Is teasing the right word? I don’t think so.

The picture above is me in the fourth grade. I’m the short one.

When I started first grade, I was the size of a three-year-old. Weighing less than thirty pounds, and wearing a size three dress, I must have looked like a little freak.

Wherever I went, people couldn’t believe my age because of my size. This would continue throughout my growing years.

At my first piano recital when I was five, my mother heard the people behind her wondering what that baby was doing going onstage.

Everyone hates a bully, but I have more reason than most. My elementary school years were pure torture. It might be called teasing, but I called it bullying and harassment. Not everyone was involved, but there was always a group who enjoyed making life miserable for the odd little girl.

Recesses were not fun most of the time. I spent a lot of them being pushed against a wall with no hope of escaping. Fortunately, times were different and there was no real violence other than poking me and pulling my hair. They always threatened it would be worse if I told on them. Keep in mind that all these years, I was never molested. Just bullied.

Sometime in the third grade, I told a teacher. I never knew what she did or said, but that particular group left me alone.

As the years went on, the “teasing” changed. It was mental abuse rather than physical.

I have spent my entire adult life taking up for others in similar circumstances. I cannot stand by and see someone mistreated. One evening, my husband and I were out for the evening when I spotted a fairly large man arm wrestling a smaller man for his paycheck. My husband stopped me from getting involved, saying I shouldn’t start something he couldn’t finish. I fully intended to wallop that big man with my very heavy purse.

Another time (by now, I’m in my sixties), I was sitting with a friend after we had worked a funeral service. We were on the patio eating pizza, and I threw a piece of crust out on the grass for the birds. Here comes the bully, but instead of jumping on me, he jumped on my friend who was very shy. I ended up telling him that he knew it was me, but he knew he couldn’t get away with talking to me like that, so he made his point by focusing on someone who would be afraid of him. If I hadn’t craned my neck to see his face, I would have been talking to his belly button. I ended by telling him I would climb up his leg and throttle him if he didn’t leave us alone.

I seldom get truly angry, but when I do, it’s not a pretty sight. As Stewart once said, even my hair turns red. It’s very upsetting for me, and I end up being ill and having to lie down. I only get that angry once a decade or so. So, watch out. That ninth year is drawing to a close.

Yvonne Uzzell, January 18, 2022