An excerpt from my book of parochial school nostalgia: “I Thought I’d Died And Gone To Heaven.” Click on the link above for more information.
Then there was the game of all games: British Bulldog. I
think every school on the planet that was tied to the Commonwealth
played British Bulldog. It didn’t matter if you could even
spell it or pronounce it or even read it, especially in countries
such as India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh. Oh, you say British Bulldog,
you say. Okay. Let’s play, you British Maha-raj-dog you!
This game could be brutal. I truly believe it was the foundation
that made the British Empire great or the modern-day
Commonwealth common. If you were weak-kneed, fragile,
timid, shy, look out. This was one game where anyone’s, everyone’s,
disposition or nature, weak or strong, somehow manifested
itself in very short order. If you were scared you might as well be
wearing a sign that said: “I am scared shitless.” Okay, let’s go
after him. He’ll be the last one standing. It was an unwritten rule.
This game was so profound. It provoked the leaders from the
followers, the bullies from the bullied, the weak from the strong,
and the popular from the dispossessed. Too bad! That’s the way
it was in the life of a male elementary student at a Catholic
school. Meanwhile the girls were playing maypole. Or
hopscotch! Sounds like fun to me!
How did this game go?
Get as many guys as you could muster in the centre of the
schoolyard by yelling out British Bulldog. Volunteer immediately
to be one of the Bulldogs, that is, one of the guys in the
middle of the schoolyard facing about one thousand of your
closest friends, who are lining up against a fence at one end of
the yard. The aim here was that once the alarm was sounded by
the Bull, one had to run across the open yard en masse to the
other side of the field without being caught by one of the Bulldogs
waiting in the centre of the field of play, of course. Caught?
No, tackled was more like it. Today I believe they might call this
“Capture the Flag” but for us it was a tad more brutal and Neanderthal
than waving some shitty piece of pink or blue ribbon.
Tackled, yes, but in those days the schoolyard at that time of the
year, again late winter or early spring, was covered with coarse
green-brown grass sprinkled here and there with rock-hard but
soon to be well-textured mushy, smelly dog turds. That was the
whole point of the game though: to scare the beejeezus out of
some of the so-called geeks of the school. And once you were
tackled, you joined your tackle-er and became one of the Bulldogs
in the centre of the field. The last one standing was the socalled
winner of the game. In reality, and by our rules, the last
one standing was the biggest loser.
This was the preferred game for bullies in that it was an
unwritten rule that the geekiest or weakest-looking nerdy guy in
the school would be the very last one up against the fence. His
poor, pathetic perspective of his seemingly small nerdy world
would be facing down a thousand of his closest bully Bulldogs
standing in the centre of the field waiting unabashedly to rein
down pure unadulterated, pre-adolescent terror on the poor lad.
Fun? You bet! A tad mean and ruthless? Perhaps! Definitely. But
it was a surefire way to grow up.
Why would some seventy-pound weakling agree to participate
in such madness? Simple. At the beginning of the game
there was strength in numbers, so one geek would feel somewhat
safe and have a somewhat secure but false sense of belonging
standing there against the fence at the beginning of this melee,
with a thousand of his so-called geek buddies. Unbeknownst to
him though, it was the unwritten but agreed upon rule by all of
the bully Bulldogs that the designated target would be allowed to
run free and easy, again and again, bypassing the awaiting but
increasingly growing horde of bullies who would manifest themselves
into becoming this vast conflagration of idiots bent upon
the realization that this was going to be the very worst day in the
poor lad’s short life.
Interestingly, while some of the remnants, or targets, realizing
what was about to occur in very short order, might turn and
run toward one of the school’s doors. Those that did stick it out
found out, somewhat ironically, and to their astonished astonishment
and amazing amazement, that they earned the respect of
some of the biggest bullies, louts in the school. They unwittingly
demonstrated that they had the courage, the backbone, the
stupidity to stick it out, get a little bruised perhaps, and wear that
badge of honourable dog shit that every British Bulldogger wears
on their sleeves. Interestingly, soon after, they relished the
thought of becoming a Bulldog themselves: one of the guys,
louts, idiots, Bulldogs, in eying down some other poor sod that
had the misfortune of becoming a target. There must be some
psychological determinant to explain away this form of activity,
group think, mob behaviour, or stupidity with security in
numbers. How else can one explain how a horde of six hundred
Bulldogs ran across this field of death with idiots to the right of
them, idiots to the left of them, and so ran the six hundred idiots
(apology to Tennyson).
I never thought that when I grew up I would become a grumpy old man. But here I am, at 72 years of age, killing it.
But as an old fart I have a right to be grumpy. After all I have gone through a lifetime of insults, verbal abuse, broken promises, delays, “we value your” crappy service, shitty pay, no benefits, lied to, stepped on, disappointments, delusions, political corruption – and on and on she goes.
So there!
This was a huge hit during my less than grumpy old man days:
