Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

In my first blog today I alluded to two experientially developed concepts formed in my youth that have played an overarching role in my life. I explored the first and now I will develop the second as alluded to in my title. Unlike some childhood memories there is a particular memory associated with this title of this piece that is indelibly etched in my mind. So much so that as I write this I can see the scene in my mind’s eye and in my chest feel anew the power of the emotional experience. I will relate it to you as I remember and feel it, then explain how it has had ramifications for my entire life and upon my perspective of the environment I live in.

I was eight years old, so it was 1952 and I was at the dining room table of my parent’s apartment in the Fresh Meadows section of the borough of Queens, in New York City. We lived in a two bedroom, one bath, garden apartment on the first floor. Altogether it was about 600 square feet and was occupied by my parents, my big brother and my maternal grandmother who had Parkinson’s disease and diabetes. My brother and I shared one bedroom with our grandmother. The apartment was not well-furnished, but kept spotlessly by my mother, who completely cleaned it every day, as she “popped” nitroglycerin pills for her bad heart condition. My mother had often told me that “The Doctor’s didn’t want me to have you because it would make me sick, but I wanted you so much I didn’t listen”.  It was a tough burden she laid on me, probably unknowingly, but it weighed heavily on my young mind. One of my great fears of childhood was that my misbehavior would “kill” my mother. I thought of myself as being a bad boy because my mother used her illness to control my behavior and typically I remember her with a hand over her heart telling me not to do something, which most children normally did. It was only after my parent’s death that an Aunt told me that I was the best behaved boy she had ever known and wished that her two sons were as well behaved. It would have been nice to know that when I was young because I certainly neither knew, nor understood that and constantly would internally rebuke myself about my bad behavior.

On the table I had spread copies of newspaper because I was painting a model airplane that I had built. There is a feeling I can remember from childhood, that I describe as sort of a “pleasant hum”, resonating inside me that day. It was a wonderful feeling that I associate with the summer and the first day without school, as I would go outside into the Sun and play. It is a feeling of excitement and quiet contentment all at once. I felt that “hum” as I painted that model. A sudden sound from the street startled me and I clumsily spilled over the small bottle of paint on the table. My mother saw it and screamed at me, telling me that I could never paint in the house again since I was so clumsy. The paint had only spilled upon newspaper, I thought in anguish at her getting so upset. Something impelled me to run out of the house and down the street away from my mother and the constriction I felt. I ran for five blocks and arrived at a traffic circle on 188^th Street. I knew that circle because it was a grassy area surrounded by hedges. In its center was a memorial stele dedicated to the first soldier to die in the Korean War. The soldier was the big brother of my big brother’s best friend. The tears of rage and sadness of the unfairness of my mother’s attack were flowing and became sobs. Afraid of people seeing me crying, I lay down on the grass next to the hedge, hidden from view and cried for a time.

In my mind I reviewed what had happened and the unfairness of my life. I felt the hurt of being accused of being bad, when it was just the accident of a child. I thought of my life in school and the older bullies who would pick on me in the schoolyard. I thought of my father, a large man with big hands, who when he got angry at me for some infraction would slap me on my face. Conviction grew in me as I cried and I thought about it being wrong for adults to pick on children the way they do and I vowed that I would never forget these feelings that I was having then, when I grew up. And then:In my mind, lying against the hedge, this thought grew and gained power. It became a command.

Don’t Hurt Little People!

Don’t Hurt Little People!

Don’t Hurt Little People!

Don’t Hurt Little People!

At age eight the tests in the elementary school had shown that I was reading at the level of a high school senior, which was far above the rest of my peers. I devoured books at that age and my parents, who had some things wrong, were right when they let me read anything I wanted to. So for an eight year old, I had a very precocious world view. Don’t Hurt Little People in my mind that day expanded to the entire world that I was then aware of. Don’t Hurt Little People expanded to the injustices those with power perpetrated upon people without power.

This was the year my father took me to see the movie High Noon, starring Gary Cooper. The movie had a great effect on my impressionable mind. It was about a Marshal facing a gang of bad men out to kill him and having none of the townspeople stand up for him, going it alone until he kills the last one and rebuffing their lame attempt to congratulate him as he rides away into the sunset. With his bride. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Noon My tears abated and I saw myself as the Marshal fighting against injustice and Don’t Hurt Little People! became my metaphor for fighting injustice and cruel behavior, despite the odds, or the opprobrium of those around me.

As I grew and learned more about the world, that original concept expanded to take in all of the injustices that humans with power perpetrate upon humans without power. This is how I’ve tried to live my life and this is the deep emotional basis of all my political and social beliefs. I am grounded not in any of the philosophical pontificating of men who would develop systems to cast this world in their own models, but in that one little thought from an unhappy child. Don’t Hurt Little People! As Rabbi Hillel supposedly said of the “Golden Rule”, all the rest is commentary.

Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

Please note that these two blogs were written as my last actions as a guest blogger on the Turley Blog and that I will not be commenting any further as well. This last piece is about my lifelong commitment to fighting for those who are being oppressed and who are being bullied. When I first began commenting here it was because I had seen Jonathan on TV and was impressed by him and his struggle for civil liberties. I supported him through the years and was honored and thrilled when he asked me and others to be a guest blogger. In all the many blogs I’ve written here Jonathan has never called me to task for their content and I appreciate that as well.

However, it has come to pass that there is a fundamental difference in approach between Jonathan and myself about certain blog rules. Those of you who are regulars will understand just what I am talking about, for those mystified by my decision they can write me after tomorrow at Mikespindell@gmail.com, which is an E mail account I’ll be setting up. I want to thank Jonathan for giving me this opportunity and I’m truly sorry it is not ending well. There is a possibility that I will set up my own blog, or perhaps I will just fade into the “obscurity” that some GB’s have threatened will be my lot if I leave. In this context perhaps my last two guest blogs will be seen as having deeper meanings and a more thorough explanation of who I am.