When B is little, his mother says, "You are a lover, not a fighter."
He takes this to heart. Though growing up in his neighborhood, he does have to learn to fight. They all do, girls and boys.
"There wasn't any discrimination because we were ALL poor."
Mostly Caucasian and Native American. Everyone was poor so they mostly fought the next town over, as a group. And each other, of course.
B says they would lure other kids to stop and fight, near the Jesus is Lord sign. Cars driving by. The border between his little community and the next. His community was poorer and had more kids.
They had a kid who was huge. He would hide until the car would stop and then come out. The poor town kids would win.
Everyone hunted and fished and canned. Or starved. Cows were butchered two blocks from his house. He has lived in his neighborhood for over 60 years.
I wish I had that sort of root system.
He wandered off when he was three or four and into the church. During service. About 4 blocks from his house.
His mother and stepfather found him eventually. His stepfather probably beat him for that infraction. And when he felt like it.
If you beat a small child without reason, guess what. They either give up and cringe, or they go to oppositional defiance. We will do whatever the hell we want because the adults aren't rational or fair, so fuck them. He says he was confined to the yard every day. The yard backed on woods. He'd head into the woods. When he came back, it was all "Oh, I didn't hear you." Didn't matter. If he was going to get beaten anyhow, why make excuses? He stopped telling adults anything.
All three did, he and his sibs. They walked out on the log boom. "My mother would have killed me if she knew." Might as well, right? The adults hit for no reason, and I feel like spitting in the face of whoever invented this world.
Later he tells me: "We would release the boom."
"The LOG BOOM? While you were ON IT?"
He grins.
"You couldda bin killed."
He shrugs.
"You couldda fallen in the water." The water here is cold. You can live 50-60 minutes if you are lucky. Then hypothermia.
He shrugs again. "We DID fall in the water."
"She-it. Your mother was right."
"Well. We survived it."
Yeah. We survived our childhoods. And our young adulthoods, spitting in the face of whoever invented this world.
And we follow the rules, sometimes. Unless we think up something better, or a work around, or we in a bad mood.
He doesn't fight much any more. But he could. And he doesn't tell anyone much of anything, almost ever.
Timber dictionary logging terms Log boom is not there.
Log boom is different from log jam.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_(navigational_barrier)
#34: Iron Noder