The symbolic pouring of the milk

After my father died I attended a fairly tough boy’s camp during the summers. This was an adjustment for the type of mother’s boy I had been up until then. One morning at breakfast I was sitting across from a camp counselor who was a bit of a bully. Alright, quite a bully. I don’t think he liked me very much. I have no idea why.

He was also considerably bigger, older and stronger than me. I no longer remember what he said but it must have irked me a lot because I took my cereal bowl, and the remaining milk in it, and dumped it onto the top of his head. I remember there was a pause then as he sat there with the bowl still on his head dripping milk onto his gigantic shoulders because I think he was surprised. I never moved although my heart was beating like crazy.

Before he could reach across the table and break my neck, other more level-headed folks had intervened. I gained a sort of reputation for a dangerous lack of impulse control. And maybe a little bit of a death wish. I also had to begin looking more carefully behind me throughout the day and the night.

Daughter Jessica called recently, at the end of a trying day, to say she had had a meeting with granddaughter Olivia’s kindergarten teacher. It seems that during lunch a classmate of Olivia’s named Max was kicking her under the table. Unfortunately, just as the teachers called for silence to make announcements young Olivia stood and dumped her remaining strawberry milk over Max’s head.

This, as we all know, was not then and is not now thought to be generally acceptable lunchroom behavior. At my tough camp I was whacked in the back of the head and told to smarten up. Not so, poor Olivia. She had to meet with her teacher. Her mother had to meet with her teacher. She had to write the dreaded note of apology. She had to give that note to her teacher. She had to apologize directly to the foot kicker Max.

Looking back on all this with the wisdom of the ages I can only say two things. It doesn’t run in my family and good for you, Olivia!