There is an old Chinese saying: "A father should beat his son once a day; if you don't know why, he does." It is a saying that Mr. Albertson took seriously. He was a religious man and believed that his chastisement of his ten-year-old son, Jimmy, would keep the boy on the straight and narrow and turn him from being "a sinful wretch" into "a gift of heaven." Thus, every Sunday after church, he took it upon himself to discipline his son whether there was any reason to do so or not.
The routine was always the same. On the family's return from church, Mrs. Albertson would begin to prepare the noontime meal while Mr. Albertson and Jimmy had a "talk" in the living room. After such conversations Jimmy was always wiping tears from his eyes and rubbing a sore bottom when the mother called the two of them in to dinner.
The "talks" began with Mr. Albertson seated in his favorite chair and Jimmy standing shame-faced before him. Mr. Albertson would say to his son, with a very solemn look on his face, "I'm going to have to punish you before dinner, and you know the reason why. I want you to tell me right now what it is that you have done wrong. I don't want to have to remind you of it, or I will punish you more severely."
Little Jimmy knew from past experience that to say he had done nothing wrong would be considered a lie and would be dealt with in a much more painful way than if he admitted to some terrible crime that he didn't even do. And he also knew that his father was already aware of some imperfection in his behavior that had occurred during the past week, or at least suspected one. So he would answer by relating an incident in which he had been involved such as, "I had a fight with Billy at school," or "I cheated on my arithmetic test" (it was safe to assume that the teacher had already told his father about this), or "I forgot to clean my room yesterday."
It took quite a bit of calculation on Jimmy's part, most of this during the church service, to come up with the right answer. First, he needed to decide what "sins" his father might already know about, then the ones his father might have known about, and finally he could discard those he was sure that his father would not be aware of. The less serious the crime, the less punishment, and so it was always better to list several minor infractions than one major one. Occasionally Jimmy forgot to mention something of which his father was aware, and then the father would double the punishment for such an offence so that Jimmy would "never forget it again."
As soon as Jimmy answered his father by listing one offence or perhaps two, his father would stare at him and say, "Isn't there something else you would like to tell me?" The expression on his father's face was such as to indicate that he was quite aware of the fact that Jimmy was holding some error that merited punishment to himself.
At this, Jimmy would often collapse in embarrassment and pour out all the things he had decided in his original calculations not to reveal. This process of "telling all" could sometimes be more painful to the lad than the actual spanking he knew he would soon receive.
Having finally satisfied the father's wishes, Mr. Albertson would then ask his son, "What punishment do you think you deserve?"
Another conundrum. Jimmy would now have to decide how severe his chastisement should be. If he chose the wrong implement -- spanking by hand, for example -- and the father thought the punishment should be applied with a paddle, then the father might decide to use the much-more painful belt to "really teach his son to behave." If, on the other hand Jimmy chose a paddle when his father was contemplating using his hand, the father would agree that the paddle should be used.
There was also the problem of the number of strokes to be levied. Again, if Jimmy chose too few of them, the father would take Jimmy's figure and add to it the number he had earlier decided to mete out. Thus, if Jimmy said five strokes and the father had mentally decided on six, Jimmy would receive eleven of them. However, if Jimmy picked a figure higher than that planned by his father, he would get the number that he had specified.
As soon as the number of strokes and implement to apply them was agreed upon, Jimmy was expected to go to the closet and retrieve the implement for his father, if he was to feel more than just his father's hand. Then he was expected to lower his pants and get promptly into position, either over his father's knee or across the table at the side of the room, or just bent over touching his toes. The implement used determined what position he was to assume.
During this retrieval and positioning process, Jimmy would always plead with his father to be lenient, and he would promise again and again to be a good boy in the future. But the father knew that this was only an attempt on the boy's part to delay the inevitable, that if he was to train his son properly, the boy needed to have his little bottom turned from boyish pink to fire-engine red. So the father would always shut his ears to the boy's pleadings.
The father spared the lad nothing as he peppered the boy's behind, believing that the screams coming from Jimmy's other end only meant that the devil was being driven out of him. Finally the father would end the process and allow Jimmy to calm down before dinner.
Such was the Sunday routine, and it continued until Jimmy was old enough to leave home and go out on his own.