Musherpumpkin
08-13-2009, 07:28 AM
So here’s the situation. When I was 5 years old, (1969) my parents bought a
house in a rural area of northern Wisconsin- I started kindergarten and
everything was going well until I was transferred to a country school for
first grade. That’s right a two room country school with a single teacher
and multiple grades in the same room. I was immediately set upon by one kid
in particular, as well as his younger brother. They lived about a mile away
from me. I was an only child, and didn’t know anyone so this was pretty
tough. Most of the teasing surrounded the rather unfortunate spelling of my
last name-“Zass” , pronounced with a long “a” sound, like “far”, but this
distinction was lost on these kids, and even some adults would purposely
mispronounce it. The harassment got to the point that my parents formally
and legally had the spelling of our last name changed to “Zahs”, but that
was a bell that could not be unrung. The harassment escalated to the point
where I couldn’t ride the bus- they would throw dead animals into our
driveway , vandalize our mailbox, all kinds of things. We lived on a lake,
and in the winter we couldn’t even ice fish because they would run over our
tipups with their snowmobiles. The family that was responsible for all this
was backward by most definitions- they had no running water, lived in a
run-down house out in the woods and basically lived like it was 1875- I’m
not even sure if the parents were literate. The mother would scream out the
car window if she happened to drive by us if we were walking on the road-
itjust didn’t end.
There was a hiatus when I went away to school, but every time I was home I
would see one of these people and they always gave me the finger, said
something vulgar- some sort of negative reaction. One of them, the middle
brother(I’ll call him Steve), was particularly bad .
After college my husband and I bought a house a few miles north of
where I grew up, and guess what- the whole deal started up again- the
screaming, the finger flipping- swerving at your vehicle, swerving at you
if you were walking on the road. I’m a dog sled racer, so I would train my
dogs with a cart on the local backroads and he would speed by us as fast as
he could go, spraying gravel, or blowing his horn. Every time he (or his
mom)meets me on the road I get the finger- every time.
I guess at this point I’ve just had enough- every time one of these
incidents happens I’m instantly 8 years old again, at least so far as my
reaction to it goes. This has colored my entire life- I’ve struggled for
years with depression and confidence issues , a lot of which I’m convinced
are the direct result of this bullying. The odd thing is, I’ve done nothing
to these people- I’ve never reacted, or returned any of the abuse, and why
would they carry a grudge for some other unknown slight for 40 years?!
I don’t know what to do- you can’t talk with or reason with these
people- at this point it is just “Steve” (he’s now in his late thirties)
living at home with his mom, who is just as unbalanced as he is. He’d been
in trouble for stalking a neighbor girl a number of years ago, and his mom
had a running feud with her parents, often involving the police.
I’m scared to talk to the sheriff for fear of reprisal- it’s hard to
say what they would do, burn my house down while I’m at work? I’ve just had
enough. I’m sick to death of something that should have ended years ago.
Any thoughts?
house in a rural area of northern Wisconsin- I started kindergarten and
everything was going well until I was transferred to a country school for
first grade. That’s right a two room country school with a single teacher
and multiple grades in the same room. I was immediately set upon by one kid
in particular, as well as his younger brother. They lived about a mile away
from me. I was an only child, and didn’t know anyone so this was pretty
tough. Most of the teasing surrounded the rather unfortunate spelling of my
last name-“Zass” , pronounced with a long “a” sound, like “far”, but this
distinction was lost on these kids, and even some adults would purposely
mispronounce it. The harassment got to the point that my parents formally
and legally had the spelling of our last name changed to “Zahs”, but that
was a bell that could not be unrung. The harassment escalated to the point
where I couldn’t ride the bus- they would throw dead animals into our
driveway , vandalize our mailbox, all kinds of things. We lived on a lake,
and in the winter we couldn’t even ice fish because they would run over our
tipups with their snowmobiles. The family that was responsible for all this
was backward by most definitions- they had no running water, lived in a
run-down house out in the woods and basically lived like it was 1875- I’m
not even sure if the parents were literate. The mother would scream out the
car window if she happened to drive by us if we were walking on the road-
itjust didn’t end.
There was a hiatus when I went away to school, but every time I was home I
would see one of these people and they always gave me the finger, said
something vulgar- some sort of negative reaction. One of them, the middle
brother(I’ll call him Steve), was particularly bad .
After college my husband and I bought a house a few miles north of
where I grew up, and guess what- the whole deal started up again- the
screaming, the finger flipping- swerving at your vehicle, swerving at you
if you were walking on the road. I’m a dog sled racer, so I would train my
dogs with a cart on the local backroads and he would speed by us as fast as
he could go, spraying gravel, or blowing his horn. Every time he (or his
mom)meets me on the road I get the finger- every time.
I guess at this point I’ve just had enough- every time one of these
incidents happens I’m instantly 8 years old again, at least so far as my
reaction to it goes. This has colored my entire life- I’ve struggled for
years with depression and confidence issues , a lot of which I’m convinced
are the direct result of this bullying. The odd thing is, I’ve done nothing
to these people- I’ve never reacted, or returned any of the abuse, and why
would they carry a grudge for some other unknown slight for 40 years?!
I don’t know what to do- you can’t talk with or reason with these
people- at this point it is just “Steve” (he’s now in his late thirties)
living at home with his mom, who is just as unbalanced as he is. He’d been
in trouble for stalking a neighbor girl a number of years ago, and his mom
had a running feud with her parents, often involving the police.
I’m scared to talk to the sheriff for fear of reprisal- it’s hard to
say what they would do, burn my house down while I’m at work? I’ve just had
enough. I’m sick to death of something that should have ended years ago.
Any thoughts?