Thread: Just gotta vent a little....

Hey Smokeley,

I love it! I was that kid when I was 16! My first car was a 64 Austin Healey Sprite. One time while driving around Bridgeport like a mental case I cut a Cadillac off and the driver of the caddy blew his horn. I flipped him the finger and called him a few colorful words. Of course my top was down and he heard everything I said. At the next traffic light he jumped out and before I even realized what was happening, the big Italian guy in a very nice suit was pulling me out of my car by my throat. I was suspended in the air with my feet about two feet above the driver seat of my little sports car. The guy told me his girlfriend was upset and if I didn't go apologize he would "twist my head off." I apologized.

It turned out the guy was mobbed up and I could have been finished that day. One day your little friend will run his mouth to the wrong cat.

Hey, what town was this in?

Brad

You did the right thing. Most of the other options may have ended in jail time.

Walk away from trouble. If it chases after you then defend yourself. A black kid back in my home town shot a white kid back in the 60's. Everyone was upset and ready for a stiff sentence, but the witnesses all said the black kid ran from these white punks for several blocks before he finally was cornered. Only then did he pull out a pistol and shoot. He didn't go to jail.

You did handle it well. As satisfying as it would have been to drag him out of his car and beat some sense into him, it could have landed you in jail. Or he might've shot/stabbed you.

From a self defense pov, your reaction was really the best. He did not actually try to attack you and he did brake. He was just a wannabe thug, talking trash.

One day he will talk trash to the wrong person, and then he will discover the hard way that it was a bad idea. In the meantime, you avoided a potentially dangerous confrontation, and get to see your wife and kids again.

Thanks for the words everybody.

icedog: Downtown Hartford. Surprise surprise.

One of the benefits of training martial arts I have found is how much more I am able to control my body/mind reactions to stressors. I liek to credit that mindframe for my lack of escalation/reaction. Really, though, I think I just found it too ridiculous.

Kids like this, well, maybe he'll grow out of it. Maybe he'll talk to the wrond guy and get shot in the head. I hope for his sake that he learns his lessons quickly and turns into an adult.



Leighton: The brief is on rights in minors? My appelate brief in law school was on the constitutional implications of a juvenile curfew. Have fun!! My graduation writing requirement assignment was on the 4th amendment implications of certain sections of the Patriot Act (which was still pretty new at that point).

I'll be downtown Hartford tomorrow night. Maybe I'll get to meet your little buddy.

Originally Posted by icedog

Hey Smokeley,

I love it! I was that kid when I was 16! My first car was a 64 Austin Healey Sprite. One time while driving around Bridgeport like a mental case I cut a Cadillac off and the driver of the caddy blew his horn. I flipped him the finger and called him a few colorful words. Of course my top was down and he heard everything I said. At the next traffic light he jumped out and before I even realized what was happening, the big Italian guy in a very nice suit was pulling me out of my car by my throat. I was suspended in the air with my feet about two feet above the driver seat of my little sports car. The guy told me his girlfriend was upset and if I didn't go apologize he would "twist my head off." I apologized.

It turned out the guy was mobbed up and I could have been finished that day. One day your little friend will run his mouth to the wrong cat.

Hey, what town was this in?

Brad

Thanks for that story!

Smoke-

What that kid didn't realize is that he was dealing with a straight shaver...

If he stabbed you in the neck expecting you to bleed, you would put the kai-bosch on that by whipping out your styptic pencil, gingerly applying it to the wound (OH, the sting!), the bleeding would stop, "I've had worse..." you'd confidently mutter, and you'd be on your way....

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Smoke-

What that kid didn't realize is that he was dealing with a straight shaver...

If he stabbed you in the neck expecting you to bleed, you would put the kai-bosch on that by whipping out your styptic pencil, gingerly applying it to the wound (OH, the sting!), the bleeding would stop, "I've had worse..." you'd confidently mutter, and you'd be on your way....

Brad, how is it you end up in a ton of either really great or really ****ty situations? I'm sure it all happened, it just cracks me up the extent to which it seems to happen.

I gotta say you handled it exactly right,
Way to many unknowns with him in the car, normally nowadays if they seem outmatched yet still mouth off they ARE armed...

I think you did right to walk away, and even though I love a good fight, I would have done the same....

New street mentality "If you find yourself in a fair fight you failed to plan ahead"

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

Brad, how is it you end up in a ton of either really great or really ****ty situations? I'm sure it all happened, it just cracks me up the extent to which it seems to happen.

I was a very rotten kid. My mother is an alcoholic and has a history of mental illness. She was in a state hospital from a few weeks after I was born until I was seven years old. My old man worked three jobs (two full time) to keep my mother going. I was raised those first seven by my brother and my mother's father. He was a character. When my mother suddenlty appeared in my life I would have nothing to do with this wacky stranger who was constantly telling me what to do and that I was wrong and why couldn't I be like my brother and that I ruined her body and made her have to get a hysterectomy and I was a mistake who would never be anything but trouble. I was constantly trying to avoid her so I was running the streets, smoking cigarettes and weed and drinking booze from the time I was eleven. Whenever I got in trouble I was beaten with "The Stick" unless it was a measureable offence for which I was beaten with a black jack Dad had from the National Guard. I ran away from home three times before I was sixteen. Each time I'd go someplace different. The last time I spent six days on the streets in the South Bronx doing drugs and fighting. I grew pretty big and looked older. I was in the class of 1976. A very hot chick in the class of 75 had me as driver and security when she got a gig stripping in Bridgeport bars. Eventually I joined the Navy to get away for good.

When my ship was in the Portsmouth Navy yard I got a gig as a bouncer in the best bar in Portsmouth, NH. It was the Kearsarge House. They had national blues and jazz acts every week. I got to hang with greats like J.B. Hutto, Junior Walker, Eddie Shaw, Mose Allison, the Brubeck Bros, Albert Collins and many more. I met my first wife in there. Our relationship was deeply in the shade of drug and alcohol abuse. She slipped me a mickey (nine atavans in red wine)during dinner on Easter Sunday. I awoke the next day at 0930 in an empty house. She left me with two dogs, Fritz and Bumper (he was a blind pekinese), my records and the B&O stereo and a 12ga double barrel shotgun. She took all the furniture and the new Isuzu Trooper and the kids. I was stuck with the house which was worth less than a third of what we paid for it. I sat on the floor of my empty house with the barrels of my shotgun in my mouth. Fritz and Bumper standing by faithfully made me realize that if I pulled the trigger they would eat my brain off the wall and eventually they'd eat me to temporaily fend off their inevitable death from starvation. I decided to make some other decisions.

Wasting my life running the streets and hanging in bars gave me alot of great stories. My retirement plan is to have a stroke and die alone. I am the "don't let this happen to you" picture.

I apologize for hyjacking this cool thread.