Memoir Vignette, Willie Willson, Portfolio BM

Let me start off by saying, I am not a person who just sits down and lets someone insult them.  NO.  I’m not saying I’m one of those guys who can’t take a little joke.   I’m talking about just letting someone just walk right over you and stomp a couple of times, just to rub in the mud.  I’m talking about someone battering your mental bulwark until you crumble.  I’m talking about someone making your life utterly terrible. This is what some kid tried to do at my bilingual French/English hockey camp last year in Quebec, Canada.   He just didn’t like me, and I returned this feeling with an equal or greater sense of hatred.  And this year, I was back for vengeance. (opener, vocabulary words, repetition for effect)

            Needless to say, that year was tough, but the next year I went, it was slightly different.  I was going with some of my other hockey-playing friends.  Their names were Liam Bonner, John Dean, Andrew Kohler, and Joey Dooner.  Like every group of young people, everyone in the group had their role.  Liam was the smart aleck, John was the big scary one, Joey was the punching bag, Andrew was the funny one, and I was the one who held up our reputation on the ice.  We were a rowdy bunch of teenagers who didn’t know that violence was bad yet, but their companionship was comforting because I now had someone who I could speak to without using a French accent.(humor)

            As soon as we got to camp, my friend, Liam, started things off well by running around and screaming, “FIGHT ME, YOU CHEESE EATING SURRENDERRERS.            So 15 minutes in I was already having more fun than I had last year. 

After we got situated in my dorm room, we went over to the rink for our first training session.  Before we went on the ice, though, my coach wanted to explain the week to both us and our parents.  For some reason 5 minutes straight of French translated into, “Your boy have fun and eat pizza.”  After that particular quote, I used the valuable skill that every teenager has of ignoring adults who probably meant to help us.(humor, dialogue)

            After this talk, me and my friends went to get dressed.  Lo and behold, there was The Jerk.  The Jerk’s name was Julian and he looked like a Tyrannosaurus Rex had a baby with a walrus.(humor)  I know that your probably thinking, why is this kid such a big deal?  Well last year he tormented me when I didn’t know anybody.  I felt lonely, and just plain terrible.  Of course as soon as my friends heard him talk, they walked right up to me and said, “ Do you know that guy?”(dialogue).  I responded by doing what comes naturally to me in almost every situation, laughing.

            The reason I was so confident was because I got a whole lot better at hockey in that year away from camp.  My theme song would have been “Stronger”, By Kanye West, except instead of harder, maybe awesomer.(humor)  Yeppers, I was feeling pretty good.  After awhile my conscience kicked in and I saw Julian in a different light.  I saw this fat kid in the corner who, even though he acted like an ass, was probably just lonely.  As I felt this feeling of compassion, I started to ignore it.  What then happened was we were having an off ice session and we started playing UFC.  Not wimpy UFC, we were actually pulling arm bars on each other.  Julian went up on to the mat, and I leaped on to face him.  Then what happened was I pushed him over and bent his arm the wrong way until he caved. 

After this, I felt great and my week went on.  We had the same schedule every day:

7:30-Wake up/eat breakfast

9:00-On ice activity

10:30-Off ice activity

11:30-Lunch

1:00-Class or special training

2:00-On ice activity

3:30-Off ice activity

5:00-Dinner

6:00-Off ice activity

7:00-Game

10:00-Snack

11:00-Bedtime

With such a vigorous (not a vocabulary word, but a good one) schedule, I didn’t have time to reflect upon the matter of Julian.  Throughout the day, many things usually happened.  We got into fights with the key chains that they gave us. One of the kids from Quebec bent a lacrosse stick on the head of Liam, which I laughed at, and Liam got angry off at some “Frenchie” and decided to grate his skates on pavement, which I also laughed at along with my camp counselor. 

With all of the laughter, this week went by totally fast, and I left with a feeling of accomplishment about how I had dealt with Julian, how I had gotten better at hockey, and how I got to mix every soda together in the cafeteria.(humor, magic three)  As I thought about it, I realized that I had dealt with this situation poorly, and I could’ve done it a lot better.   Vengeance felt amazing, but a year later looking back on this experience, I realized if I had just dealt with Julian earlier and in a more pacifistic way, I might have had a better time at camp.  Even with this heavy weight upon my chest, I still managed to leave with a smile on my face.