Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Big Virge Dec 2019
How Tough Has Life Become These Days ... ?!?  

Violence REIGNS With PAIN and STRIFE ... !!!  
You NEED To Be TOUGH To Just SURVIVE ... !!!!!  

Prices ... riSE ... !!!!!  
That's No Surprise And Is NO LIE ... !!!    
  
MANY Sleep While The Rest COMPETE ...
And War's An Excuse To ... Keep The Peace ... ?!?  
  
Wars Just ENSURE That People BLEED ... !!!!!  
Like Terrorist Acts Through Bombing Deeds ... !!!!!!  
  
These Are Things That Make Life TOUGH ... !!!!!  
Like Leaving People To Sleep ROUGH ... !!?!!  
  
Why Try To Bluff If You're NOT TOUGH ... ?!!!?  
Doing That ... Can Get You STUCK ... !!!  
  
You May Get STRUCK ...  
By Lightning ... " DUCK " ... !!!!!!!!!!
  
Tough Luck Son ...  
Like THAT ... You're DONE ... !!!  
  
Life ... These Days ...  
Is Far From ............. FUN ........ !!!  
  
Except I Guess For .... " Comedians " .... ?!?  
  
So Many of Them Now Walk The Streets ...  
And Some Are In The ... " Poetry Scene " ... !!!!!!!!!!!  
  
Well Of Course I Mean ...  
Those Who Feed ... DELUDED Dreams ... !!!  
  
And Lack The Thing That Gives Their Show ...  
A Flow of Jokes That Make Folks ... SCREAM ... !!!  
  
"Give Us MORE !!!"  
  
While They APPLAUD ... !!!!!  
  
It's Tough To JOKE ...  
When Most Are BROKE ... !!!!!  
  
Broken Down By Those Who CLOWN ...
And Keep Making People Pay Pounds ...  
  
For Using Trains ... !!!  
Are They ... INSANE ... ?!?  
  
Trains Are FRAIL And Now DERAIL ... !!!  
While Those In Charge ...  
Are Bailed ... NOT JAILED ... ??!!!??  
  
Courtrooms Like ...  
Train Signals .... " FAIL " .... !!!
Those Who Can't Afford Their Bail ... !!!
  
While Those Who CAN Like ... " Government Man " ...  
Have ALWAYS GOT An ... " Escape Plan " ... !!!!!  
  
I'm Saying .... !!!  
When They've Got SO MUCH ... !!!!!!!!!!!  
  
Does This Mean They Can't Be Touched ... ?!?  
  
Even When They Should Be CUFFED ... !!!!!  
  
Haven't You People HAD ENOUGH ... ?!!!?  
of Having Them ... Just Run A MUCK ... !!?!!  
  
It's Time AGAIN To Use Our Pens .... !!!!  
And ... BUILD OURSELVES ... !!!!!  
Because Governments Cause Us PROBLEMS ... !!!!!!  
What Do VOTERS ... See IN THEM ... ???? ! ?????  
  
Watch Them CLOSE In Parliament ... !!!!!  
Nonsense Used To ... " Supplement " ...  
Their GREED for Dollars Pounds And Pence ... !!!!!!  
  
To Make Life TOUGH For ALL OF US ...  
Women Men And Our Children ... !!!!!  
  
Kids Now Face ENOUGH Problems ... !!!  
It's Tough To See What's Left For Them ... !!!  
  
It's Time To DISMISS ...  
Our ... " IGNORANCE " ... !!!!!!  
  
When We Get OLD And NEED Their Fold ...  
They May Care MORE For ... " Pots of Gold " ...  
Or WORSE The Latest ... " Mobile Phone " ... !!!!!!  
  
While Old People Are Stuck In HOMES ... !!!!!  
  
NOT Their Own But ... " Government Ones " ...  
TRUST ME Folks They're NOT Well Run ... !!!!!!  
  
I've Seen FIRST HAND With My Own Mum ...  
Nurses Are ROUGH And Do Some Stuff ...  
That May Make Some Resort To GUNS ... !!!!!!  
For MISTREATMENT of Their LOVED ONES ... !!!!!!!!  
  
That May Sound TOUGH ... ?!?  
But This Is Where We May End Up ..... !?!  
  
Like The Saying Goes ...  
  
"When the tough gets going  
The going gets ... TOUGH ... !!!"
  
What Does That MEAN ... ?  
  
Well Nowadays It May Mean THIS ... ?  
  
Guns And Clips When Tempers FLIP ...  
Especially When In ... ANGRY KIDS ... !!!!!!!!!  
  
BUSTED Lips More Use of Fists ...  
And YES Of Course ... MORE Gun Bullets ... !!!!!  
  
Is This How You Want To Live ... !?!  
  
Trust In THIS ...  
Right Now I'm PREPARED For It ... !!!!!  
  
I'm NO TOUGH GUY ...  
But DON'T You Try ...    
To See If I'm Prepared To DIE ... !!!
  
You May Just Find I'll CALL Your Bluff ... !?!  
And See If YOU Are ... REALLY TOUGH ... ?!!!?  
  
TRUST ME Folks I've Had ENOUGH ... !!!  
And WON'T Be Taken For A ... MUG ... !!!    
  
You May Just NEED A LOT OF GUNS ... !!!
Cos' ... Just Like SCARFACE I WON'T RUN ... !!!!!!!  
  
Don't Be Surprised If I've Got SOME ...  
Cos' If I Have You May Get STUNNED ... !!!  
When What YOU SEE Is YOUR OWN Blood ... !!!!!  
  
I'm Simply Saying ...  
How We Live Is NOW ... " MESSED UP " ... !?!
  
And As I've Said I've Had ENOUGH ... !!!!!!  
of SEEING US ......................................... IGNORE This Stuff ... !!!  
  
THAT If Addressed ...  
Could Bring Us BACK To ...  
  
... " Peace and Love " ...  !!!
  
And STOP MAKING This Life So .........  
  
........ " Tough " ........ !!!!!
It was certainly hard enough when I wrote this, however, who could of forecast how hard things may just get, with those now involved in todays world of politics & economics & of course BULL... !!!
Danielle Shorr Oct 2014
Tough girl isn't afraid of much
Tough girl is strong
And brave
Tough girl has mastered the art of apathy
The science of not giving a ****
She is confident
And swift
Tough girl has trained herself not to care
Walks with confidence
Keeps her head up
She is a whirlwind of resilience
Withstanding each disaster
Every hurricane
She refuses to let the world break her down
Her skin
Is a combination of metals
Her smile, a shield
Bone made of iron
She is incapable of corrosion
Her heart always guarded
She is unbreakable
Knows how to put up a fight
And win
She doesn't give in
And no matter how hard people try
To bring her down
She doesn't let them get to her
But I
Am not her
Our resemblance is uncanny
And I have the ability to pretend
To fake a sense of pride long enough to believe it
A concoction of false courage
And intimidation
But she
Is not me
Tough girl is everything I have ever tried to be
Having spent hours practicing blank stares
And learning how to walk
Like the ground below you isn't breaking
Trying to breathe like there isn't a storm building within
Resistance is a skill I have spent forever trying to build
But I am not solid
I am not tough
I am softness that wears rough around the edges
A jacket built of barriers
With barbed wire skin
All of this protection
And I somehow still manage
To frequently break open
I am not a super hero
I can barely save myself
Let alone anyone else
And as much as I wish I was
I am not tough girl
As much as we look alike
As similar as we seem
I am not she
I care too much
Think too deeply
And love too passionately
But I'm starting to realize
That maybe
It's not such a bad thing
Maybe the girl
I've been trying to be all along
Is not as put together as she seems
Those who appear fine
Are often the ones coming apart at the seams
I may not be tough girl
But I can still make believe.
Tough love
Tough times
Not feeling tough
Just that bit rough
So toughen-up
Pull your socks up
Get tough
… if you can
else just be a nice good person
That’s a tough job though
So tough-it-out
Until somebody says
‘Tough luck’
Then, you’re back where you started
Which is tough.
Written Tuesday 3 November 2020. UDID 9002-1013-1.0.0
Robin Carretti Aug 2018
Breaking up is hard to do
       let's rise take it easy
       Waking- up don't be lazy
My morning glory spiritual stretch
Soothe me like a tranquilizer
His words are my pacifier
The shooting star sprinkling shot

Stars work dot to dot
They connect get rid of all
broken heart subjects
Soothe me star even if there
is nothing to do

We need to do something
Earth wind and fire just
knock-me-out
Don't lock me and throw away
the star key is it going to Key- West
 Daylight no broken light in my
        Star stuff- sight
Light to the dark twilight

Those zillions of stars my
eyes closed I suppose
Take another look lovely rose
The same spot share the good stuff
I saw the soothing words
Star pointed toes who knows
Even
or to out-win the odds?

Not the starry night
Going through something
It's been a hard day night
One star light years to fight
Breathe in and soothe me
It was up to me not to blind me
My cool spirit meditation table

The New York soothing menu
Rendezvous all talk but delicious
She is tough walking
The hardest avenue
The *Positive me
even if its the
broken up me that's the only me
No one can take his place to soothe me

French fondue it suits her another clue
Red White moody blues the statue
Do you all agree? Another feel good
shopping spree are the stars true
I cannot even say soothing-word
Your home is your oasis love stuff
                Venus

Sooth me star stuff no one to minus

The hard stuff is to better yourself
The feel-good smooth flowing
Even if you missed your star
You're the no star he's is always late
Soothe me star may be my fate
Cafe warm running lattte late

The forever flight hit so hard
  Got_  Thrown brick harder
They say remorse is the
poison of life
And divorce could be the best
change in someone's life

OH! Lord The new? Hard cushion/night

"The winding rough road see the light"
*It may be tough but make it good deed
Athletic Girly curve walk
The pep talk she had the tough birth
The Preppy he's training the puppy stuff
You don't have to be a star it doesn't matter

Who you are
Never get in the middle of a dare
Show the whole world you care
Puff the magic dragon
Harder side of logic is the mission
Been Moonstruck light flick
Both mouths a volcano

Hard star stuff ham and swiss hero
Exploring new stuff
Please take it from pointed star
beware?
She walks like she is hot stuff
Those color forms of love stuff
Things and stuff
Stuff and things

Walking through the end of
the exit
It a hard position of the angle
Tough to be single even more
to deal with lotsa stuff to be married
Being the first online
I am getting a handle on my stuff

Indie Pop like Ice Queen Pop
Going mainstream
She's Brook long stream
He's under the influence
She doesn't nearly have
the up to par patience
Gifts of curiosity

Adjusting to reality
Hard life too much focus
On our happiness
He's coming home
breadwinner of money
Just one loaf of
bread she blossoms
Disavows humanity

The harder the words
How it challenges our sanity

Dark crayon hard stuff
Heavy_Rough__Tough
Wild Hawaii Say Hi to all our
blissfully but soothing hearts
She is like a hard sandpaper
He is so cool reading his
worldly carefree life

He is inside the newspaper
Big Ben London guard
How mindset like Hallmark card
Too much Holiday Turkey going
****** tunes when there is I tunes
So powerless word hard ingenious
Be thankful for what you have
But feeling too much
of the dry spell that rain fall
Going to that heavenly gifted secret
Like an Elephant, you are

the tough one the smart one magnet
No-one is perfect to be the
brilliant one
The star way of the fantasy
Nothing fancy doesn't make you jump
Presidential Trump Roger Rabbit
My lucky tower rabbit foot
Between a hard rock meets her sexuality

Having bad luck long shot solitude
Hallucinations all dark things hurt
My imagination world is sometimes
belly overstuffed Santa Claus
I love the hard candy bitter- sweet metal
Who gets the Metals and honors
The Terminators better leaders

PJ-Clarkes Princeton NJ
Superman Clark Kents
We need more therapy events
Princeton pancakes no remakes
And tons of maple syrup
***** Tonk women at the rodeo
Her horse lucky hoof sooth me

Stars real stuff
New York City roof ruff ruff
A hard rock and critters
And then you wake
back to the hard stuff

Soothe your pain the goodness of the rain
Hard life or its way too easy what is truly better I know my moods change in this hell of a gun weather. Let's keep our spirit high and heal our minds to get better don't you want a better life or something in the middle of the road make sure you don't kiss deeply inside of a hard binding book of the fairy tale. You are worth so much more than kissing a toad but we are talking about the hard stuff please go easy on me
SøułSurvivør Sep 2018
SLAP POETRY

In heaven Satan was the best,
The worship-leader, very blessed
Magnificent, all would attest
Thought he'd be above the rest

He thought he should be in God's place
That he'd slap Jesus in the face
He fell from honor... fell from grace
In the end he lost the race

God is TOUGH.
They'll scream & shout!
All Satan's angels in a rout
In the end they got kicked out!
Satan thought he had a plan
Yep. He thought HE was the MAN
Finished before the Book began
He was like lightning as he fell
And in the end he'll go to hell.

YEAH. God don't play.
Don't take no guff.
There's a point
He had enough!
Had His fill of
Stupid stuff...
Let me tell you,

GOD IS TOUGH!!


Pharaoh thought HE was all that.
On a golden throne he sat
Yeah, he WAS a mean ol' cat
Hebrew sweat made his land fat

Put the Hebrews through a LOT
But MOSES had another thought
Pharaoh's heart was
Hardened... caught
Through Moses God
Caused Egypt's rot...

Because of Moses' bravery
Pharaoh ended the slavery.

God is TOUGH!
They had no hope
God gave Pharaoh
Lot's of rope
Through Moses
God brought on a curse
Plagues of sorts which
Were the worst!
Pharaoh thought
He would be first
But it played out
As though rehearsed.

End of scene. Act. Then show!
Moses cried, "LET MY PEOPLE GO!"

Pharaoh did as it appears
THE HEBREWS WANDERED
40 YEARS!!

CHORUS

On the mountain God he wrote
The Ten Commandments
That he spoke.
They were written for the Folk
His very finger carved them out
As Moses stood up on the mount.
Moses came back for to find
His people had just lost their minds!
A golden calf is what they'd wrought
With the gold that they had brought
Moses made a golden draught
And made them drink it as they ought.

He begged with God
Not to destroy them!
Other tablets to deploy them.
To God's ways. There were Ten Commandments
So the people's have a moral fence.
God brought order. The Law was sent.
So the people would repent.

God is TOUGH! So don't be fooled!
He will judge... And by His rules!
Those who follow are as jewels
Those who don't are Devil's tools.

CHORUS

Now God has a dispensation
To save the people! Save the Nations!
God left heaven as a babe
So the people could be saved!
So His people could be well
From spirit's sickness - Satan's spell.
They called His name Emanuel.

From God's seed and divine birth
Jesus came and walked the Earth
His little flock he taught & gathered
He was teaching of the Father.
He taught goodness & great wisdom
He taught us how to
Find the Kingdom.

The Pharisees in anger brought
His death upon Him, for he taught!
He cast out demons. Healed many!
Gave the people food aplenty!
So the givers of the Law
Hated him for what they saw
Accused him of sin and vice
So they crucified the Christ.

God is TOUGH!
Jesus was cast down
With bitter gall and thorny crown
He put him in a criminal's grave
So that many could be saved!
Stripped of clothing and of pride
The wrath of God was satisfied
He put him in a criminal grave
So that many could be saved!

By his blood and by his death
He brought out the Lost, bereft.
For three days he was Underground
The women came and then they found
He had come forth! He had the keys!
From the devil took with ease
Hell, death, and the grave
He took all these!

CHORUS

Now, Christ in Resurrection stands
He's the greatest of the grand!
He gathers people from all lands
To bring them out
With a mighty hand!

But you'd better take advice...

Accept MERCY....
FEAR THE CHRIST!!

CHORUS


Cathy Jarvis
9/24/2018
Slam poetry + Rap = SLAP!

Thanks for reading! I know it was long, but I hope it was worth the effort... I really put a lot of effort into it myself! God bless you!
Brent Kincaid Feb 2017
Pretending while the rest of us are descending
Into the legislative hell you love so well.
Tough *****, DC City,
You get no sympathy from me.
Half the country is on drugs, and you’re all smug.
******* clowns, I hope you all go down.
Tough *****, DC City,
You don’t much impress me.

You sold your souls to the big money creeps
And soon you won’t be able to sleep.
You are finding out the old saying is true;
You are judged by the company you keep.
And you’re keeping company with half-bright thugs
And ugly fat cats with purely evil souls
You value wealth more than suffering people.
You’re those without compassion on the whole.

You think if you lie often enough we’ll believe
Sadly that sometimes truns out true.
Tough *****, DC City,
Your fingers are sticky as glue.
The people may burn your mansions down.
See if your bribes protect you then.
Tough *****, DC City,
I hope the good people jail you.

I wish I could hold back paying my taxes
Just like you rich people manage to do.
Tough *****, DC City,
I’d laugh as you tumble.
When your corrupt regime falls apart
You’ll want us to rescue all of  you.
Tough *****, DC City,
I’ll sit back and watch things crumble.
Deepali  Jan 2023
A Sacrifice
Deepali Jan 2023
Its tough to fight
Its tough to Strike
Its tough to smoothen the ****
Its tough to motivate our mind
Its tough to conquer our feelings
Its tough to win the shine
Its tough to show our emotions
without any pinch of drama
you wana loose up all the pain.

Its tough to win this life
Its tough to take all the love
family, friends and
OuR RIGHTS
Goodnight...
Antoinette G Feb 2015
Life is tough they say to her
When she has things she needs to say
Things she need to say
Life is tough
They say
Every time they hurt her
Life is tough
She repeats to herself
But she learned that life is not only tough
It cold, cruel, and mean
So she finds release
She didn't know what she was doing the first time
She slowly pulled it across her leg
She made sure not to hit any arteries
Her mother expected her to be a doctor after all
As her blood dripped she felt all her stress flow away
At 12 she started
By 13 she was good at making sure her mother didn't notice
Even though she knew that she never really did look at her
Alone she carried out her ritual every day
Every night her silent tears lulled her to sleep
She longed  for her mother's affection
But her longing was never fulfilled
So she repeated life's tough every time she cut herself
By now they criss crossed her legs
From thigh to ankle
She wanted; no needed the release it gave her
All the pressure of perfection,hurt,and pain leaked out in her blood
It ran red for her alone
Her's
But life is tough so the girl keep coming back to her knife
To release her pain
Until she found that she could weave her pain into words
She explored with it
And found herself sitting performing a new ritual
She writes her pain, her stress into poems
But life is tough
But now the she has a way to toughen through it
All by herself
The farmers are doing it tough
Tough, it is hard to understand
Why they give money to the farmers and when it comes to helping the homeless they don’t give a ****
You see people give all the money to protect the farmers
And they don’t want to help the homeless
The homeless need more money
They are sleeping rough rain hail or shine and if we don’t get rain the farmers want to be helped, mind you the food comes from there and you know what Australians think of Aussie grown and  we must sort of think of that but the homeless are swept under the rug by Australians when they ask for a few simple dollars and they get nothing, and you never see a telethon on television for them
But you see the formers get the nod, well I suppose farmers are having a tough time but they have a home at night to go to
While the homeless have nothing
Sorry, I feel strongly about helping homeless people through tough times and I am just saying my piece
jules  Oct 2014
Tough
jules Oct 2014
When I moved to the city I expected everything to change, fast.
I wanted to leave behind this shell of a girl
Torn apart by hands too rough and voices too loud
Come into my own this
Maybe Girl Maybe Boy Maybe Yes Maybe No
Whirlwind of being ball of energy hurricane
I wanted to be tough.
I wanted to be the kind of person
That people would look at and say
My God
I don’t know if that’s a boy or a girl
Whatever they are they are **** as ****
But **** I wouldn’t go anywhere near them without asking first.
I started buying cigarettes and drinking whiskey
Got a half pit-bull half Rottweiler
Shaved my head but not my legs
Pierced my nose and my ******* and anything else that I thought would make my mother angry
I wanted to be tough.
But I want you to tell me
How I can hold my head high and walk through these busy streets
When the same voices are loud and are bodies close too close much too close
When I go to a bar and eyes assault me
Looking but not seeing
Thick hips and **** and red lips
How can I glare back?
When I go to a University party with my girlfriends
Get so drunk I can’t stand and my legs turn to rubber and my head turns to glass
And he finds me and takes me upstairs turns out the lights and hurts me
How can I snarl and tell the world to go ***** itself?
Fear is not something we are born with
It is taught
when that dark car pulls over and asks your 8 year old self if you’d like a ride home
when your first boyfriend tells you he loves you before threatening to slap you across the face
when the man on the subway waits to see what stop you get off at
when he crosses the street to your side
when boys talk about grabbing a girl’s *** as “ice breaker ****”
I am not tough
I am afraid
It permeates my being and I know for some part of you it permeates yours too
Fear has left your No Vacancy light on and no one else can check in.
Ladies of every color and age and walk of life
Ace Pan Bi Gay Trans Queer
Female presenting or passing
They’ve taught us fear
They’ve taught us that toughness is reserved for your man your protector
I am here to tell you I’ve seen fear so close it breathed down my neck
And being tough is not about cigarettes and leather and piercings
Sometimes it’s about being fragile and wearing thick *** armour
Girls there is nothing wrong with faking it until you make it
Let your bones show
Scream and cry and stomp your feet
Lash out baby yell till your vocal chords feel raw
Let your ****** ***** freak flag fly
Tough as nails might not look how your trapped suburban self imagined it
Remember that the conversation of your hand intertwined with hers
Speaks louder in your memory than the screams of telling him to go **** himself ever could.
Let bravery be your Vacancy light.
Be tough.
Kurt Philip Behm Jul 2024
Chapter 30: This Ain’t No Country Club

He stared longingly out the back window of his Dad’s

car. He was headed off to the country club again, missing

the nightly ‘Wiffle-Ball’ game with the guys.

The playground was not a country club. There was no price of admission, or exclusive standards necessary to be admitted. You could be black, white, red or yellow. It didn’t matter. What did matter was how you played, and how you fit into the group. You may have been a social outcast or juvenile delinquent outside the playground, and yes we had a few, but what really mattered was how you acted inside the fence.

In 1958 my parents joined the local country club. Being a young, upwardly mobile couple, and enjoying the success of my father's growing business, my parents decided that this was one way in which they could celebrate. I hated it! Not because I didn’t like the people there or didn’t want to learn to play golf. It was because it took time away from my favorite place — the playground.

After dinner in the summers, my parents would hurry up and clear the table and then head to the ‘club’ with us kids in tow to get in nine holes. This of course meant that I had to miss the nightly ‘Wiffle-Ball’ game in the street. I would then have to suffer through the entire next day hearing who hit twelve home runs and who threw who out trying to make it home. It just wasn’t fair. How could a country club ever compare to a ‘Wiffle-Ball’ game or the playground? It couldn’t. Not then, and not now. The country club was stuffy to a ten-year old, and the country club had strange rules. Most of them seemed to be about what you couldn’t do.

A Direct Opposite From The Playground

How we go from the inclusive nature of our nation's playgrounds to the exclusive practices of our golf, tennis and yacht clubs is probably the subject for another book and another writer. I am just so grateful that my earliest experiences were on a grass field surrounded by a chain link fence. It was inside that fence that I felt the playground wrap its four-acre arms around me and, through its spirit of free-play, teach me the greatest lessons I would ever learn.

How we develop the later prejudices of black/white, democrat/republican, or any choice at the exclusion of another is not something we learned there. At the playground, in the absence of parents and adults, we had to fit in and find a way to adapt to one another. The weather and the big guys called all the shots. That’s the way it was, and that was A-OK with us. It worked, because at different ages, and at different times, we all got to be squirts, then decent players, and finally the big guys.

It Was Fair Even When It Was Unfair

If that doesn’t make sense to you, then you probably didn’t grow up on a playground, where the whole truly was greater than the sum of its parts. There were no polo ponies or alligators on our shirts symbolizing our dreams. We lived them every day, and we lived them together!


Chapter 31: Violent But Not With You

The stare-down was over. Joe took the first punch but

delivered the second, then five more. To his credit,

Bobby was still on his feet, but the fight was over.

The playground’s resident tough guy could be violent, but he almost never directed that towards you. Not unless you were dumb enough to challenge his honor by publicly embarrassing him or making him look like a fool in front of the other guys. Then, the punishment was swift, like being shown the door after making your company look bad because of a dumb comment you made at the quarterly board-meeting. Nothing was more fundamental or learned earlier than the recognition of power.

The young neighborhood girls sensed this more than anyone, and it harkened back to Robert Bly’s ‘Iron John’. “Men are attractive because of their fierceness”. The Playground took on an aura proportional to its ‘tough guy status, not unlike many corporations. The tough guy’s roles were limited but invaluable when called upon. He was the playground’s last line of defense, even though his role was mostly one of deterrence. Similar to many companies, the tough guy’s role was usually passed down from the resident champion to his heir apparent, sometimes willingly, and sometimes not.

The mechanics of this process were mostly known only to the tough guys, but it gave the playground the stability and the security it needed. In the movie ‘A Few Good Men’, Jack Nicholson, while under interrogation from Tom Cruise says: “Somewhere in places you don’t admit, you want me on that wall, where four thousand Cubans try to **** me before breakfast”. He then finishes it with the immortal line: “You want the truth, you can’t handle the truth”. In our playground, the truth was governed by principles based on natural selection and the Law of the Jungle. Bobby Gross was our resident Tarzan.

Bobby was from the poor side of our town and was almost sixteen in the eighth grade. He had been ruling our four-acre domain for as long as anyone could remember. Bobby always seemed so much bigger and older than we were. It wasn’t only his age that made him the resident tough guy. Bobby earned and retained this title due to the several times when he had successfully defended his crown. These events though seldom, were major occurrences in the playground and were attended like a championship bout. They almost never happened by accident and were full of anticipation and bravado. The challenge usually came from another playground, and we were all extremely proud of Bobby when he successfully defended our honor.

Bobby almost retired undefeated. At sixteen, just about everyone leaves the playground for the world of cars and girls. I say almost because of Joe Church. Joe was a Navy brat whose Dad was an Admiral at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. They had just moved up from Norfolk Virginia, and one gray Thursday afternoon Joe showed up on the Playground for the first time. No words had to be exchanged, or threats made, it was just something you knew. Bobby and Joe knew it better than anyone. There could only be one playground number one, and today there would be a changing of the guard.

Like Bobby, but even more so, Joe was advanced physically for his age. He was very athletic and muscular. He had an air of quiet defiance, bred by years of moving from one Navy town to the next having to defend his honor at every stop. No one quite remembers exactly how the fight started. Someone heard the word ‘punk’ shouted and it began. It was over almost as quickly as it began. After taking Bobby's best shot, Joe pinned Bobby up against the chain link backstop and beat him to a pulp with less than six punches. This kid could really fight. It’s funny though; with Joe there was no bravado or posturing, just a raging controlled fury that you hoped would never be directed toward you. Joe was later highly decorated in Vietnam, and all of us who shared our waning years on the playground with him were very proud— including Bobby Gross.

Another Playground Legend Was Made!

Most corporations have their resident tough guy, or gal. You can only hope that they got their training, and cut their teeth, on the grass and asphalt of a distant playground. That way you can be sure that their lessons were true. If not, you may have to suffer the rants and tirades of some William Agee or Jack Welch wannabee. The real tough guys pass their strength along in the form of confidence and security to those working under them, just like Bobby and Joe did for us. This creates an atmosphere of stability and confidence that allows everyone to thrive and prosper and comes from lessons truly learned and paid for. The god’s of the playground instilled this in all. They entered your soul on the fields and courts of adolescence ...

And Never Left.

— The End —