In loving memory of Mr. Ben Herman, who never failed to teach his students life lessons through his stories of ‘Pee Wee’. He always had a smile for me when I went to Wal-Mart and always spoke fondly of all his ‘kids’. He touched many lives and was certainly an encouragement to me. We love you Mr. Ben; you will be sorely missed.

PeeWee was the runt of the bunch. Having four older (and much bigger) brothers, he had to make up for his stature in his attitude of toughness. In fact, he was more mischievous than any of his brothers. As a result, he was also always in more trouble.

He and his gang of friends loved to terrorize the neighborhood and local playground. They liked to spit and bully the other kids. If they wanted to swing, they knocked out whoever was swinging. They had to have their way in everything. If any adults complained to their parents, they would just shrug and say, "Oh, they’re just being boys. They don’t mean any harm." Their parents was just glad they weren’t bothering them. They had too much to do with their jobs, church activities and social lives to teach their children that bullying was wrong. Besides, they learned all about bullying in church, school and watching TV. They weren’t really hurting anyone.

No one was immune to their pranks and bullying. They made faces and called their classmates names; they tied cans to stray dogs and chased them with sticks; they called the elderly rude names as they passed by. They loved taunting the old people because they couldn’t run away from them. All they would do was mutter and shake the occasional cane their way.

One day, an old man sat on the park bench, feeding the ducks. PeeWee was passing by, without his usual entourage. The sight of an old man, whom he didn’t know calmly feeding ducks gave PeeWee pause for some reason. He didn’t know why, but there seemed to be an aura of tranquility around the man. He had never seen the man before, and he knew everyone in the neighborhood. And everyone certainly knew PeeWee.