Frank my stepfather was real strict. Everything had to be just so with him or else there was trouble. I can't remember my real dad, since I was just a baby when he died, and just two when Mom married Frank. I had three older brothers, too. So I guess Frank felt he had to show everybody who was boss right from the start. Then he and Mom had Scotty, my little brother. She was real sick during the pregnancy and spent most of her time with the baby for the first years of his life. So she just sort of turned the whole business of discipline over to my step-dad.
I didn't think too much about it before I went to school. Frank was real nice a lot of the time. He took my brothers and me to the movies and bowling, to the park and ball games and all that stuff. But he made us all keep on a pretty straight and narrow path, and by that I mean a lot more straight and narrow than pretty. He made us all say Sir to him, he wouldn't stand for any rudeness or laziness, dirtiness or bad language, no lying and no careless use of tools or instruments. He taught us all how he wanted us to behave and what he expected us to do and not do. When we forgot what we were supposed to do or did what we were not supposed to, we got punished. It was that simple. Punishment--real punishment-- meant a spanking: hard, stinging smacks with the palm of Frank's right hand on the culprit's bare bottom, no matter where he was nor whom he might be with!
When we were real little kids, we just hated getting spanked because it hurt. The older we got, the more self-conscious we got about having to undress or be partly undressed. And we weren't usually uptight about that sort of thing. I mean, we were five brothers, we all dressed and undressed in front of each other and even in front of our parents. That is, we didn't usually care if either or both of them happened to be around when we were changing clothes or taking a bath, you know. We all slept in our jockey shorts and often worked around the house in our underwear when we did messy work that might have stained our good clothes or even daily clothes.
But by the time we were going to school, Frank felt that the old-fashioned over-the-knee, bare-bottom spanking with the open palm wasn't effective enough. So he started three punishments which we came to dread. These were called "MerryGo-Round," "Choo-Choo Train" and "The 100 Club."
"Merry-Go-Round" was sometimes used for just one of us but usually when two or more of us got into trouble. There was this spot in our house where three rooms came together. That is, besides the door to the kitchen, our dining room had two doorways at one corner, one to the living room, the other to the main downstairs hallway. So where the living room, dining room, and hallway met there were no doors, just a framed doorway from dining room to hallway, dining room to living room, and living room to hallway. So a person could walk in a circle around the corner where these three rooms met. Only, Frank would make us RUN around it. Bare-bottomed. While Frank stood in the living room with a belt, paddle or switch in his hand. And every time we ran by, he'd hit us on the butt with it. Boy, it stung! You had to count each lick, and if you missed count, you got two extra. Afterwards you had to stand with your face in a corner for an hour. After that you had to do some sort of work for another hour. That whole time you'd have to stay just as you were during the licking--with nothing on but your shirt, socks and shoes, sometimes just your shirt and socks, sometimes just your shirt. And if you had on a new or oversize shirt, you had to pull it up or roll it up so that all your bottom was showing. It was embarrassing walking around with your _d_i_c_k_ and balls as well as your bottom bare and in view to everyone in the room, and there was nothing you could do about it.
When more than one of us got in trouble, either if it was for doing the same thing or if two or more of us did different things wrong and it was brought to Frank's attention, and always if it involved three or more of us kids, then Frank would make us go through the routine that he called "Choo-Choo Train." This meant that all kids being punished would have to strip from the waist down--pants and underpants off--but instead of having to run in a circle around that corner post where the three rooms came together, he'd make us line up single file. He'd give each of us a switch to hold in our right hand.
Then, like a drill sergeant, he'd make us march "Hup, two, three, four!" Only, on the "Hup!" each of us would have to bring the switch down on the right bottomcheek or the right thigh of the person in front of us, then on the "Three!" he'd have to bring the switch down on the left side. I don't know where Frank learned about this sort of punishment, whether it was done to him as a kid or whether he actually thought it up himself, but this was a really diabolical punishment. Every one of us had to switch the butt of the kid in front of us, and we really had to do it HARD--'cause if he didn't, then he'd get put at the back of the "choo-choo train" where he'd get his "caboose" whipped by Frank, who could whip hardest of all.
On the other hand, you really didn't want to whip as hard as you could, or even any harder than you absolutely HAD to, because after the first twelve licks, Frank made us all about face for the second half of the "train ride," so that whoever it was whose behind you had been whipping, would now be whipping your bare bottom. So, you see, if you had whipped--or if he even thought you'd whipped him harder than you had to, he'd whip your bottom just as hard as he could. Of course nobody got to whip Frank. When the "train" was turned around so that the former "caboose" was now the "engine" and the former "engine" was now the "caboose," Frank walked over and took his new place behind the new "caboose" before we went through the second half of the "choo-choo train."
So nobody (except Frank) escaped getting 24 licks with the switch, but each kid on the end only got to whack someone else's butt for half the times he was getting his own whacked. After this, the same procedure was followed: an hour bare-bottomed in the corner and another hour bare-bottomed while doing work around the house.
The worst of all, though, was the "100 Club." This meant the kid being punished got 100 licks administered in four sessions of 25 each over a two-day period. For the first spanking the kid would have to take his pants and underpants down to his knees and lie over Frank's lap, where he's get his bare bottom spanked with Frank's hand. After that he'd have to take the pants all the way off and stand in the corner for an hour before he was allowed to pull up his underpants, but he had to leave his pants off and go around in underpants for the next 12 hours.
Then he would get another spanking, this time over the underpants but with the wooden hairbrush--25 whacks--and boy did they hurt! Then, even though the underpants had been up during the second spanking, they were pulled down afterward, not just for the next hour--the requisite "cooling off period" for a very red, very hot spanked bottom--but for the next 11 hours as well. For the third spanking, the boy had to take his underpants all the way off and go back over Frank's knee for another 25 hot ones dealt with the open palm again.
No "corner tome" was required after the third spanking, but the boy was not allowed to put his underpants back on. Instead he had a choice of wearing either a jockstrap or "cheek-a-boos" a custom-altered pair of red Speedo olympic swim trunks with all cloth cut away from the seat area. After another twelve hours the boy had to take these off and, again completely nude below the waist, had to "hug the bannister" for his final 25 licks, this time delivered with a willow switch. After that he had to take a bath and was free to do as he liked (within the rules of course), but to make sure that he reflected on the past and future coursae of his behavior, he still was not allowed to put on any clothes below the waist (except footwear) for twelve hours after the last installment of his spanking.
You might say that my brothers and I all turned out OK, but as you can see, we never forgot the special regimen that our stepfather put us through. I don't think any other kids went through anything quite like it!