I call myself "Fourteen" because that is the age when I needed and got frequent paddlings and whippings. I look back on these experiences and remember how painful and uncomfortable they were--and yet my behavior would improve for a few days, then I would go back to my old ways, and again need to be bent over for something that I didn't want. I have to wonder to what degree "cowhide laid across boyhide" can serve as a long term deterrant because right after my bottom became comfortable again, it was like I would do something to earn another whipping. I didn't like getting whipped--and did not get any satisfaction from it--so why didn't I improve my behavior and say, "This is enough for me." I am interested in the reader's opinion. This was the first of two beltings at school when I was Fourteen.
I had gone to elementary school at a public school where corporal punishment had been forbidden--so upon entering the eighth grade at a private Catholic High School, I had been surprised and apprehensive the first time that my PE coach pulled his paddle out and--in front of the class, laid three whacks upon the bent over bottoms of each of three of my classmates. I could tell by the looks on the faces of the three fellow thirteen year olds that the paddle was for more than just show. I resolved that day in September to never need to be on the receiving end of a spanking at school, especially after relating the incident that night to my parents, and being informed in no uncertain terms that if they ever found out that I had been paddled at school, that I would feel the belt at home--something that I knew for sure was designed to help me regret misbehavior.
The school also had a Dean of Discipline--an administrator whose job was to ensure that misbehavior at school--the serious misbehavior--would be dealt with swiftly and thoroughly--and I had heard stories about the ways that he did things. I did not want to get tangled up with him either--but as we all know, what we want and what we get (especially at fourteen) can be two very different things.
It was in March of 1969 when a classmate made a remark to me at lunch that I did not at all like--calling me some name, and my reaction was to take my cup of Coke and throw it all over his blazer. I thought that this was really funny--laughing for a couple of seconds until I felt a hand reach down and grab my shoulder. Startled out of my giggling, I looked up--and there was the Dean of Discipline.
"You will come to my office immediately after lunch."
Red faced, I mumbled, "YYYes, Sir." I always had a tendancy to stutter when I knew that I was in for something more than I had bargained for. The other kids at the table were having a hard time maintaining straight faces--and they all broke out in laughs and grins when the dean walked away. Now, I was the only one not laughing. (He who laughs last...)
"Do you think he'll paddle me?" I asked no one in particular, hoping that someone would soothe my fears with something like, "Of course not." It was not to be.
"You'll be lucky if that's ALL he does."
"Yeah, I've heard stories about him expelling kids for less than what YOU did."
"Yeah, You're really in for it.--You're dead."
Finally, the lunch bell rang--time for me to find out what will happen. With mixed feelings of apprehension about finding out what horrible fate awaited me, and relief at being able to quit imagining things more horrible, I slowly knocked on the door marked "Discipline Office"--remembering a sign that some kid had hung there a few months earlier--remembering the words, "Woe to Those Who Must Enter." I was ready to start crying right now--what will happen?
"Enter!" He was there. I had sort of hoped that he wouldn't be so I could run to class and maybe he had forgotten.
"Sir, I'm here as ordered." I walked in and stood at my best Boy Scout attention before the desk.
"Do you know that it is forbidden to throw food in the cafeteria--that it is considered a most serious offence?"
"Yes Sir, and I am sorry, but Mike said something mean to me, and I'm sorry, but I just did it without thinking, and I promise never to do it again, Please, I never will do it again."
He reached into his desk drawer, "I am going to help you remember that promise, and make it where your commitment never to 'do it again' means a lot more to you." My knees buckled slightly, I thought he was pulling out a paddle, but instead, it was a piece of paper--a piece of paper that I feared much more than a paddle. "You are to have this signed by your father and return it to school tomorrow, bringing it here before first period."