My older sister and I had one great big fight to send us on out of
childhood for good. She was a budding athlete and had made the school
basketball team twice already and I had not and that was a sore spot
for me. She was the kind of sister who wouldn't mind touching you
right on the sore spot if that was what she thought needed to happen.
One day when she was in high school and I was still in junior high we
had a disagreement over who was tougher, physically and mentally,
boys or girls in general and she and I specifically. Christy's best
friend Summer was over and she was pitching in here and there in the
verbal portion of our argument and when we were unable to come to
agreement we conjoined the physical contest to determine who had the
right of the argument. We tussled back and forth and forth and back
without making much headway until we ended up on our knees in a
double side headlock stalemate and both in tears. We both were
cranking down as hard as we could on each other's heads and crying
and cursing. Summer had stopped cheering on Christy and was now just
taking in the spectacle of our indomitable wills. We stayed locked in
mutual side headlocks torquing away for a very long time and I don't
remember how or why we were broken up but it was not by the
capitulation by either of us so insofar as our family was concerned
on that day the battle of the sexes was a war of attrition that ended
in a tie.
