DEAR EDITOR:

We all knew one growing up. The playground bully.

We saw him pick on smaller kids after school or at recess. We saw him pull on girls’ ponytails. We saw him lift a pack of chewing gum at the drugstore. We saw him drinking beer behind the movie theater. He lied to our teachers. Once we saw him steal a bicycle at the park. He was not the sharpest axe in the shed.

He would often cozy up to us; want to be our “friend;” to coerce us into joining him on his various adventures. But the wiser among us knew that hanging with him would only get us into trouble with our parents and maybe the law. A few kids thought that they were “cool” to hang with the bully; that it would help improve their status in the neighborhood. But they were wrong.

It took guts and a backbone to reject his advances; when he would come up to you and tell you how cool you were, that hanging with him would get you more popularity and status. If you had any kind of sense at all, you rejected him, his empty promises and his infantile behavior.

So, the bully got older but he never grew up. And some of his “hangers on” stayed “hangers on.” Most of us did grow up, moved on and led successful and happy lives. We lost touch with the bully and his cool pals.

We learned a valuable lesson from the bully. We learned that it takes a spine and a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong to follow your moral compass and pursue the good path. We learned what it takes to reject empty promises of popularity and power. And his “hangers on” were always seen as just that. “Hangers on”

So now we see this happening in our nation’s capital. The “hangers on” are still hanging on. Trying to suck up to the bully. And some of us who rejected the bully in grade school now seem to have lost their backbone and sense of right and wrong. They have capitulated to the charisma of the bully.

Time again to grow up. Find that spine. Re-learn those values that teach us right from wrong. Stop sucking up to that bully. It will only bring trouble and pain to you and everyone around you.

STEPHEN STOYAK

Girard