Yes, we have all known such as these, not fitting in for a myriad of reasons, most all escaping explanation. It begins often in childhood, one planted in a difference of sorts, size color creed, all playing a part.

In gradeschool we then called them rejects and spazzes, yes, quite nice indeed, I do feel reject says it all still best!

I admit to sharing this tag once long ago, though lasting not, nor lingering not long at all! For I like many found my way out of such bleak mantle and tag, as a matter of fact few to this day believe I was ever adorned in such a mantle of distasteful. For I have grown in years, and have developed a distinct style and air about me that almost brims in cool. Not a bad looking chap, fairly bright as well, how on earth was I once called a spaz?

Few admit to knowing such sadness, especially after once reinventing themselves in elegant cool! Yet I scribe the words for others this day, that still are plagued by such disgrace among men.

I as a young lad was raised in a very strict church, much like the Amish in dress code and the rest, no music to speak of, no dancing for sure, and golly and gee would bring a whipping for sure! I was taught to freely share my convictions of belief as well as my biblical principals, I being a trusting lad basted in innocence, and wanting to do right, began to orally share on the gradeschool playground my dictate of heart!

Well, I quickly along with beatings inherited a nickname, yes "the preacher" and "preacher boy"! Alas, I had been tagged! Cant put the bullet back in the gun can you now? Well, I endured this for several years, outcast to be sure! A spectacle in heap walking, crumpled heart hidden within.

When I entered the seventh grade, the name tried to stick! Yet I'd grown in accomplishments, one being my fists!  I required them now to defend myself against the home made clothes that I wore, that caused jeering and laughter to meet me daily. I once was involved in a fight about one of my two homemade shirts, that ended up with it torn down the front, it remained a mere gag beyond repair I hoped! My punishment for fighting was my Mom, in big bold fashion and form, zigzagged stitched the shirt good as new, yeah right! Yes, I wore the very same shirt the next day, bringing yes, the same jeers. I struggled to emerge in a reinvented newness that would allow me to walk in a new modicum of dignity...alas, it was not meant to be! I indeed was given a new wide birth by some, yet my new look of hardness only brought heaps more of fun!
Not really a true fighter, in my heart, nor to date, I soon learned the results of big mistakes made.

It seems I had done such a grand job in change, that I was noticed by others much older and brave. They came from the high school almost daily it seemed, to challenge the once preacher boy who now dug his grave.

Was not till high school that I came into my own. I had worked for two years washing dishes while others played, partied, romped and surfed, in order to buy a decent wardrobe for high school which I did. Finally in high school, I hooked up with a girl who was popular, and was allowed to swing on the coattails of her popularity for a good year indeed. However sadly, my bad boy image created to protect me, now served as my demise, quickly sending me off the dancefloor of academia at seventeen years of age.

From that day forward I was stoned cool in all manner, way and walk, and never has a man suggested otherwise in the thirty-three years that have passed since! Why do I share? For the one whose still there!

Yes, some scars never heal, the outcast knows this fact only so well....

The words we place and saddle others with when young, often ride upon their heart yes, forevermore...

Peace,

Rodney Evan Bohen