a slice of history

lunch in rishon le'zion - not my favourite of places, but the food was good in spite of the awkward service (an ars acting politely is an ars no less) and layers of filth on the tables.

the company was pleasant as usual, and now i've done my bit as far as seeing the family before leaving for the desert is concerned :)

i got home and immediately went for a walk, i couldn't possibly stay inside on such a beautiful afternoon. i took random turns until i arrived near the harbour...

... and ran into someone i haven't seen in twelve years. this is a guy i used to rollerblade with regularly, and it was he who pushed me down a short flight of stairs:

i was on rollerblades in the ballroom, and we were making an exit. as i hit the stairs, intending to take them backwards and one at a time, i was bumped and came down fairly quickly.

although i managed to stay upright, i brushed against the three people that were already on their way out. one of them, quite short and a year ahead of me in high-school, pushed me - and i simply shoved him back. i mean, i'd already apologized, there was no need to pick a fight.

suddenly i was being held up against a wall by his tall, blonde friend - the biggest gangster in our school. he was shouting at me and kicking at my blades, but i wasn't going down. he was getting frustrated, i was arguing back, and after about half a minute of this he put me up against the adjacent wall.

when he failed to get me off balance, he ripped off my cap and threw it to the ground, and my sunglasses followed immediately after. i remember screaming at him something along the lines of "dude, i'm much smaller than you!" when his elbow came crashing down on my throat. my head bounced hard against the wall, and the next thing i recall is coming around with a crowd around me, helpfully informing me that those guys were complete assholes.

i spent the next weekend unable to speak because my throat was all swollen, but i refused to press charges. the next monday at school saw me being threatened by a bunch of the blonde's idiot cronies (i actually ended up living with the brother of one of them for about half a year in 2003 / 2004), and someone got the school involved. that's never good.

during that week i went out blading with this guy, and on the way to meet up i found that the blonde bastard's buddies were waiting for me, on rollerblades, in cars, on motorcycles, and all armed with various handy items like baseball bats and such.

escaping from that was one of the scariest things i've ever been through, and even worse than that nightmare come true was the fact that they all knew where i lived, and they hung around waiting for me for hours.

so yeah, we had coffee and i learned just how different our paths went. i have to admit it was incredible and terrifying to be in touch with someone from such a dark period in my life, someone who really knows how unsheltered a world i lived in during my late teens and who is a shining example of how i made the right choices in life.

a world that i'm really glad i made it out of without too much badness.

on the way home, i stopped by one of ze germans, and ru55 and his fiancée rocked up. we had some wine and left together. i got back home and had an interesting discussion with the kid, and once again it's late on a workday night, a feeling i have happily been able to forget since tuesday :)