Apparently I'm a different person than I used to be.

Apparently I'm a different person than I used to be.

We went camping last weekend, two nights in a state park with another family. Five kids between us from six to three years old. Throughout the weekend at any point there was usually at least one kid making noise about something, if not two of them making noise at each other (usually the twins). I barely even notice the noise anymore, but we had just finished discussing the loud and late partying twenty-somethings a few sites down, and how public camping was a beautiful system of checks and balances: the partiers keep us up with laughing and music, and in the morning they pay the price when our kids start hollering at 7AM. On this particular day, miracle of miracles, everyone had slept until after eight.

It's about 9:30AM. One of the two six year old boys has just shoved the other and sent him sprawling in the dirt. The other is howling at this grievous offense. The parents are yelling at the shover to get away from the shovee (my son). I'm telling my son to get up and come to me: I want to help him work this out but also don't want to just swoop in and rescue him. We've been working on his ability to end a conflict before it escalates into a scuffle. Or maybe I just don't want to put down my coffee and get out of my chair. Conflict has pretty much died down (shover is in his tent, shovee is in the camper playing leapster) when one of the twins (three and a half) falls in the dirt and starts crying. And then this guy comes charging through the weeds from the next campsite, barking something about "...one of you needs to grow some balls and spank that kid..."

You should know that I'm no fighter. I grew up in the East Coast Whining Liberal Intellectual school of Kung Fu, where the combatants dance around each other making shrill threats about the prowess of their fathers' respective attorneys (it ends spectacularly badly when one of us comes up against anyone with any actual fighting skills). I have since grown to six foot and over two hundred pounds, shaved my head and collected a few ugly tattoos and piercings, spent some years in dirty jobs in exotic locales, and otherwise tried to deny my roots. But shove me and I'll generally back down, maybe shriek about suing your ass, and then spend the next few days replaying the situation in my head and improving on what I should have said or done including crushing verbal repartee and various bad-ass moves. You never completely escape your inner whining little wuss-bag.

But I digress. Back to camping and the barking neighbor. It seems likely he'd been a hundred feet away for two days, listening to our chaos and getting increasingly pissed off at his impression of the unmanageability of our kids. Without wanting to slap too many labels on the guy, let's say that it seems safe to guess that he was of a different political temperament and from a different era in child-rearing. In retrospect, I think he was talking about the shoving match and spanking the boys (and hell, maybe he was right about both of them). But I think we all assumed he was talking about the crying three year old girl. And I was out of the chair and facing him off in the weeds before I knew what I was doing.

We spent a few seconds barking in each others' faces. We waved our arms. I can't remember a word he said after his opening volley. My own responses come back to me in chunks. "You don't know anything about us, keep your opinions about our families to yourself." "If you can't handle some kid noise maybe you shouldn't be in a family campground." "We'll be gone in a few hours anyway, until then go back over THERE (emphatic pointing to his site) and leave us alone!" And he left.

What the hell was that? What did I just do? Where was the liberal intellectual whining? Where was the indignant retreat with subsequent replays? Even weirder, where was the profanity? The verbal personal attacks? The wussy threats? How about a little "Maybe I'll grow a pair and kick your ass, old man!" (From at least eight feet away.) Or some "Piss off, asshole, go back to your site and beat your own kids and don't come crying to me when they disappear from your life on their sixteenth birthday!" Instead I appear to have instinctively responded pretty much correctly. Did defend my pack, did voice my objections to his actions with plenty of appropriate gusto. But didn't make it personal, didn't escalate. Freaking weird.

I've done some replaying since then; it's pretty much a natural response. But even then, I can't imagine responding any better than I did. Instead I run through different scenarios on the other guy's part. In one he comes over to make a bashful AA amends (he has a year or two sober) and I tell him about my fourteen years and commend him warmly but sternly. My favorite is the one where he tells me his kids are grown and strangers to him now and weeps in my arms. I make him promise to tell them he loves them. We cry together. So obviously I'm still fucking nuts. But still. Somehow my gut response to a situation that I previously would have handled very badly was exactly what was needed.

that's me