Have you ever been in a fight?

Can't help but think of one of my all-time favorite fictional characters when reading this thread. Jack Reacher.

 

I was a brawler through the age of like 8. Would fight kids from other towns when I'd go to football games with the folks. But none since. Was in half of a fight once; I wasn't fighting, the other guy was. Problem. State tourney basketball, we go up to watch, get a hotel room, bunch of guys get drunk. I didn't drink in school so I'm sober and in a verbal battle with a drunk friend. I was winning, handily. He tries wrestling me as he gets pissed and I'm laughing and putting up not much of a fight. He keeps getting angrier and angrier and I'm laughing. We finally stop and he sees he sat on his eyeglasses. I pick them up, dangle them from my fingers and go, "Well what do we got here?" He flies into a rage. Starts punching me. I'm now not laughing but trying to protect myself. As I'm seated up against a wall, he takes my head and rams his knee into my face. Black eye, I see stars, and finally the other buddies pull him off. He kept mumbling, "Why didn't anyone pull me off earlier."

He became a cop.....but like 20 years later, I was with some other friends who witnessed it and they texted him to see if he remembered the incident. He did and felt bad for it. So that was nice.

 

Your PhD isn't in reading comprehension, I guess, @doctorquant.

 

Comps were too hard ... had to settle on journalism.

 

A different kind of fight story:

Back in 2001, I was on a trip with my girlfriend at the time. We were in San Francisco, at a big park in the Haight. Beautiful, sunny day.

There was an older homeless guy, silver hair and beard, sitting in the sun. He had two cans of beer. He opened one, took a big pull, and the look on his face—he looked like the inmates in Shawshank when they got beer while tarring the roof. I said to my girlfriend, "That guy is really, really enjoying that beer." I was glad for him.

Out of nowhere, this kind of skater punk kid came up to him. The kid was standing; the man was sitting. And the kid slapped the beer out of his hand. It went flying and spilled out on the grass. The look on the man's face was now the opposite of what it was before. It was gutting.

Then the kid took the unopened can of beer, opened it, began drinking it, and walked away.

I didn't do anything. Didn't say anything. We're in the US, on vacation, I don't want to get in trouble, I don't want to get knifed. All sorts of good reasons not to get involved.

But it still eats at me that I didn't do anything.

So now, when I'm in a situation where I can do something or do nothing, I remember that feeling, and how poisonous it feels to me, and whatever fears I have kind of disappear. I'm not living with some collection of moments when I bottled it. I'd rather get the shit kicked out of me.

And before this turns into another "tough guy" thing: I have lost plenty of fights.

 

Avril Lavigne, a fellow Canadian, turned that incident into art with Skater Boi, so it's not a total loss

 

Except then she married the dude from Nickelback, negating everything good that's ever happened.

 

I have one regret that still ... eats isn't the right word, but it still bothers me.

I was a rising junior in high school, going through football two-a-days. It was hot, I was miserable ... par for the course.

The team's best player, the quarterback, was the head coach's son. The quarterback apparently was having a bad practice, and after the son was tackled on a particular play his father ran over and started kicking him on the ground. Kicking him hard. I was horrified.

I never really liked the kid. I was terrified of his father. But to this day I regret not simply turning around and walking off the field.

The coach/father was murdered a couple of years ago.

 

Got into a lot of fights in junior high. Some really nasty ones. fought five kids at once one time and won. Basically, I won because I was big and could take a punch. Don't think I ever instigated any of them. At least that is what I told myself. Went to a ritzy prep school for high school, and never got into a fight.

Years later, I was visiting the old hometown and went for lunch at my cousin's house. He, his wife and I all went to high school together. My wife asked them what I was really like back then. I always told her I was a loner in high school. My cousin's wife laughed and said, "most people were scared of you. There was a rumor you had put some kids in a hospital. That you were in a gang. You were just some angry guy looking for blood all the time."

I had no idea my rep was that bad. I asked my cousin why he never defended my honor? He said sharing the same last name as the school delinquent kept him from ever getting beat up.

 

I worked at bars throughout college and after. Often, I was the only guy working so if a fight started I had to break it up. I was punched, kicked, choked, hit with beer bottles, pint glasses and shot glasses. Luckily, I was taking Krav Maga classes at the time. Then when I had a real job, I wound up being friends with the bartenders at my favorite place and I'd watch their backs when they were breaking up fights or booting drunks.

To this day, there are old timers are my favorite bar who love to tell the story about when I slammed a guy through a table and knocked him out. What I didn't realize when I did it was the guy was holding a chef's knife behind his leg. Cops came and arrested that one. The regulars left a big tip that night.

 

by the son?

seriously, sounds like this asshole had it coming. Imagine what this guy was doing behind closed doors.

 

Nope ... neighbor with serious mental issues ... had been an ongoing thing. Shot him (and another neighbor) in his front yard.