Fight or flight

When I was in my 20s I went to a wedding reception held at Ice Cracking Lodge near Perham. Along with me were some of my best friends, my cousins and my sister. Our group had basically grown up together spending summers at the cabin on Round Lake. We were all very good friends.

During the dance, I was approached by a guy with whom I had little interest. He wanted to dance. I did not. I asked him to leave. He was relentless and continued to annoy me and started really talking trash until I had had enough. I threw my beer in his face. It was fight or flight.

His buddies jumped over the table to come to his rescue. My friends and family jumped in the mix as well, including my sister. We chose to fight.

It was a hot summer night. These were wrestlers and hockey players combined with a couple of gymnasts. Use your imagination. It wasn’t very long before chairs started flying. We all knew the owner of the little resort lodge and he politely asked us to knock it off before he called the sheriff. He may have blasted a couple rounds from his rifle into the air as an exclamation point.

We got the message. While tempers were still hot and many of the guys were wiping up bloody noses and ears the bartender poured more beer. No charges were ever filed.

So what started that fight? Was it the guy who was bugging me? Or me who threw the beer? Or the guy who threw the first punch? Does it really matter? What we did, what I did, wasn’t right. But I am not going to say I would never do it again, either. If provoked, I just might. And if my sister or any of my cousins or friends need me to toss a beer for them, I can’t say I wouldn’t do it. Was that dude right to harass me? Absolutely not. But do two wrongs make a right?

Still, it is human nature. Fight or flight. We all reacted to a situation with instincts — gut reactions. Not unlike coming to the aid of a spouse with the intent to protect.

We are all born with this instinct. The autonomic nervous system is divided into two parts: the sympathetic system, referred to as the fight-or-flight response, and the parasympathetic, referred to as the relaxation response. Fight or flight has been engraved into our souls since the beginning of time. It was essential for survival at one point in world history and sometimes, it still is.

The Tramms were not on trial last week. Who started the fight and how, was irrelevant to the charges of assaulting a peace officer. I apologized to Denna when she called me and I printed a correction. Should she and her sister have filed charges for sexual harassment against the dude from the dance floor? Only those girls have the answer to that. But the reality is they didn’t file charges. Like the 1,000s of incidents of sexual harasment and sexual assault that go unreported every day.

As for the comments on why I didn’t mention allegations of police misconduct? Simple again. The officers were not on trial. The fact that complaints against the officers have been reported has been mentioned in previous articles published in the Messenger. Also mentioned in the Messenger was that several agencies turned down the request to investigate those allegations and that the taxpayers of the city of Isle are now paying thousands of dollars to an outside investigation firm to do the investigation. All of this is irrelevant to the trial on the charges of assaulting a peace officer.

There were nearly four days of testimony during that trial from nearly 20 different people. I heard a lovely romance story of two people who met and fell in love, have been married for 30 years, both seem to be good people and care about the town where they live. I heard hours of testimony from the other witnesses as well. There is no way I could write even one blurb from every witness.

As to the question of the involvement of alcohol there was only one person who testified they drank only Diet Pepsi that day. Those who admitted they were drinking said phrases like, "I had a couple," “5 beers, maybe,” “Maybe 7 or 8,” “I don’t count,” “I’m a beer drinker.” The incident happened in the beer garden after selling 29 kegs of beer. So was alcohol involved? Hmmm ... Let me think.

My intent was to summarize a very lengthy trial to the best of my ability. I have re-read my notes several times since then. I stand by my notes. The mayor was found not guilty. There was celebration at the local pub with champagne after the trial. The story should be over. Why is the fight or flight mechanism still activated? Maybe we should engage the other half of our instincts — the parasympathetic system, and relax.