We were one of the first families in our neighborhood to have a swimming pool, and it attracted kids from miles around. They enjoyed swimming in our pool even though I, and a few friends, tormented some of them by playing a game we called Submarine. Since I was thirteen and bigger than most, I was particularly adept at this game, the object of which was to pull off the other person's swimming trunks while they were in the water and deposit that apparel at the edge of the pool too far away for the victim to retrieve without exposing his bare bottom to the other swimmers when he got out of the water. If the hapless swimmer could induce a friend into retrieving the trunks for him, he was saved from embarrassment. If not, he usually would linger in the pool until most of the other children had gone home.
The game was great fun for those of us with speed, agility, and size advantage enough to be able carry these bathing suits to shore without becoming victims ourselves. For others, however, the game sometimes resulted in tears and much anger. After just a few days of such fun, most of the swimmers, when they saw me coming their way, would hastily move to the nearest grouping of other children in the hope that the number might offer them some protection from my assault. Of course girls didn't have much to worry about. Their one-piece suits, with both arm holes and leg holes, made it almost impossible to disrobe them underwater. So those of us who enjoyed the game most concentrated on the younger boys.
All went well until the day my sister -- two years younger than me -- sported a two-piece bathing suit in which the bra was held in place by a bow at her back. How could anyone resist such an opportunity? No sooner did I see her alone at the deep end of the pool concentrating on her backstroke than I was swimming under her, my hands grabbing the edges of the bottom part of her bathing suit while my teeth pulled at the bra string. She screamed, but it was too late. I hurled the two parts of her bathing suit as far from the pool side as I could throw them and swam away in glee.
Little did I realize that my father had seen it all through the window. He came out of the house, retrieved my sister's outfit to toss to her, and called me out of the pool.
"Just why did you do that?" he asked in a much too stern voice.
"I don't know," I replied, not sure what to answer. "Just having fun."
Wrong answer -- I knew it as soon as the words left my mouth.
One of the younger boys sitting on the pool edge decided to be helpful at that point. "He does it to us all the time,~ he told my father.
"Do you find it fun?" my father asked him.
"No, he's a bully," the kid replied.
It was probably then that my father decided that I should be taught a lesson. "Everyone get out of the pool and come over here," he called to those in the water. And then he pointed to a wooden bench that was near the pool (part of our backyard furniture) and said to me, "Get over to that bench."
It suddenly became clear to me that he didn't want me to sit on the bench but that he was going to use it in tanning my backside. I tried to protest that I hadn't hurt anyone and that I would never do this to my sister again, but to no avail.
With me standing at the side of the bench and all the kids standing around watching, he said to me, "Take off your trunks!"
"No, please dad," I protested, "not in front of everyone."
"You seem to want to see them without any bathing suits on, though I certainly don't know why. Now they can have a chance to see you without yours."
"I was just having some fun," I said weakly, as my father not too gently yanked the woolen object down and off my feet so that I was totally exposed to the assembled group of gawkers, both boys and girls.
"Bend over that bench," he told me as he pushed my shoulders down toward it, "and do it now!"
There was no arguing with him once he had decided what he was going to do. I submitted myself to my fate, and placed my hands on the bench so as to lean over it.
"No, not that way," my father ordered. "Put your hands on the ground. I want your bottom stretched over the bench so that it is up in the air. And spread those legs apart."
I suddenly realized that he didn't intend to use his palm to spank me, as he had often done in the past, but that he was going to use some object, such as a stick or a belt, that would hurt me much more. I shuddered at the thought, but could do nothing but comply. Why, oh why had I decided to go after my sister that afternoon? Why had I been so foolish as to not realize that my father might be looking out the window? Why couldn't it be yesterday again instead of today? The thoughts raced through my head. In the anticipation of the impending pain, I almost forgot that there was an audience who would be able to see it all.
Then I heard my father tell the other kids to get their towels. "Because my son has hurt and embarrassed many of you," he told them, "I think it's only fair that you have a turn in getting back at him. So you will all get a chance to flick the ends of your towels at his bottom."
Ouch! That can really hurt! I knew from showers after gym at school that the end of a wet towel flicked in just the right way can raise painful welts on one's body. The gym teacher frequently had to call a halt to towel fights that sometimes erupted after class. Again I cried out, "No, please!" but to no avail. My father was determined that I learn a lesson right then and in front of everyone.
The other kids were only too eager to comply. Soon I felt the ends of wet towels brushing my butt cheeks. None hurt very much at first, probably because it was the girls and the younger boys who were trying to inflict the damage and they had not yet developed their towel-flicking skills. But then one of the older boys let go with his weapon and that stung. I let out an "ouch" that seemed to delight the assembly. The boy who had inflicted this first wound then began to instruct the others as to how to hold the towel so that it would inflict the most damage, and soon most of the blows were striking home like a mass of hornet stings.
The pain I was now feeling was intermixed with anger since I knew that the boy instructor was one of those who most readily joined with me as an adversary in the game of Submarine. He should have been over the bench suffering the same fate as I was.
At the point when my posterior seemed almost unable to take any more welts, another of the older boys (also a Submarine fan) discovered that the flick of his towel at my inner thigh would produce an audible scream from my mouth. Then all the kids began to aim their wet towel ends at my inner thighs, and I yelped and yelped. When I tried to move my legs to protect them from the blows, two of the kids bent down to hold my ankles so that the legs would stay in place. There was nothing I could do to protect myself, and I began to learn how much pain wet towels can truley produce.
Finally my father called a halt to the proceedings. He told the assembly that he would now finish the punishment himself, and he warned all of them that the whipping he was about to give me would be their lot if he ever caught any of them playing this game in the pool again.
John, who was one of the older boys who had gotten as much fun out of being a submarine as I had, told my father that he, for one, would never engage in such activity. The dirty liar.
Next I heard the sound of dad pulling his belt through his trouser hoops. He doubled this object and then let swing at my already quite sore bottom. I just lay there sobbing as he delivered perhaps fifteen well-placed lashes with his belt. Then he told me I could get up and put my bathing suit back on. But I had no strength to do that nor any desire to touch my sore rump with tight woolen trunks. I just lay there sobbing as he returned to the house and most of the kids went back into the pool.
Finally I calmed down enough to get up, grab the trunks, and beat a hasty retreat into the house and into my room. It was some days before I decided to once again join the others in the pool. It was a summer I will never forget.