So in re-reading my middle-of-the-night post of last, it seems like I glossed over some of my high school relationships, in particular, the gang of five game-playing-nerds, the girlfriend, and the buddies I still see.

Certainly not my intent. Quite the opposite; that small group of people warrants much more discussion than the whining I was doing would allow.

I grew up in the inner city until the middle of the 8^th grade. We moved to the suburbs at the end of the term in the city's school, only to find a different schedule in the 'burbs. I believe myself to have been a pride-and-joy student in the city: fairly well-known, if not actually popular, with the other students; top of the class in grades, attendance, student attitude, and general demeanor; teacher's pet...all the good-student high points.

I felt disregarded, overlooked, and outcast in the suburban school. Fortunately, I hooked up with an OK fella, who was not an outcast. He introduced me to some other guys, and we became a bunch of guys who hung around together by default. Sadly, that first guy, Kyle, faded from the group, and by the end of high school, I don't think we even associated passing in the halls; I can't remember ever socializing after one friendly snowball fight turned ugly.

Brief digression... One mid-winter day, Jon, Kyle, Kyle's kid brother, some other guy we used to hang out with, his kid sister, and I got off at their stop. I was going with Jon to his house for post-school hanging out while waiting for my mother to finish work at her nearby office.

Friendly trash-talking was going on, and playful snowball tossing ensued. As a playful tossing, the snowballs were largely puff-balls that were little more than handfuls of snow patted together and tossed across the intersection after the buss left. Scoop, pat, toss, poof. More often than not, the puffs disintegrated in mid-air leading to a shower of snow more than an explosion on impact.

At one point, tossing for Kyle's kid brother, I accidentally hit other guy's sister. She wasn't participating so much, but wasn't running to avoid being in the crossfire either. The impact was just a puff of snow that harmlessly puffed as it hit her, but it was apparently crossing some line with her sister. I don't think she was hurt at all, just messy with snow.

Dude hard-packs the snowball he was putting together and starts a serious snowball fight. Tensions flared, and soon he stopped tossing balls, that were harmlessly passing by as his aim started really failing with his increased rage. He charged me and threatened to turn this into an actual fight.

Most high school street fights, we all remember, is a lot of pushing and slapping, with the occasional clothes tug, hair pull, kick, and limited punching. Remember that we're coming straight from school, so everyone has a book bag, which he swung at me as though it were some medieval mace, and that it's the dead of winter, so we're all overdressed anyway (unless you asked our mothers) in jackets, hats, and gloves.

Pulling a wild maneuver learned rough housing with Jon and the other guys, and I twist dude into a headlock. I'm not interested in fighting. He blathers on about me hurting his sister, who I can see is standing there in shock that her brother is so quickly subdued; she's not hurt, and after a few passes with her mittened hands, she's not even snow covered. He, however, can't see as his ear is pressed firmly against my side, giving him glimpses of the ground beneath and behind me.

I apologized, to her and to him. She gave kind of a "whatever" response, he promised to walk away. I let him go, he tried one last shove, missing as he tried to regain his balance, and we stepped apart.

Jon later told me that he'd stepped in to stop dude from clubbing me with his makeshift brass knuckles. Apparently he'd wrangled his wristwatch over his fist and was trying to reach around and slug me in the head. He was off balance, and poorly oriented, and couldn't reach anything but my ass anyway.

That was pretty much the end of that. Kyle sided with him, although I didn't think anything of it. At least, I don't recall thinking anything of it.

I didn't get to my main topic. Digression will be the end of me.