Lions

My father is described as a lot of different things (many are four letter words, much like his son). One of the words that still follows him like a tail is "Lion". He picked up the adjective in his violent youth.

My dad is a man with sumthin' of a short temper. As such he got into a lot of fights throughout his life. Ask him 'bout any of those times and the stories usually begin, "Well there I was just mindin my own business..."

-When his cousin shoved him into a bonfire and burned his ear and face. He spent months healing with the bandages covering his ear and face. One day that same cousin and he were tossin' logs in the bonfire and Dad decided it would be a good time to toss his cousin in just the same. He lived but was singed a lil bit. (Shouldn't have pushed him.)

-When he overheard four guys pickin' a fight with a guy(they called him Bully, on account of he liked to pick on girls when he was younger, snappin' bra straps and knockin their books down and the like) tryin' to pick up a girl in a pool hall. Bully was holdin' his own when one of the four pulled a knife and was about to stab Bully at the back of his neck. Dad stepped in and saved Bully's life. They handled their business and years later Bully married my dad's sister and became my uncle.

-When a guy walked up behind him in a bar to pick a fight for one thing or another (I don't recall at the moment why exactly). He spun Dad around on the bar stool but 'cause Dad saw him comin' in the mirror above the bar he was ready. As soon as the man spun him around Dad hit him with a solid uppercut to the gut which made the man let out the nastiest fart ever heard in a Texan bar.

-He fought off a dozen (Not sure of the exact number but seriously more than six) teenage gangbangers that were tryin' to get to my older brother. He put three of them in the hospital for weeks. They did the same to him but it took them a while. I was young but I remember bein' hauled off and him fightin' in a crowd under a streetlight.

There are honestly a good ten more stories like that that I've heard, there's no tellin' how many he decided to keep from his children. And while it's very cool to be able to say my dad was one helluva fighter and considerin' he just turned fifty-nine still is, it's sumthin' that has followed him like a shadow.

He started of not wantin' to fight. The earliest fight he ever told me about was between him and a good friend of his while he was still in school. (In case you didn't read the last one, he was forced to drop out in the sixth grade.) They fought because back then they could box in the school's gym class (without anybody's mom suing), and his friend got very confident. He beat my dad consistently in gym 'cause dad didn't want to hurt him. But the kid got a big head about it and kept callin' him a wimp around the school and talkin' mess in front of his friends. One day my dad told him he'd been holdin' back. The kid didn't believe it so he and the other kids wouldn't leave my dad alone 'til he fought the kid. They did, the kid lost, and my dad lost a good friend.

Fightin' isn't the answer most of the time. There's always cases when you can walk away. There will also be times when you're gonna have to stand you're ground. A man shouldn't be afraid to defend himself or others. But he should also not go around pickin' fights. He should never, ever put his hands on a woman (unless maybe she's tryin' to take a knife to your pecker, so I'd recommend talkin' things out 'fore they got that bad.)

The thing about fightin' is that it's a lil scary at first and as you do it more and more you get more confident with it. You become more comfortable with it as a solution to an argument. And then you become a "lion".

You become the guy people whisper about. "Oh don't mess with him, Jack. He'll put the hurt on you. You heard he knocked that fella's eye right out of its socket right? Yeah, he's bad man."

And secretly you might like that. What guy wouldn't want a reputation like that? The guys respect you, the girls think you're hot in that bad boy kinda way.

Then one day you're sittin' there mindin' your own business and it happens.

You become the guy people talk to. "Hey, Hey you! They say you're real bad. They say people shouldn't mess with you. What about me? You think you can take me?"

Then what? The lion has to fight. The lion doesn't get to defend himself and others anymore. He just fights.

There's a thin line between fightin' for what's right and fightin' 'cause you can. Real lions and real men fight when they have to. They prepare for battle in case it comes. But they don't go lookin' for it.