Searching for the Answer

Go Kick Chuck

Go Kick Chuck

When I was three or four years old and my father owned Jonathan's Hardware he had an old friend from high school come in every so often to purchase tools or parts. To my knowledge they were good friends but despite that whenever Chuck would come into the store and I was there with my father, Jonathan would tell me "go kick Chuck in the butt as hard as you can." I being at most 4 years old didn't think that what I was doing would cause someone else to feel pain, I was just doing what my father told me to do.

Anyways Chuck would be looking at parts and I would do as Jonathan instructed and kick him. Chuck was a pretty even tempered guy so he just laughed it off. The premise behind the action was my father wanting me to hurt someone and that is something I would never instruct a child to do, yet Jonathan wanted to mess with people and used his 3-4-year-old son to accomplish that goal. In my later years I was worried I would see Chuck again in the hardware store and he would remember me kicking him and I was in my younger teens thought he would want revenge, but no Chuck was a good guy and I respect him for trying to be friends with my father in their 40's.

Not a lot of people seemed to stick by Jonathan in the years that would pass, only Chuck and his family showed up at my father's funeral. I suppose Jonathan was not a good person in his life and thus had no friends. He lost his mind and lost it all and his children will spend their whole lives suffering in the worst cases imaginable. Perhaps this was karma because Chuck told me my father was a jock and he drove a 1965 mustang in high school, like father like son when it comes to Bryce. I however have adopted more stringent values and morals and will never imitate my father in his hurting ways.