Oh yeah, Bronchitis. Looking back, I can't believe how brainwashed I was. I had bronchitis too. I picked it up when I ran away in the spring of `81. I landed up at the Jesus `81 festival in Orlando where some really friendly Pentacostals let me sleep in one of their tents.
It was so bad I had to sleep sitting up. The one time I threw a punch in there was during excercise rap. I couldn't run w/o bringing on a blacking out level cughing fit. So I walked. And one girl after another would come up behind me, shove me in the back or dig their nails into me to try and get me to run.
So my choices were these:
- Just keep on till the next one shoved me off my feet, which would be perceived as misbehaving and get me sat on.
- Explain that I couldn't run, which would have been talking out in group which would have had me on the floor getting sat on.
- Run, bringing on a coughing fit and blacking out, which would have been called "attention seeking" type misbehavior and got me sat on.
So I decided that, before the beating began, I was going to get in one really good knock out blow. The next girl to come up behind me and try and shove me over got a roundhouse to the jaw backed by my full weight. Sadly, she was a really nice person who was only doing what she had to to look good and not get in trouble herself. Amazingly, NOTHING happened! I have no idea why. But I just continued walking, waiting for the mob to take me down, but it just didn't happen. I looked over my shoulder and there were a couple of girls checking on Kim and helping her up off the floor. Not a word was spoken.
I'll never understand that.
Anyway, I don't know how long it took to get to 5th phase. But, during the first week of it, I asked staff permission to take a sick day. They said "You're a 5th phaser, you can decide if you need a sick day". So I went up to the sick room upstairs and slept HARD all day. I think I did that for two or three days in a row.
But, here's the thing. It never occured to me to
ask to go to a doctor. That might be seen as attention seeking or trying to avoid group. I thought that if I needed a doctor, why staff or my mother would send me to a doctor. That they didn't was, in my addled little mind, proof that it wasn't that serious.
And here I thought I was resisting the brainwashing! It's just amazing when I think back on these things.
Men had better be without education than be educated by their rulers.
--Thomas Hodgskin
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Drug war POW
Straight, Sarasota
`80 - `82