Flash Player is no longer supported! Use https://snippets.wikidot.com/code:html5player instead.
“No! No Ellie you can’t play with it, it’s mine!” I screamed as I pushed my cousin to the ground. As I stood up with my toy high above my bright blond head rejoicing over my victorious bout, I saw Ellie crying and stamping over to my father. That was the worst mistake I made that year. My dad immediately pounded my ass red and swollen. For the next week it hurt just to sit down. That was the last time I ever disrespected a women, mainly due to fear of my father but fear turns to habits and our habits make us who we are. Throughout my childhood, I was taught by my father’s whooping that I was to be respectful to both my elders and women. I believe in spanking children.
My mom never agreed with my dad methods of punishment. So after setting fire to a small bush in the yard she attempted to give me, a ten year old boy, a “time out,” the ridiculous idea that sitting in a room for an hour or two will warp an energetic child’s behavior. In my room all alone, I got bored. Then I remembered that my brother had showed me how to make a fire out of two sticks and a shoe string, turns out I just made a lot of smoke. Once the piercing sound of the fire alarm began ringing in my ear I heard my father pounding up the stairs. As I stared at the entry to my lime green room my hands began to tremble. I watched in slow motion as the seemingly gigantic white wooden door creaked open. Sitting on the dark wooden stool in the middle of the room I watched as my father pieced together what had happened glancing from the still smoking pieces of wood back to the fire alarm, I knew a spanking was coming faster than a freight train to Richmond. After reaching up and pulling the batteries out of the fire alarm he sat down on the bed shaking his head. As he did so my superman pillow fell to the worn-out wood floor below him, our eyes caught and he said ever so calm “You’d best get that pillow.” At the time he seemed to whip me to death. However looking back after receiving a few real thrashing it was more of a few light pats. That was the first and last time I ever even thought about trying to start a fire in the house.
Now I am eighteen years old and I haven’t had one of my father’s beatings in over six years. However the lessons gained through them have become as much a part of me as my own skin. The bus from Denver International Airport, absolutely jammed, every seat had been taken. An elderly women with spotty faded gray hair slowly stepped on. Her almost white eyes searched for a seat as she and her blue walking cane creped down the aisle. Before I knew it I was standing in the narrow walkway in front of her. As if it was instinct I offered her my seat.
Standing in the aisle the only thought in my head was that I wish I had another seat to give. Looking around at little girls and elderly men standing as young fit men sat comfortably I came to wonder why I had just given up my seat. I reminisced childhood lessons and the only ones I could recall where those where I had been spanked by my father.
That’s when it dawned on me that all the good virtues and values that I hold can be traced back to a spanking or some form of physical punishment. Those lessons my father “beat” into me as a boy have made me into the respectable man I am today. There is something magical about a father beating that imprints lessons long after the swollen red handprint have faded.