beat him then I most likely would have had a whole cast of family to take on as well since Id seen how these guys worked. One day after school as I was walking to the bus, David tried to stop and fight me. I kept on walking in great fear that Id have to fight. I managed to get past him and kept going to the bus when he kicked me from behind up near my crotch area. Fortunately it wasnt forward enough to strike my privates or Id have been on the ground in agony for quite a while. It was very painful but I kept walking and was relieved that I had gotten away without fighting. David must have figured he won since he got in the kick and I walked away. He claimed he beat me but in my heart I knew I won the fight because he never tried to corner and fight me again. Some who read this may know of whom I speak of. I only use first names because most may not know them. Thats okay if you dont know them. The bad characters who tried to pick the fight and bully me may have changed their lives around by now. They were kids when this happened as was I. I have forgiven them and I hope if any of them read or hear of this that they understand my intent is not to disparage or sully their reputation. I only wish to let my children and future generations of family know there are times to fight and times to walk away. Most of the time we dont want to walk away. Perhaps more importantly for my current and future family to understand is that they should never, never be the instigator of bullying or fighting. May you always judge on the side of mercy but have the courage to stand up and be counted for those few times it may be necessary to defend yourself or others. Ill close with the last fight I had. This one happened after I was married, had my firstborn son, Jake Scheid, and soon to be first born daughter, Jadey Schouten, and was back in college. We lived in a basement apartment that wed found because the rent was affordable. One Sunday we came home from Church and as we walked into the apartment were nearly floored by the odor of oil based paint and temperatures that were in the 90s. Our neighbor upstairs decided to make some kind of furniture the night before. Wed put up with sawing and pounding till late at night without complaint. Conditions in the apartment were not livable however so I decided I needed to ask him to turn the heat down. His upstairs apartment controlled the thermostat to ours. I knocked on his door and introduced myself and after a minute or so of small talk asked if he could turn the heat down. It was in the 70s with lots of sun. He replied that he needed to dry the varnish on his furniture so he could use it. His apartment had all the windows open and because it was upstairs could take advantage of the breeze to cool it off while the heat blasted from the furnace. I tried to explain that I had a pregnant wife and toddler below that shouldnt have to deal with the current conditions in the apartment. While I was trying to explain and convince him to turn the heat down, his wife yelled at him to tell him to call the landlord. He looked over his shoulder back at her while she was yelling and then looked back at me smiling and said, yeah, go tell the landlord and then slammed the door in my face. This was the start of a very rocky relationship between neighbors. I complained to the landlord on several occasions and things would get better for a while. The neighbor was not a respectable person to say the least. On more than one occasion I found nails propped against my tires. He deliberately scratched the paint on my car. I couldnt prove that but on the morning I found the nails leaning against my tires, I saw a long scratch from front to back along the side of my car that wasnt there when I parked the day before. As we came into the winter they would leave for the weekend and turn the heat off. The landlord came over to turn it back on and after a couple times doing this gave me a key to use so I could get in to do so if needed. After two or three times of doing this, I decided to leave a note on the thermostat asking them to leave it at 72 degrees when they left. A week later I was visited by the local police. They talked to me about my neighbors and asked if we had any problems with them. I relayed some of the issues not knowing why they were asking these questions. Then they pulled out their smoking gun - the note Id taped to the thermostat. They asked if Id seen it before. Of course I said yes, Id taped it as a way to remind them to leave the thermostat up if they left. The officer then told me the neighbor said they were missing $100 in cash that had been on their TV at the same time they discovered the note. I dont think he believed them because I wasnt led away in handcuffs when the police left. I called the landlord and he decided to finally change things. He installed a thermostat downstairs and disabled the one upstairs. While it solved the heating problem, it didnt make life between the neighbors any better. One evening, I brought Jake home from a gym that I ran part time to pay the bills. After dropping him off,I went back out to the car to go back to work for a couple more hours. The neighbors wife saw me going up the stairs and said some comments too crude for me to repeat. I looked at her and said she should just grow up and continued to my car. The next thing I heard was a door slam and my neighbor running up behind me. He was a big guy - about 63 and easily 250+ pounds. Im 510 and at the time about 135 pounds with my clothes on. As I turned around he grabbed me by my neck and pinned me up against my car. He then began to yell at me demanding I tell him what kind of dishonorable thing I had said to his wife. My mind was calm and there was no fear as I told him what Id said to his wife. He told me he was sick of me and my goody goody Mormon family. He continued to rant at me while pinning me against the car with his right fist cocked back ready to pound my face. I had gone to McDonalds to get a drink before coming home and was holding it in my left hand. I recalled thinking it would be a tragedy to waste it as he was ranting and threatening me with massive bodily harm. When he finally stopped his ranting I told him if he was done that I needed to get back to work. This set off another ranting fit. When he stopped again I told him if he was going to hit me to go ahead. I would have solid evidence of his abuse that wed put up with over the past 3 months. That stopped him for a moment as he considered but then his wife egged him on and he drew back his fist to strike me. Thats when everything became slow motion and my previous martial arts training took over. I dropped the drink in my left hand and blocked most of his strike by raising my left arm in a sweeping motion that caused his fist to go off the left side of my cheek while at the same time bringing my right arm up in a sweeping motion to the right and unpinned his left hand from my neck. Simultaneous to all this I ducked beneath his right arm and backed my way between our cars out onto the open driveway. Once on the driveway I told him if he wanted to fight I was ready. He had abused us enough and it was time to bring this to an end. He followed me out onto the driveway which had some ice on it. I feinted in toward him as though to hit him and then danced away from his wild swing intended to knock me out with a single blow. When he missed me I kind of laughed at him getting him more angry and coming at me with another wild swing that I dodged. His swing was so wild and his motion uncoordinated, it caused him to slip and fall on the ice. I laughed again and told him I wasnt sure I wanted to fight a guy who couldnt stand up. This made him angry again. He decided to try to tackle me but ended up on his stomach humiliated laying on the ground as hed slipped trying to get up. I recall thinking I could end this all so easily with a well placed kick to his head. I could kill him and not have to worry about being attacked again. I decided it would not be worth the hassle and did not want it on my conscience so I walked away to my apartment telling him I could not fight someone who couldnt stand up. I won this fight without ever striking my opponent. I then called the police in case he decided to try something against my family and the landlord to tell him we were moving out as soon as we could. The police came and the landlord also came. He told my neighbor that he was evicting him and the police told me I could press assault and battery charges. I told them I would not press charges if they moved out and left us alone until they did. They were poor like me and had no where but the street or their car if they left that night. And that was the end of it. Or almost anyway... I worked night shift as a dispatcher for the university police on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I usually got home around 8:00 a.m. and slept for a couple hours. My neighbors knew or figured this out. I came home one morning and they were moving out. I was pleased and went in to my place glad they were leaving. They made lots of noise packing but I thought theyll be gone soon so ignored their packing and loading. They filled up the pickup theyd borrowed and drove away to unload it but left their radio on full blast and set it on the heating vent before they drove away. When they returned an hour later for another load, I asked them to please turn it down and move it from the vent. They actually complied without argument. A first for them. They didnt stop their noisy loading as they did a second load and drove away again but only after turning the radio back up and putting it on the vent. This made me angry so I decided to call the police. They came back before the officer got there and they saw him pull up and radio dispatch before he got out of his car. He could not hear how loudly the music was blaring because they quickly turned the music off. After the police left the wife left again but her husband was still home. He put the radio back on the vent and turned it up loud. I called the police dispatch and explained that Id called earlier and the officer had just left but the problem hadnt been resolved because theyd seen him arrive and turned off the radio. I then asked for the same officer to come back but to come from a different way and approach on foot so they wouldnt see him arrive. When he arrived on foot, having parked down the street, the wife drove up and it was fun to see the you caught me officer look on her face. He talked to both of them for quite a while. The officer then came back and said if I wanted to file a disorderly conduct complaint that hed be happy to do the report. Again I said as long as they leave and leave us alone Id be happy to just let them leave. They finished packing very quietly and left never to be seen again.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 11:45:31 +0000
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