I'll never forget the first time Dad went to the birch tree, got a branch, and told me I was going to get my butt whipped with it. It had been a long time since I'd gotten whipped. I was nineteen at the time, and Dad didn't believe in whippings for boys over fourteen or so. I'd always been happy about that, since I took after my mother's side and wasn't anywhere near his size.
We'd gotten an early snow. Maybe six inches or so. But everything was white and Jimmy _c_o_c_k_rin and I decided it would be great fun to take the snowmobile out. Worse, we didn't figure the occasional scrapping of the runners was anything to worry about.
When Dad got home from the mill we were in the front yard talking about girls. He parked the car in the garage, next to the snowmobile, and immediately noticed the smell and heat.
He looked at us. Then at the underside of the runners.
He began walking toward us.
"Go home," he barked at Jimmy.
But he walked past me, too.
He stopped at the white tree, calling me over and whacking three hard times with his pocket knife to cut through a good sized branch, the kind with several smaller branches and lots of twigs.
"I'm going to whip your ass with this birch, Dean. Now get in the garage."
I walk to the garage, trying to think of an excuse, or at least something that would get him in a better mood. I was terrified to be in the garage alone with him and at the same time I was trying to stay some sort of safe distance in front of him.
"You did use that snowmobile without asking, didn't you?"
"Yea, Dad, but we checked the oil and gas and belt, like you showed me."
"And the snow. Did you check the snow?"
I explained that everything was white. And we only noticed the runners scrapping once and quit. He called "bull" on that, the runners looking "like they'd been drug over cement blocks. And who knows what you did to the track."
"You're lucky a birch is all I'm going to use on you, young man. Now get your ass in there."
I had been taken to the garage for whippings before. First Dad used his hand and the last couple of times he had made me stand with my pants down and grabbing my ankles while he used his belt on my butt for three hard straps.
But he hadn't been mad then like he was now, a real resolved sort of mad, and I was trembling inside. Dad pulled the garage door down behind him.
"Take off every stitch of your clothes, Dean."
Standing between Mom's car and Dad's pick-up, I started with my shoes, bending over to unlace them with my foot on the fender of the car. Kind of trembling and not in any great hurry I got a sock off and started on the second shoe. Dad grabbed my collar and brought that birch branch across my stretched jeans.
There were lots of little twigs flying all over the garage and some dead leaves falling on the floor. But mostly I remember the swoosh and feeling the individual fingers of the birch twigs even through my pants.
"Now hurry it up."
Man, now I really was trembling and wishing I was anywhere but here and at the same time kicking it into high gear with the getting undressed. I didn't want him any more mad.
I took off my shirt. Reaching for my belt, I pleaded I didn't know the scrapes were that bad, and I'd buy new ones from my dish washing job.
"Get them off, boy," was the only response I got.
I undid my belt and fly and pulled down my jeans and pulled off my pants, kind of falling off balance with each leg. I felt naked and didn't know what to do and was really shaking, both inside and out.
"Come on, boy, get those drawers off your ass." I pulled my shorts down to where they fell off my legs.
Dad grabbed me by the back of the head and bent me across the hood of the car. I remember the steel being cold under my body which made my shaking even worse.
"Now, do you know why you're getting this, Dean?"
I said "Yea, Dad."
"Do you know how disappointed I am in you?" I shook my head yes.
"Spread your legs wide, Dean. We're going to make sure you learn as much as you can from this birch."
"Wider than that, boy. Get them spread wide open."
I spread my legs as wide as I could and heard a swoosh and felt the birch. My whole ass caught fire.
I felt the fingers of fire on my cheeks and between my legs and on my balls and on the sides of my cheeks and up between my legs and on the tops of my legs. Geeze, man.
Another couple of seconds I was holding my hands over my ass and holding my legs as close together as I could. I slid off the car and was on the floor, crying for Dad to know how much it hurt.
In a minute or two I had calmed down a bit. Dad picked me up and threw me on top the the car's hood so I was laying across the center of it.
He told me to spread my legs again and to take my hands off my butt, that I was going to get two more. I said I couldn't take any more, Dad, please, and he told me to get my hands up over my head and my legs spread wide.
I reached over my head and reluctantly spread my legs open. "Now reach up as far as you can. And spread those legs further open than that." I spread myself out as far as I could reach.
"Now stick that butt up in the air." I begged him not to hit me again with the birch, but I pushed my ass up.
"You keep that ass right where it is this time, Dean, or we'll add another swat. Here it comes."
Again, that swoosh. And again my ass caught fire. Only this time the fingers of pain crossed the tender spots from last time as well.
Oh, man, I begged for no more.
"Keep it there, boy, or I'll give you more." I stopped my slow pulling away and closing my legs and got back in position.
Dad let that one sink in for about a minute. Every second it seemed I discovered a new ache and every one of them kept hurting worse. Dad lifted the birch and held it over me.
And with the seconds of warning the sound gives I had the birch on my ass for the third time. Oh, man . . .Oh, geeze, my rear end hurt.
"Keep it up there and let it sink in, boy." Oh, man. My entire ass end hurt, man.
Dad told me if I ever did anything that stupid again, he'd give me ten strokes. And he'd make me hold my ass cheeks spread open for five of them.
Then he told me to get dressed and come help stack wood when I could, and not to take too long at it. Then he left me alone there, legs spread, ass in the air, naked on the hood of the car.
It was a good half hour before I managed to get my britches on.
Hope you enjoyed it.