@wmwcjr,
I have to wonder about this, wmwcjr.
That face washing with snow thing happened to me too, the second day after we moved to the Chicago area, in November of 4th grade. A girl up the street, larger and surely tougher than me, threw me down and smashed my face with packed snow - and was just getting up to get more snow when the girls in the house whose yard I was in came out the front door and yelled at her. I can't remember, but I think they were inside, bringing out hot chocolate, which turned out to be something their mother was fond of serving. Meantime, I was totally stunned, having not having many children at all to play with in my life before we came to Chicago. That girl up the street was the one my father had met when he rented our house before my mother and I traveled, and thought would be a nice friend for me. Ha!
Anyway, I think it was explained to me that that was a kind of rite of passage, and that girl was just a meanie, and not to pay her any attention.
I did get along with the rest of the kids on the street, in that school, and those were pretty happy years. Four years later we moved a couple of blocks away, and a known meanie girl lived in the house by the alley on that new street. I remember walking home from school nervous about her - again, a taller, heavier, older, famously trouble making girl. So I almost ran into her by mistake, and said 'hi' for lack of anything else to say. Damned it she didn't start walking along with me. She may have been trouble but I'd judged her wrong, and we walked together some other times.
So I don't know about that particular bully story, Wm, unless there was more to it.
I know there are real bullies - just don't know if the snow face-rubbers are them.
