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