I was twelve before I realized that the weeping willow tree was not named because of the ease with which one of its branches energetically wielded across my poor little butt could produce tears. My encounters with the willow switch though infrequent, were memorable. It was my mother's preferred form of chastisement. It was the conventional wisdom, with which mother concurred, that matters respecting a boy's discipline are best left to a man. It was thus that my uncle was designated chief disciplinarian in the household. My father had drowned in a fishing accident when I was five and we had gone to live at the New Jersey shore in a duplex that my father and his brother had owned together. Uncle Fred continued to occupy his upstairs apartment and we moved into the downstairs unit, which had previously been rented out only during the summer months to vacationers seeking to escape the oppressive inland heat and humidity.
Although the transition was quite easy for me, and I was delighted to be living at the shore, I realize now it must have been quite an adjustment for my mother. Like most women of her generation, her demesne did not extend much beyond matters of housekeeping and child care. She relied on my father for the rest and was undoubtedly shocked be widowed at such an early age. She had never even driven a car.
This little bit of autobiographical background is pertinent to my corporal punishment experience. I think mother's insecurity sometimes caused her to lapse into an irrational sort of angry panic. As time went on, I was better able to discern the warning signs of an impending storm and steer clear; but at those times when she was unpredictable or I was inaccurate in my assessment, she would pronounce the dreaded sentence, "go cut yourself a switch, young man." Anyone who was once a little boy knows that little boys are rarely innocent of any crime deserving punishment, be it talking back or disobedience, breaking, spilling or dirtying something, lying, walking on a freshly waxed floor before it's dry, fighting, notes from teacher, etc. So, I was never switched without some ostensible reason.
The dynamic of the new family relationship was established before we even left our old house in Baltimore. Uncle Fred had come down on the train the evening of moving day to drive us to New Jersey in our car. I was supposed to be in bed but continued to find excuses to get up. The third or fourth time I interrupted them in the living room, mother started to yell, her voice shrill with a panic that couldn't have been far from the surface. Uncle Fred stood up and firmly told mother to be quiet. He then picked me up and sat me down on the couch and spoke very kindly and reassuringly to me. I think this was intended at least as much for mother as for me.
He then carried me to my room, removed his belt and told me I had been disobedient and upset my mother and had to be punished. He laid me over the edge of the bed and delivered one firm swat with the doubled over belt. It hurt my feelings more than anything else. After I had cried a little he told me that was enough; the Kleenex were already packed, so he cleaned up my tears and snot with his handkerchief and told me to go apologize to my mother and then come right back to bed. I did exactly I was told. The last thing I remember after climbing into bed was being tucked in and told that I must sleep because tomorrow was to be a very important day and he was happy we were coming to live with him. He must have continued to talk calmly and reassuringly until I was asleep for next thing I knew it was morning and in the light, I saw that he had hung his belt on the door as a reminder should I decide to get up again during the night.
In addition to my uncle with his belt and my mother with her switches, my grandparents and teachers occasionally punished me. Occasional school punishments were usually with the ruler or pointer on the seat of the pants or the hand. The most severe punishment at school was the strap but this was threatened much more than it was actually used.
My grandparents lived about twenty blocks away in a house that they were continually modernizing. Incongruous among the gleaming tile and chrome of their modern bathroom was the razor strop that hung on a hook inside the door of an under-the-counter cabinet. It was no longer used for sharpening blades but was as effective as ever in keeping little boys like me sharp. When I was alone in there, I used take it off the hook and think of my uncle and father getting their asses beat by my grandfather with that formidable piece of leather with its brass hanging grommet.
Some readers of a younger generation may have difficulty understanding the absolute terms with which authority was regarded in the days before our government's stupid misadventure in Southeast Asia helped provoke a social revolution with "question authority" among its mottos. If a kid got a black eye or a bloody nose from a parent or teacher, it was assumed that he must have done something pretty serious to provoke it. If there was any disapproval of the adult's behavior, I never knew about it, except for a mild allusion to "bad temper." I never heard the term "child abuse" applied to any such incidents. The strongest condemnation I ever heard was for the parents of a boy who had set fire to the family car by playing with matches. The failure there was diagnosed as "lack of supervision." Actually, I think most of my family and their friends disapproved of the kid's mother who was divorced and attempting to bring up the family on her own by working outside the home. Maybe some of them also envied her a little.
Such characters as this junior pyromaniac and various delinquents we learned about through the news and my uncle's work in law enforcement were held up as examples of what happens to children when they aren't beaten enough. There was not a single dissenting opinion in home, school, church or neighborhood. Of course there were "experts" in magazines and television who had written books on child-rearing with alternatives to corporal punishment, which they regarded as ineffective, old fashion, violent and inhumane. When they were given any sort of audience, it was only so they could be scoffed at. One of the oldest jokes I remember was the oft-repeated one that the best application of a child psychology book is to the rear end of the child in question.
As I said it was very unusual for mother to strike me when my uncle was around. She would send me upstairs to confess my crime to my uncle and await his judgment, which was usually a few swats with his belt. When I committed a particularly egregious offense, she would phone after sending me upstairs to make sure I didn't attempt to minimize my behavior. His apartment was reached by means of an outside stairway in back of the house and some of my trips up those stairs were the longest I ever took. In our household the time honored phrase employed to strike fear in my little heart was "wait until your uncle get home!" Sometimes I would be ordered to wait on the steps, so I could report to him when upon arrival. He could hardly have welcomed such a reception after a long day.
My uncle's work schedule varied over the years. We would often have dinner together in our kitchen, sometimes after he returned home and sometimes before he went to work. If mother had a grievance against me, she would use the meal as an opportunity to air it (or "tell on me" as I thought of it). After she had presented her case, my uncle would pronounce his verdict. Sometimes I would get off with a reprimand (this always seemed to leave mother dissatisfied) and sometimes he would say with casual authority something like "remind me to beat your ass after dinner" or worse "after I get home tonight." On such days, I would try to forget that I had a whipping coming that evening but each time I heard the chime of a clock, I was reminded that my sentence was drawing closer. On rainy non-school days when I either stayed in or went to a friend's house, I would be constantly aware of the ticking of a clock, no matter how I tried to ignore it.
The punishment ritual itself varied little. If Uncle Fred was just arriving home, I would meet him outside near the door on the deck, which was really just an extra wide landing where the stair turn turned; it was furnished with a couple chairs and a table. Sometimes, after three or four days in a row, it seemed like I spent half my life waiting to get my ass whipped. He would get himself a beer or iced tea from the fridge and maybe a Pepsi for me and sit down either in the old green Naugahyde chair in his living room, or during the warm summer evening on the deck outside, which was shaded by the house and caught the sea breeze at that time of day. He kicked his shoes off, or I helped him out of his boots, and he put his feet up on the ottoman where I would sit. When I was a little tyke, I would sit on his lap at these times. As I grew, I would stand or, if invited, sit in another chair.
He would sometimes mention something about work or talk with me about things I liked: trains, ocean traffic, cars and motorcycles. I had learned not to mention my misbehavior before he'd ask "did you manage to stay out of trouble today?" or more innocuously, "how was school?", or "what did you do today?" On the couple of occasions I answered evasively, I had been caught and punished both for the original crime and for lying about it, so I did not withhold the truth.
With very rare exceptions, he whipped me with his heavy, wide uniform belt. If he was in uniform, he would remove it then and there. The sound of a belt being drawn through trouser loops can still give me chills. If he wasn't in uniform, I would be sent to his bedroom to get it from the place it always occupied, on the hook of one of those wooden valets. Sometimes he would get right down to beating my ass but most often, there would be a stern lecture and often a withering period of silence when he would look at me and tell me to explain myself. The "look" was the thing I liked least of all. I would have traded a few extra licks of the belt for that look. Anyway, by the time he actually got around to the strapping I was pretty repentant and even relieved that it would soon be over. I'd drop my trousers and place myself in an ass-high position over the ottoman or bend over and grab hold of the deck railing.
Just before the whipping was to begin, he would double the belt over and snap it taught, so the two sides slapped loudly together. When he actually got around to beating me, he was methodical and dispassionate. He would stand or sit behind me and give me a few firm licks--at least three, rarely more than six. After a while, I was able to take one of these lickings without making noise and without crying. If I had been particularly naughty, he would hit a deal harder, such that it would take my breath away and I couldn't help but cry a little. These whippings caused my rear to tingle and glow a little--occasionally they would leave a mark or two--but they could hardly be called abuse. I would be allowed to stay over the ottoman until I regained my composure (I never wanted to stay on the porch in my underwear) then I would collect his belt and shoes and put them neatly in their places in his bedroom. The punishment was officially over after I thanked him for correcting me.
He was always gracious in forgiving me and never held a grudge. It never occurred to me to resent him for punishing me. I also realize now that much of his disapproval and sternness was contrived to help impress a lesson on me. I also knew that, although his strappings could make my buns burn, he was quite restrained in the degree of force he used. I have described a typical punishment for quotidian offenses. I had compared notes with friends and even heard or seen some of them get it and knew that discipline in my home, though frequent, was moderate. If I had any doubt, my uncle told me certain offenses would be punished with "no mercy." These included using illicit drugs, "so much as touching" my uncle's guns or ammunition unsupervised and without permission, getting into any kind of trouble with the police, going into the water without permission or where there was no lifeguard on duty (remember my father died by drowning) and a few other things which I didn't find likely or tempting and cannot even remember. It was a few years before I ever got one of these severe beatings. These punishments remain an unpleasant memory but I will recount them in a later installment.