In the White Rock of 1972, on one sunny afternoon, I was granted the honor of hanging out with my three older siblings, all of whom were accompanied by their own similarly aged friends. A five-year-old boy, I was about two years the junior of the younger of my two older sisters who was herself the next youngest amongst the whole group; thus, naturally I was the sole person to whom no one from the group (totaling seven) paid much, if any, attention.
That fact was not their problem, as far as they were concerned, on that sunny afternoon. Contrarily, it much appeared to be but mine and with which I’d have to disturbingly deal alone. Eventually came the point at which the sunny afternoon suddenly went astray and behavior became mischievous.

One moment, I was with the others inside an aged, abandoned, single-floor house as everyone investigated decrepit furniture and other items; the next moment, some of my people blurted out an alarming warning, with all of my people scattering away, outwards in every direction. I, however, just stood there completely bewildered and alone, looking around the briefly empty place for a couple of seconds. As a result of that day’s ordeal, I would know early-childhood abandonment trauma.

Instead of my people, there suddenly stood a half-dozen boys, all surely at least twice my age. They more than sufficiently surrounded me, as though they actually believed that I wasn’t too petrified to attempt a dash and perhaps successful evasion.

They all worked with law enforcement, they fooled me effectively enough to induce formidable fear in me: “Have you ever heard of the Mod Squad?” asked one, perhaps their ‘leader.’ (FYI: The Mod Squad was at first a 1968-commenced, bit-of-a-hit TV series, followed by a not-so-hot, 1999 motion picture about the three rather rogue criminals-turned-law-enforcement demi-agents.) To the present day, I can’t recall what was my intimidated reply. Perhaps a muffled and/or squeaky “Yeah,” or nothing at all.

“Well, we’re with the Mod Squad,” said another.

It’s amazing how naïve we can perceive ourselves to have been at a very young age, though of course with the advantage of clear hindsight. However, experiencing mind-numbing ordeals real-time is too immediate to adequately analyze, and exceptionally so at such a cerebrally and psychologically undeveloped point in a very young child’s life.

The rather young Mod Squad recruits soon escorted me outside and onto the street, all the while having completely encircled me. It was quite apparent that the poor condition of the abandoned house did not matter at all to them, for their disinterest in that fact allowed them artificial cause to psychologically torment a small and skinny, very young, redheaded squirt like me.

They took me along the neighborhood streets (e.g. Pacific Avenue) lining steeply-slanted southeastern White Rock, from where I could see an unobstructed sunny Blaine, Washington (State), which like White Rock was also adjacent to Semiahmoo Bay; meanwhile they acted out a fantasy of theirs as some sort of enforcers of justice or apprehenders of very young, bad boys.
But their fantasy fun was at my emotional expense, since I was the one living a daylight nightmare, whimpering and weeping a few times; it was my first brush with some form of albeit self-anointed ‘law.’

The Mod Squaders walked me a block to where two streets met, and looking up one (i.e. Habgood Street), we, the Mod Squaders and I, spotted my people, who themselves were looking down the same street at us, as they walked in the same direction (eastward, along Cliff Avenue).

It was at that point that my people may have realized that the entire bad situation may not be just my problem, but perhaps it was also soon-to-be their predicament as well; they may have then felt baffled and concerned over what they and I were supposed to and would do about it all. Both sides continued to walk our parallel paths eastward, though a long-block apart, at pretty much the same walking pace; and we both would stop two more times at two more intersections to look up and down the long-block at each other.

The last thing that I, four decades later, can recall regarding that ordeal is being at home with my unhappy parents after the police, obviously contacted by the Mod Squaders, had just left. As for my people, I don’t remember them being in the said picture at the later point of that sunny afternoon, not even my three older siblings. Logic dictated that it was not in my siblings’ best interests to be around me, Mom and/or Dad, considering the fact that they played a large part in the cause of the entire unfortunate incident.

Although I can’t recall her abuse against me in its entirety, I’ll nevertheless always remember how she had the immoral audacity — and especially the unethical confidence in avoiding any professional repercussions — to blatantly readily aim and fire her knee towards my groin, as I was backed up against the school hall wall. Fortunately, though, she missed her mark, instead hitting the top of my left leg.

While there were other terrible teachers, for me she was uniquely traumatizing, especially when she wore her dark sunglasses when dealing with me.

I didn’t tell anyone about my ordeal with her. Rather than consciously feel victimized, I felt some misplaced shame. And as each grade passed, I increasingly noticed how all recipients of corporeal handling/abuse in my school were boys; and I had reasoned thus normalized to myself that it was because men can take care of themselves and boys are basically little men.

For some other (albeit likely NT) students back then and there, however, there was Mrs. Carol’s sole Grade 2 counterpart, Mrs. Clemens — similarly abusive but with the additional bizarre, scary attribute of her eyes abruptly shifting side to side. Not surprising, the pair were quite friendly with each other. It was rumored the latter teacher had a heroin addiction, though I don’t recall hearing of any solid proof of that.

I remember one fellow second-grader’s mother going door to door in my part of town seeking out any other case of a student who, like her son, had been assaulted by that teacher. … I just stood there, silently, as my astonished mother conversed with the woman while unaware of my own nightmare-teacher experiences.