haven't been in a fight of any sort as an adult but I've had few close calls. Once a group of teenagers started threatening me. I pulled out my switchblade, put on my "crazy person" stare, and they bolted away. I chased them down a few blocks just to scare the shit out of them. I find that you can defuse most situations just by not getting angry when provoked, or by acting like you're insane. I would beat the crap out of anybody hurting an animal, though. That just drives me crazy.
I just posted about a few teenagers threatening me, and then going the other way, and destroying park property.
I try and get along, more or less, with everybody, even at the ghetto school I was teaching at. Different groups have different means of survival, and, to tell the truth, at our school, I'm not sure the gang guys were all that far off.
That said, about 20 years ago, I used to work out with, and hang out with, the world heavyweight full contact karate champ at the time, and the full contact point champion, along with a 7th degree Kempo black belt, another guy that did the breaking exhibitions in San Francisco, for a Kung fu master in San Jose, etc.
I was the craziest of the bunch. This reputation did not get me many sparring partners, but, it did lead to great stories.
We used to go to bars, and pretend we were drunk, and just get sort of wild, have fun, and be crazy. The other guys, legally carried enough weapons to start a small martial arts store, not to mention other sorts of arms.
Suffice to say, we would be having fun, and they would always want to pick on the world heavyweight Karate champion. I think this is mainly because he's a very dark color, and, you really can't see who you are messing with.
One time some guy was trying to pick a fight, and he just sort of leaned over, gave this great big grin, showing huge, white teeth, and started laughing his head off.
He said something like,
'You want to pick a fight with me?' and kept on laughing. I think it was punctuated by a stretch, and clenching of fists about the size of hams. His thumb was as wide as both of mine put together, plus some.
The response was so contrary to what the guy expected, that it threw the guy off, and he wisely decided to go pick on easier, smaller prey.
I do find it odd that I feel the same way about animal abusers that you do.
An assault on another human doesn't bother me as much as some punk kids trying to kill geese that I know, with rocks. An otherwise conservative person is suddenly yelling obscenity, at the top of his lungs, intended to drive off, or change the attention focus, of the punks, onto either their survival, or my presence.
Kind of reminds me of the elephants in Kruger. The giant males keep the adolescent males in line. Without those older males, the younger males run amuck, killing, and destroying...
gs
That gave me a good laugh.
