I remember the taste of his filthy
finger. It forever had grease under the nail, which was thankfully always cut
short. The skin around all his tips were calloused, rippled, and firm. It felt like
cutting as the roughness slid between my upper lip and gum with all the
gentleness of a jack hammer. Fitting, since his name was Jack. Every nose bleed
I’d ever had led to this home remedy of soaking a few rolled up squares of toilet
paper in cold water and jamming it between my lip and gum. I’d have to keep it
there for 10 minutes. The intent was to chill the blood vessels along my upper gums
to slow the blood flow to my nose. I suppose it worked, I never bled out. The cold
water would ooze and trickle down my tongue. The water felt nice, but it tasted
like the last cigarette he had on his way home from work. I’d gag. He’d say the
same thing every time, “It’s not that bad.”
I never
figured out the right time to roll my window down or leave it up. Sometimes it
would work well with her window down by itself, other times it might need
encouragement from my window too. More often than not, it just blew back in and
around the car and eventually up my nose. I hated cigarette smoke. That little
triangle window didn’t do what it was supposed to do. If I rolled my big window
down, I was told to roll it up. And if I pulled my shirt up over my nose or
plugged it outright, I’d get the same thing every time, “It’s not that bad.”
I
remember being told, “Wait until your father gets home.” And I’d do just that;
sit in my room and wait. Within minutes, impending doom crept into my stomach
forcing me to clutch and lie down. The room would get very bright and my head
would start to hurt. I’d sense a migraine headache coming on which just made
everything worse. Dad was coming home, and I was going to get it. Yes, I
deserved a spanking as that was the consequence for bad behavior. It’s what I
knew. By the time he got home I’d have either passed the migraine and fell
asleep, or I was deep into it and feigned death. In either case, it was about
to start again or get worse. That fear, and the fear of the spanking, made my stomach and
head hurt even more. By the time I was being hit, I was crying, ‘snotting’, sweating,
humiliated, and tried hiding all of it from the man I was supposed to respect. I’d
stand up, pull up my britches, and wipe my nose. He’d say, “Let that be a
lesson, and it’s not that bad.”
I like
to think my parents didn’t know they were harming us by smoking in the house
and car. Most people don’t have kids to purposely harm them. The spankings were
their form of punishment and if I had a kid like me I’d hit him too. I learned
to equate bad behavior with pain, fear, and humiliation. And I use those
memories today. This write up about my experiences is an excellent example of
how I use them to remind myself to appreciate what I have and that every
experience should help me be a better parent to my own children. Sharing these
with other people is just my way of internalizing, gaining acceptance in the
form of positive and negative feedback, and maybe reaching someone else who
feels the same way or wants to.
How did
my experience with my dad’s dirty fingers, my mom smoking in an enclosed moving
vehicle, and my ass-beatings help me be a better parent? Well, for starters, I’ve
done none of those things.
- I don’t stick my fingers in holes I’m not
supposed to unless asked, encouraged, or paid to do so.
- I’ve never tried a cigarette.
- I’ve never spanked my children.
But that doesn’t make me a better
parent. The finger thing is a little weird in that it’s more symbolism than anything
else. There’s a fine and different line between sticking your nose in your
teenagers business and your 7 year olds business. You might physically
interfere with your teenager by taking away privileges for their misguided
behavior. For your 7 year old, you may
still need to guide them to help them choose what’s right over what’s wrong.
Hopefully, when that 7 year old is a teenager and faced with similar situations,
they choose wisely on their own. As for the finger thing, my dad was teaching
me first aid, to wash my hands more often, and anything that tastes bad, really
isn’t that bad, just suck it up, buttercup.
The
smoking thing sort of stands alone and needs very little discussion. We all
know it’s bad for you and for others. Teaching your kids not to smoke is probably
remarkably difficult if you do smoke. I don’t have any advice or help here for
you. I do know that my parents once punished my sister by making her smoke
every cigarette in the house in one sitting. They made me sit there and watch
so I’d learn how bad it was. … ... In the mountains, near a crystal clear lake where
thick Ponderosa Pine trees filter the already perfect air; I can still cough
smoke from that night.
As for
spanking, I guess I lied about that one as I do that once a year on their
birthdays but even then it feels weird. As a form of discipline I don’t have
advice for you one way or the other. It’s difficult as a parent to fit the punishment
to the crime sometimes, so we go with what worked before or best in the last
situation. We all have the same struggles and triumphs and it’s what makes our
world go around. I’ve been lucky to have great kids and any punishments we’ve
dealt out have helped them grow and correct. I’m not saying that I’m not above
hitting any one of them- or anyone for that matter…It’s just that they’re
getting older, bigger, and stronger. Me? I’m fifty and frail and if I hit
anyone it’s going to be in self defense, because of a lost bet, and/or Jeff
Deans.
Grow
your kids to be happy and productive members of society. Do whatever it takes
to do that inside your home. Things we do to our kids can have lasting effects and
the challenge is that we don’t know what those are. My dad didn’t know putting his
grimy fingers in my mouth would --- ugh, just threw up a little. Moving on… My
parents didn’t know smoking was bad for… HAHAHAHA, now I’m just laughing. They
HAD to know. My spankings were pretty bad, I’ll give my pops credit for that. That
shit worked. If he focused any parenting skills he had it was on ‘the spanking.’
And he mastered the terror. He wouldn’t just pop into your bedroom like, “Here’s
Johnny!” No, that would have been welcomed. He was far more sinister. He’d just
calmly open my bedroom door and say,
“I hear you had some trouble today.
Go ahead and pick out the one you want. Let me know when you’re ready.”
Holy
crap. My dad was a member of the Elks Lodge. Do you even know what that means? Why
does that matter? You’re making me mad, and a little scared. They had all sorts
of meetings involving formal wear, casual wear, swingers wear…I’m not sure that
last thing is a thing, but there you have it. Perusing my dad’s belt collection
for my own whipping became less fearful and more strategical over the years.
Yes, I was going to be beat. But how that beating was going to take place was
now in my control for the most part. Every good strategist needs to consider
his enemy and his weapons. First, we consider my dad and the fact that he was
an Elk.
Elks
are drunk 80% of the time. It’s in their charter, and I may be off by a few
percentage points but I’m pretty close.
Also, don’t look that up because I’m making it up. But if my dad was coming
home from the Elks to spank me, there was at least an 80% chance he was drunk.
That was to my advantage. I’d look for a thick, ‘bedazzled,’ belt. A belt with
a lot of wind drag but also heavy enough to be unwieldy by a drunk-noodled-armed old man. He had a two-inch thick white belt with fake diamond studs punched in
a diamond pattern every 4 inches. Right out of 1970’s porn. It weighed 11 pounds! With that in his mit (singular because he had a drink in his other mit)
I’d get hit, maybe twice. He’d give up after 4 swings, two of which hit his own
leg and spilled his drink. I’d fake cry, say I’d never do it again and go to
bed with a smile.
That
was fun to remember and tell you about because it was sort of funny. But funny is
really in the truth and I’m not embellishing that story. And for every funny
story there is probably a tragic one…And this is that one. It’s when he wasn’t
coming home drunk from the Elks. This is a tale of when he’d be coming home
from work after a 12 hour day and the first thing he’d have to do is spank his
beautiful, talented, remarkably smart, feather-haired, Adonis (that’s me). He
wasn’t drunk coming home from work, mostly. He was mad, hungry, and the first
words he’d hear were from his wife were,
“Do you know what your son did
today? He’s in his
room waiting for you to punish him.”
This
was bad. He was not drunk. He was mad, hungry, and anxious to get this started.
I’d search the belt arsenal for anything that looked torn, on the verge of
breaking – in the hopes that his strength or my butt would cause breakage and thus
end the assault in a double-jeopardy or reprieve. A boy could hope. The trouble
with this strategy was that such a belt would have to be smaller, thinner, thus
creating a swing speed of blistering proportions. With my dad’s knowledge of
physics and my ability to constantly be in trouble, he’d built quite a skill
set regardless of the weapon chosen. He was too alert to place in his hand any
belt with a buckle. The last thing I wanted was a branding of “Keep on Truckin’”
backwards on my ass, forever. Or a peace sign, “Lucky Beer” … Or, God help me, “BPOE”
I did
the only thing I could. I risked it all and went off the books for this one. I
went back to my room and then back to his room. I sat on the bed to wait just
as he stormed in.
“Well, what’s it going to be
tonight? You want welts in the shape of diamonds or stripes like a tiger?
I broke a tear. “I don’t know.”
“Where’s the belt? Which one did
you pick?”
I slowly produced, from behind my
back, the one belt that might just save me. The one thing I’d been saving for
just such an occasion. I presented it to him, took a knee, and bowed my head.
“I’m sorry, papa.”
Draped over my outstretched hand
rested the single most precious item my father had ever given me. His dream was
to fish in Alaska and he fulfilled that dream. Upon returning, he had but a
single gift and I was the recipient of that gift. It was a belt made by Alaskan
bush people from hemp with hand stitching of the aurora borealis and many stars
along its length. Along the center back was a huge Alaskan King salmon with
line and hook that stretched outside of the belt, draped an inch below the
waist line and reattached on the right hip. Exquisite. … And for the buckle, it
was a howling wolf, carved from a single wolf-bone with teeth sharper than my
arrow head necklace. He sighed, took the belt from my hand, and wiped the tear from my face.
If I’ve been drinking, and you're feeling adventurous- you can see the aurora borealis imprinted on my left butt cheek, but you know what? It's not that bad.
