Big (Part Two)

By Pat McManus
August, 2012

I went to elementary and high school in a tough little logging town. Although it has been some time since I was in first and second grade, I can still recall the dreaded cry issued by one of my small compatriots. “Watch out! Here come the big kids!” This warning probably referred only to those male pupils in fourth or fifth grades, who themselves probably were not all that big.

In those years you didn’t pass beyond fourth grade until you could read, spell, and do fractions. I remember one kid—I’ll call me Jethrow—who had been in fourth grade at least three years. There were some rumors he was already shaving and perhaps dating the teacher, but I doubt they were true. He wasn’t her type.

So occasionally there was a really big kid in fourth or fifth grade. In any case, whenever the “big kid” alarm was sounded we would take off running for our lives. It was scary. Looking back, I don’t recall any of us little kids ever being caught and tormented by a big kid. They were simply satisfied to take over the swings, slides and merry-go-round we had so summarily abandoned. Nevertheless, such was the effect on me on the shout “here come the big kids,” I still cast sharp looks in all directions whenever I hear it. You never know.

A conservative friend of mine was outraged recently—actually, he is more or less in a continuous state of outrage— about government laws to protect the wimps from the strong. He quoted Winston Churchill as saying, “If we have laws protecting the wimps from bullies, we will end up a nation of wimps!”

When I was six and seven years old, I certainly would have supported any law that stated: “Big kids are no longer allowed to torment little kids.” But when my conservative friend raised his objection to such a law, I myself, now an adult, was outraged. I’m a big fan of Churchill and can’t imagine him ever using the word “wimps”.

I suggested to my friend that during his early years in school, he apparently had never been alarmed by the cry, “Here come the big kids.”

“Of course not,” he said. “I was one of the big kids!”

Back when they were little, I can still recall one of my four daughters hopping about and yelling, “You took the big half! As a college English professor at the time, I worked tirelessly to correct the girls’ errors of speech. “There is no such thing as a big half,” I’d point out. “A half is a half. You might, for example have said, “You took the bigger piece.”

“Okay, then, you took the bigger piece! How about that!”

“That’s much better,” I’d say. “But I deserve the bigger piece because I’m so much bigger.”

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Read "Big" (PART ONE) here.