Tanning Hides II

I must have been no more than six or seven. Still a little guy. I was with my dad and my brother, making a trip to the grocery store. I think Mom was working evenings then and Dad was in charge of dinner. He was never all that keen on the idea of my mother working, and more than once made her give up her job and stay at home with the kids. But knowing my father, it was likely just because he wanted dinner waiting when he got home from work. Cooking for himself and watching the boys was a bit more, I'm sure, than he was willing to give.

Dad was the kind of man who viewed himself as the breadwinner (with the emphasis on winner), and thought he should be celebrated as such. My mother working not only inconvenienced him, it gave the appearance he could not support his own family. At least in his mind. So I can rightly imagine that Dad was already none too happy as we walked through the store.

We'd finished our shopping quickly. Get in, get out. Two cans of spaghetti don't take long. And as we stood in the checkout line, I was completely overwhelmed by all of the candy, sweets and gum that are always strategically placed there to entice. I think they are aimed at the children, whom we have all heard before, whining and pleading at the checkout just at the moment that parents are rushed and most distracted. And more likely to buy a piece of candy if it will end the child's relentless pleas. It's either that or making a scene in front of one's fellow shoppers. I think the proprietors know this.

But they didn't know my father. There was absolutely no hope of my brother and I ever using this tactic. In all likelihood, even asking more than once would mean a reckoning once we reached the car. So there was no thought of asking. Still, I really wanted something .... anything. So many candy bars, and redhot candy, and banana taffy, and bubble gum. And it was all right there. I knew that stealing was wrong. Or at least I'd been told it was wrong. But I wasn't altogether clear on the whole money thing, and my grasp of the inner workings of capitalism were extremely lacking. So the why of "it's wrong" still eluded me. I mean, what would it really hurt if I just took some bubble gum? They're small. That means it would just be a little wrong.

The advantage of being two-and-a-half feet tall is you are often hidden in plain sight in the land of the giants. You are lucky if you're noticed at all, let alone seen by a cashier as you shove a handful of bubble gum into the pocket of your little jacket. The heist came off without a hitch and as I climbed back into the front seat of the car, between Dad and my brother, I felt so pleased with the gum I could feel in my pocket that if I didn't tell somebody soon I'd explode.

There have been many occasions growing up when I've made the mistake of treating my brother as my confidante. I say mistake because I know he never cherished the role, and would just as soon rat me out at the first opportunity. So don't ask me why I felt the need to tell him what I had just done. Except that maybe I thought the opportunity to share in the booty would be enough to assure his loyalty. And so, leaning close so that my father couldn't hear, I spilled my triumph in one short sentence: "I took some gum."

No sooner had the words left my lips, my brother betrayed me. "Dad, Mike stole some gum!" My heart sank. My own brother.

My memory from there grows a little fuzzy. Although I imagine probably being asked if I stole gum and having no choice but to admit it. I know my father was more than a little angry. At that time he was "a good Christian", and our family made the regular Sunday services at the Baptist church. So, needless to say, there was more retribution at work here than simply Dad's anger. The fact that I had committed a sin was undoubtedly more shame than he could bear. We're talking old-testament-style wrath-of-God-type punishment that was needed here.

Suffer Unto Me

Once we arrived home my father took me into the house, stripped off my pants, unbuckled and removed his belt, and grabbing my wrist and holding it above my head, he began to whip me. With a leather strap, across my behind and around my legs, he whipped me. He whipped me so thoroughly that it left blisters on my legs. Then he sent me to bed, without supper, where I lay crying until my mother returned home,late in the evening. I remember her putting some kind of medicine on the blisters, and the pain was so acute I couldn't stop my legs from shaking.

The next evening, after my father came home from work, he loaded my brother and I into the car and we drove to the grocery. He took me to the checkout and made me tell the lady at the register what I had done as I returned the bubble gum. I did not tell her what my punishment had been for stealing.

There is little else I can remember. I cannot tell you how long it took for the blisters to heal. And I don't remember my father apologizing to me, though I'm sure he must have.

It's very hard to look back to childhood and view my father in any objective manner. It's not the same as looking at him, as seeing him, with adult eyes. Seems as though with the coming of age and life's experiences, also come answers to many lifelong questions concerning our parents. And understanding often will come at the same time as responsibility and obligation, and a wallet which seems forever thin.

Dad As Father

As is often the case, my father also happened to be my hero. And the love he was capable of showing could make one forget the anger which lied beneath. There were times during a long drive somewhere that he would entertain us with a stuffed animal held outside and against the front windshield. And he could keep us giggling until we reached our destination. He would also fire our imaginations by making up stories such as telling us he used to be a pirate when we questioned him about his machete. Machete, sword? We didn't know the difference. But we knew our dad used to be a pirate!

And then there was baseball. I became a good ballplayer because of the many hours my dad spent with me in the back yard. He drilled a hole through a baseball when I was very small so that he could attach a rope and teach me how to hit the ball. I was just big enough to hold a bat. But he would spend time with me swinging the ball around in a circle so that I could learn to keep my eye on the ball. I loved baseball, and Dad loved to watch me play, rarely missing a game. I always knew when he was there. I knew when he wasn't.

He could be a good father. But there was also something within him, some uncontrollable anger that, though it may have had little to do with my brother and I, still found its expression in the disciplinary punishments he inflicted on us. One of which was to make us stand for hours with our noses planted firmly in a corner of the living room. We were to stand until he told us, without talking, and without fidgeting. When he decided we'd been punished enough (or when he suddenly remembered we were there) he would then send us to our room. But this was a punishment which became so routine that I devised a game to pass the time whereby I'd watch to see how far my tears would roll down the wall.

To Everything ...

It was a sunny summer day I will always remember when the worst finally reached its end. I had just committed another spanking offense and my father had instructed me to go outside and bring him a switch. My task was to pick out my own switch, bring it to him, and then suffer through another whipping. Although I was relieved the belt had somehow been left out of the equation, the prospect of the switch was only slightly better than the leather strap. But to be forced to choose the implement of my punishment was disturbing to me in ways I was too young to understand.

I cried and bawled across the front yard until I came upon a small stick, next to a tree, which I carried back for my father's approval. But seeing its size only angered him more, and he instructed me to get him "a real switch". His reaction and the anticipation of the whipping to come made me cry harder as I searched for something bigger ..... but not too big.

I returned shortly to the front door and for a second time my father rejected my switch, telling me to get him something bigger, adding an "or else" and the threat of the dreaded belt. I literally wailed as I searched the yard, knowing that all was lost and there could be no escape. And I think I must have decided that if he was going to beat me, he might just as well beat the living hell out of me. If I could have uprooted a tree and brought it to the door, I would have. But instead I found a huge limb that had fallen during a storm and decided to drag it to the door. Still crying, I jerked the limb, one foot at a time, until I had gotten it partially onto the front porch, just as my father reached the door.

At first, the look on his face was one of confusion. He knew the next step was supposed to be more anger followed by a whipping. But the scene before him was just so absurd, so comical, and so .... funny. He covered his mouth for an instant, before showing me a scowl and telling me to forget it and to go play. And I don't think I ever received a serious whipping again after that day. Or at least nothing close to the painful abuse of before.

Seats of Lower Learning

As I've said, it was a different time. Strict discipline was not uncommon and often the seats of learning for kids became synonymous with the seats of our pants. And whether at home or at school, it was the same.

Even as early as kindergarten I was introduced to the pain-as-educator methodology of discipline. A little girl and I had become fast friends and we always used to sit close to each other at the big tables. We would often sit and hold hands beneath the table, out of sight. But not out of the sight of Mrs. Mayhew. She began by scolding us in front of the class, and then made us hold out the hands that only moments before had been locked in our own secret, innocent joy. She gave each of those little hands a good swat with a ruler and then moved us apart. Love. Even as a child, inseparable from guilt.

I've seen a fifth grade teacher break a clipboard over a boy's head out of frustration. And personally experienced the overzealous punishments of a school principal who relished his role so much that he had holes drilled through his paddle because it was more effective, and named it "judgement". It was written right on the paddle. And though I never heard of him carving notches on the handle, it wouldn't have surprised me.

It all seemed so normal then, and was certainly acceptable throughout society. Every kid was in need of a little discipline. Some more than others. And some really really needed it goddammit!

That's not to say that it's all in the past, either. It still goes on. In some places even to the point of grotesque and unforgivable abuses of childhoods. We merely see it in a different light now. I suppose that is at least something.

And yet, we still tend to suffer from the same failings, the same root causes. We still grow angry and intolerant of children who do not unquestioningly do as they are told. We see signs of independence and rebellion in our kids and we move quickly to squash it and rid them of every trace. Just as we were eventually squashed, meekly accepting whatever we are told to do. And when they seek the reasons for why things are as they are, we have no answers for them. "Because I said so." We have no answers for them because we have no answers for ourselves. We stopped questioning and began accepting a long time ago.

But though we may have learned to accept our fates without question, our children have not. At least, not yet. Not until they have become as ourselves. And the cycle is repeated. For those who resist, there are only ropes made to bind. And for those who fight, there is only pain. And these are the gifts that we give to our children. That we give to ourselves.

Tanning Hides

Spare the rod, spoil the child. Back when I was growing up, this wasn't meant as a "how-to". It was a warning. I think my father took it to heart and I'm convinced he was a firm believer. When it came to discipline, he spared nothing. Switches, belts, or his bare hands, the little legs and butts of my brother and I received a regular tanning.

I suppose to be fair, it was a different time. The term child abuse had never even been born. Hell, disciplining your kids every now and again was a perfectly normal and acceptable practice. And if you had to use a little seat-of-the-pants instruction ..... well ..... it sure didn't raise any eyebrows. Anything short of actual physical harm was just a part of raisin' kids. And, unfortunately for my brother and I, that pretty much left our little legs and butts outside the realm of protections.

Now, if you happen to be thinkin' it was just dad doling out all the punishments, think again. Mom was never one to shy away from a much needed spanking, either. Although, she did tend to be more creative than Dad. For one, she didn't have my father's big leather belt. (He tended to use this as his ultimate persuader, and just the snap and pop of it as it ripped out of his pants was enough to make us quiver with terror and our legs tremble.)

But, lacking said belt or anything else nearly as convenient, my mother was forced to improvise. She might on occasion, of course, simply resort to her bare hands. But with daintier bones than my father, she often received as much punishment as she was giving and soon gave up the practice. (I used to think it was because she just found no inspiration in it.) Still, maybe that's why more often than not she would just tell us to "wait 'til your father gets home". But on those rare occasions when the boys would just do something so dastardly to each other that it could not wait for Dad, she would not hesitate to take matters into her own hands ..... along with anything else that was within reach.

My mother was a true innovator. It didn't matter where we all happened to be, inside the house, outside ..... Just when we thought we were safe because none of the usual instruments of pain appeared to be within her reach, she would surprise and dazzle us with something completely new and unique. I was spanked with everything from a wooden spoon to a yardstick, from a flyswatter to a hair brush. I still remember the day she caught us outside lighting up a book of matches and finding nothing within reach that was butt-worthy she yanked off her shoe and used that. It hurt, too. She had on a pair of those "flats" that were popular at the time and when she held it by the heal she could get a nice snap out of it.

But I think her ultimate triumph came on a particular day when my brother and I had been playing with our little "hot wheels" cars. Actually, we were probably arguing more than playing. That seems to be what brothers do, just to pass the time. We'd recently gotten the newest hot wheels stunt car track that came in these three-foot sections you could assemble to make any kind of track you wanted. No electronics involved. Just these bright orange, plastic sections that were fairly pliable so that you could make loop-de-loops for the cars. As was the usual course of things for my brother and I, the argument quickly escalated into a fight and we started tearing up each other's tracks, yelling and screaming, and tossing sections and cars and whatever else might add insult to injury.

It's important to understand that the house we lived in at the time was a fairly modest one and, since this was before we could afford carpet, it was all bare wood floors. And it just so happened that it provided my brother and I with an early warning system. Depending on where Mom or Dad happened to be in the house, we'd have three to five seconds from the initial footfall which said, "I ... have ... had ... e-NOUGH of this ...... (whatever)" until their sudden appearance in the doorway. About enough time to freeze and look into each other's terror-stricken eyes. (As well as trying to determine how best to present our separate cases to the judge/jury/executioner whose arrival was imminent.)

The countdown was started with the thud of the first heal coming down, followed by a staccato rythm that only quickened as it grew closer. BOOM-boom-boom-BoomBoomBOOMBOOM ... Whenever Mom reached the all-I-can-stand phase, it sounded like she was trying to drive her heals right through the floor. Then she would pause in the doorway for a moment, just to see our faces as we took in the full effect of her appearance. But this time she flew right on through the doorway and was amongst us before we could even offer our opening statements, and we knew that now we'd done it.

"I've had just about enough of ....", she began screaming. She was reaching for us and looking around for anything handy and all the while she's keeping this monologue going with, "How many times have I told you ...." and "You two are gonna' learn to ....." and with hardly a breath in between. Then she spies the bright orange, pliable sections of our new hot wheels stunt car track. Oh no. NO! The ultimate irony!

You have never been spanked until you've had a section of bright-orange-pliable-hotwheels-stuntcar-track used on your bare legs. A whipping was what it was. It's not the kind of thing you soon forget..... obviously.

But, Mom was never able to top that one. And as the years passed and we boys grew, she began to rely more on "Wait 'til your father gets home". Until finally she gave up on spanking us altogether, leaving to my father the role of ultimate enforcer. She would eventually begin to accept her new role as mediator, between dad and the boys, making us wait with anxiety for him to come home, while offering to lobby on our behalf if we were "truly sorry".

But, as I said, it was a different time. The disciplinarians were everywhere. And not just at home. And not just your parents. NEXT: Part Two