2 fights in one hour! (a blast from the past)

I've been in many fistfights with bullies, but I think the most recent was during the 2004 campaign. With the quadrennial silly season looming, I bet there'll be another, so let me regale you with the happenings of 4 years ago!

It was Sunday, September 19, 2004. I rode the Peace Bike to Oktoberfest in Cincinnati and parked it somewhere near 5th & Broadway. I then moseyed over to Fountain Square, where Motley Crue was scheduled to play. Now, the thing about events with good food, alcohol, and music is that you'd think they wouldn't attract people who hate the guts of anyone who partakes of any of these 3 items, but it's a strange world. I'm assuming the joker who I got in a fight with is one who hates fans of music, drink, and food - even though I consumed no alcohol that day. (This was still early in the afternoon.) I assume this about the man because troublemakers like this usually do frown upon others' good times. Either they're enjoying what they want denied to others or they're trying to "save" revelers from these "evils."

Anyway, I and many other people happened to be wearing a John Kerry sticker, because the Kerry folks were handing stickers out. A couple times, people asked me where they could get these stickers. The Bush cultists were passing out stickers too. On a couple occasions, I saw some asshole decked out in a Bush sticker trying to grab sheets of Kerry stickers from the Kerry folks and rend them to shreds.

As I was standing along 5th in front of Fountain Square, a guy who was maybe about my age (31 at the time) or a little younger approached me, eyeing my Kerry sticker. The tall, dapper idiot promptly accused me of making a pass at his wife - though I hadn't. His wife looked like a walking parking meter, so why the fuck would I? In addition to the wife he was referring to, the man was also with a teenage girl who was too old to be his daughter but too young to be involved with an adult man. This group was also with a small child, so it shows you they have no objection to exposing small children to fights they start.

"Dude, what is your problem?!" the fratboy began, as he launched his accusation.

I wasn't going to be bullied by some polygamist pedophile who took offense at my politics, so I replied, "What the hell are you talking about?!"

The guy cocked his head down, and I noticed he had his hand at his side, with what appeared to be the tip of a switchblade poking between his fingers.

Before any physical contact was made, I angrily stomped away. When I returned to the Peace Bike to head home, I noticed the bike - which bore an "IMPEACH BUSH" sticker - had been vandalized by Bush campaign stickers. I ripped the Bush stickers off, tore them up, and threw them into the street.

I was furious that some asshole had run me off from Oktoberfest and that the Peace Bike was vandalized, so I gunned the velocipede on the way home. I made it to 3rd & York in Newport, Kentucky, near the bus shelter. A group of about 5 well-dressed people were hanging out there. Obviously they weren't there to catch the bus, because there aren't too many buses on Sundays. From the angle at which I was traveling, they could easily see my "IMPEACH BUSH" sticker - as well they should have, because the whole point of the sticker was for people to read it.

They were immediately hostile and began taunting me to fight them. One of them, a man who was about my age, screamed, "Are you a terrorist?!"

I continued for about a block, ground the bike to a halt, turned around, and screeched to a stop again at the bus shelter. I said, "What the fuck did you call me?!"

A woman who was about 25 said, "He just asked you if you have any Sierra Mist." See, 'Sierra Mist' rhymes with 'terrorist'. Get it? Get it? Get it? Get it? Get it? Get it? Get it? Get it? Get it? Get it? Get it? Get it?

A guy who was maybe in his 40s scowled at me, "Leave the lady alone!"

I said to this man, "It ain't her I have a problem with, stupid, it's him!" - referring to the assailant who made the first taunt.

He then promptly stomped on my right foot as hard as he could.

So I got back on the bike, continued a block towards home, then decided I needed to fight them some more, so I zipped on back. But they had begun to walk towards the courthouse. I guess this was so they could enlist their political friends. (These idiots apparently didn't realize courthouses ain't open on Sundays.) So I sped away.

If incidents like the Fountain Square argument or the bus shelter squabble (which occurred within an hour of each other) had happened years earlier, I would've just ignored them altogether. If they had happened now, I would've physically fought the aggressors to the very end. Even in 2004, if I had actually seen the Peace Bike being vandalized, you don't want to know what would have happened to the vandal if I had caught them.

The events of that day were a bit like a similar altercation I was drawn into at a Bush rally at Devou Park in neighboring Covington, Kentucky, in 2000.

I didn't start any of these fights. These brawls were started by 20-percenters who were loaded for bear. If I was going to start a fight with everyone who worshiped the Bush cult, I could just as easily hurl pebbles at anyone with a right-wing sticker on their SUV that I see on the freeway. But I don't, because I'm more mature than the dumb losers who fought me.

If the GOP standard-bearer this year has followers as crazed as Bush's, I'm sure they'll be at it again.