My brother, one year younger than me, was nearly 6 feet tall by the time he was 10 years old. He weighed only about 90 lbs soaking wet. That made him the preferred target of all the shorter, heavier, dumber teenage bullies in the schoolyard. "Manly" as boys that age are just dying to appear, they "swarmed" and beat him up on a regular basis. We'd be walking home from school together, and there they'd be - 6 of them against one of him, and me standing there so angry and frustrated and helpless ...

...till one day, I could take it no more. As the ringleader pummelled my brother to the ground once again, something must have possessed me. I jumped up onto his back and clung on like a cat, pulling out mittfuls of hair, pounding on his face, trying to rip off his ears - man, that's the only time in my life I think I finally got my pound of flesh!!

Well ... his little gang of accomplices were so shocked at the sight they all took off like bats out of hell. And when I let him up, so did he. I was pretty shocked ... and impressed!

But my brother wasn't, unfortunately. :-( Who wants to be saved by a girl, your sister no less, who's at least a foot shorter than you?

But I did get mine a few weeks later. Walking home alone from a piano lesson a few weeks later, that same gang of boys jumped me in the park. Beat me up, tore my clothes, shoved snow down my throat till I passed out. I remember coming to when it was nearly dark, walking home with a splitting headache, nauseous ... and vowing I'd leave the manly hero stuff to the manly heroic men from now on.

So there you go, SIr jOhn. Tall people DO get theirs too! So have some sympathy ...