“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned…”
This might be one of the most diffic
ult columns I’ve ever penned because it’s a confession about my role in abusing, bullying and humiliating another human being. I’ve finally mustered the courage to tell the tale.
My family and I arrived in Wayland at the house on South Main on Aug. 18, 1962. I had attended different schools every year since third grade (1957) and I was worn out from being the “new kid in school,” even feeling desperate to gain friends and allies quickly because I had been isolated and bullied in seventh grade.
On the first day of school in September, I struck up a friendship with two people sitting next to me because they also were new to Wayland High School as freshmen. One faded quickly, but the other, James Tolhurst, was very willing to be my pal. I later understood he was even more desperate than I was.
We walked around town together and stopped in at the local Pool Hall, where sophomores Mark Wakeman and Jack Wolf greeted us with great jocularity. They were constantly laughing, and when we left the premises, Wakeman hollered, “Bye Dave, bye Percy.”
That nickname stuck with poor James Tolhurst for a long time afterward. It wasn’t long before I came to the conclusion that he wasn’t popular. In fact, he appeared to be a social leper.
Tolhurst was a scrawny adolescent with funny-looking glasses and mis-shapen teeth and a pear-shaped head. I almost immediately began to withdraw from my “friendship” with him for fear I too would become the butt of many jokes and taunting. I started to hang out instead with an undesirable element in desperate attempts to avoid a repeat of my seventh grade misery.
Meanwhile, “Percy” took to hanging out with an older man with a limp and the two unusual fellows could be seen walking all over town without much else to do.
The needling, humiliation, bullying and ill treatment of Tolhurst was relentless. It was so bad that even some teachers joined in the “fun.”
Tom Miller just last week said he and Scott Chesebro rescued Tolhurst after seeing him being taunted and bullied by younger children on the playground.
In Tolhurst’s sophomore year, 1963-64, he came to school every day, sat at his desk, didn’t say a word and stared at the floor. Teachers would insult him, but he offered no resistance, no explanations.
In late January 1964, after he reached his 16th birthday, I saw a circular to teachers telling them to eliminate him from their enrollment lists. He had dropped out very quietly. Afterward, I did see him walking with the older limping man in town and overheard a passing motorist yell “Percy!” He replied emphatically, “Eat me!”
When Roy Orbison came out with the No. 1 song “Pretty Woman” in the fall of ’64, I joined in changing the lyrics to:
“Jimmy Tolhurst, walking down the street,
Jimmy Tolhurst, you’ve just got to meet,
I don’t believe you, you’re not the truth, no one could look as cool as you… Percy!”
Over the years I have grown to regret my complicity in this horribly unacceptable treatment. The 1980 movie “The Elephant Man” tugged at my conscience, especially when John Marley cries out to his attackers, “I am not an animal! I am a human being!”
Then I remembered all those nature documentaries that taught us that predators almost always pick out the one in the herd they perceive to be the weakest and target it for dinner. I suppose we fancy ourselves as being above brutal animals, but sometimes we behave just like them, making me wonder if we’ve really evolved at all.
It really bothered me about 20 years ago when my eldest child, Robert, approached me cautiously and asked what prejudice was. I tried my best to explain and later learned he had taken part in bullying and taunting a black child on an elementary playground. The boy left the school district not long afterward.
Robby said he was truly sorry. As am I.
To this day, I don’t know what happened to James Tolhurst and I’ll bet I haven’t seen him in 50 years. Tom Miller said he thought he died of cancer. And I never had a chance to tell him how profoundly sorry I was for my behavior. No one deserves that kind of treatment.
” I started to hang out instead with an undesirable element in desperate attempts to avoid a repeat of my seventh grade misery.” Hold on there Pard. The worst I ever did when we were friends was try and cheat at NEGAMCO!! LOL!!
Robert, as much as I think you’ve quaffed the Kool-Aid, you were not one of the “undesirables” (or deplorables) I was writing about. I think you know who I meant.
Dave, I too knew James Tolhurst. I believe they moved to Wayland from Martin. He had a brother Gary, who was in my class (1968). They were no doubt, different, but as you say, not deserving of their treatment. I don’t actually remember them being bullied, per se, but I know they were treated differently, because they were different. Thanks for sharing. I never knew what happened to them, other than they were no longer in Martin.