I've Got a Bone to Pick With You....

“… I’m digging up bones, exhuming things that’s better left alone. I’m resurrecting memories of love that’s dead and gone, Yeah tonight I’m sitting alone diggin’ up bones. “ Randy Travis

Tempers flared, fists flew. Two boys beat the air and occasionally one another in the hot, swirling dust of the sandlot behind the gym.

Tooth and nail they fought, oblivious to chants, “Hit him, hit him harder.”’ Two 8th graders were settling a festering feud. Hatfield and McCoy legends begin in this way. The issue? Why, a girl, of course…a classic love triangle!

The battle soon subsided. The combatants, nursing scratches and lumps, regrouped with their own set of pals, leaving the crowd to decide the winner or loser. There is always a winner and a loser. Today the girl lost.

Last night an old yearbook yielded this memory of 53 years ago. I laughed recalling it. Dick and I were the pugilists. Her name was Dee. Dick had circulated the message that I had “messed” with his girl, and he was going to “get even.” Pride was armed. But what’s new?

Pride needs an enemy to fight. Today its adversary was The Defense of Manhood, a powerful opponent in any engagement. It was a classic standoff between arch enemies: Pride and Manhood.

Dick was the Quarterback of our football team. I was a lowly tight end. We did the work, the QB got the glory. Animosity existed between us for weeks, but I dismissed it as pride. QB’s overflow with that gene. He’d call the plays…somehow I always got the short pass patterns across the middle, the territory of the biggest, meanest and most brutal players, the line backers. I was always crushed, mocked by his grinning glee.

Dee was not a cheerleader or band majorette, those high school status symbols of rank. No, she was just an average “farm girl,” and smart. But she had caused a minor division in the football team by spurning Dick’s advances. He had been rejected in front of his friends and fans. QB’s are known for thin-skin self-esteem. For some reason she “liked” me, but my unrequited response further inflamed the tense drama.

This no-win situation had become extreme. A resolution was necessary. Hell, the football team was in danger of losing, and being a loser threatened the team’s pride. It literally screamed, “You boys handle this problem, now!”

The situation started at a “prom” party in the country. Those “prom parties” were socials where adults allowed youth of opposite gender to “experiment” with being alone with one another for a short walk down a dark, dirt road. I had been alone with Dee for 15 minutes, but when we returned to the house, she suddenly “liked” me. My recollection is dim, but it’s possible I confused her with thoughts which were later attributed to President Carter. But naiveté and time prohibited acting on them.

Now “liking” someone meant you were “going” with them, the precursor to “going steady,” which generally occurred when a car or pickup was available. Its translation? “Back off, boys, she’s mine!” It was sort of like a dog marking the boundaries of its territory, so to speak. Which is interesting, seeing that the derivation of the term, “I’ve got a bone to pick with you,” originated from a standoff between two dogs and one bone…this, a “bone of contention.”

Now innocent school girls are only bones metaphorically, but it’s for sure that boys are like dogs actually…”what’s mine is mine” is the mantra and code of manhood and pride. As long as it’s this way, there will be bones of contention, many of which are resolved by conflict. Logic simply does not prevail in matters of pride or manhood. Not yet, anyway.

In this tale’s epilogue, Dick later “won” the girl, who had returned to her first love. I guess I was the loser there, but not in the sandlot. Not that either of us would have made the first-round cuts of Golden Gloves competition, but we had both defended our passions. In some way we were both winners.

Dee won the final round…women usually do. She got Dick, I got good passes. Hatfield and McCoy were friends again. However, one score still needed settling. On the night of the final football game, somehow I missed all of my blocking assignments, and the quarterback’s ego suffered a crushing defeat. Vengeance is mine, saith the lowly tight end!

“Diggin’ up bones” is a good way to spend a rainy evening.


Bud Hearn
May 13, 2009