Corporal Punishment

I'd like to get 2009 off to a rousing start by discussing something that everyone who has ever lived in Smock experienced at one time or another.

The device used to exact discipline was called by many names. Paddle, pit belt, korbac (from the Slovak, pronounced kor'-batch), Old Reliable, the "stick" or "lickin' stick". Sometimes the bare hand was used. Sometimes a device. But either way, this was our just reward for going against authority or breaking the rules. Or for uttering curse words in ANY language.

Yep, we were spanked. There is no delicate way to approach this, just as there was no delicate way that our parents approached this disciplinary art form. Usually, the target of opportunity was our behind. Or butt. Or dupetchka. Call it what you like. But when Mom or Dad were finished, we had learned a lesson about outcomes.

In Smock, we got away with a lot. Throwing hard husked corn on the wooden porches of the neighbors during Halloween, "washing" the face of one of the Dubos girls with snow (there were 8 Dubos girls to choose from), taking that secret sip of altar wine, or stealing perfect tomatoes from the neighbor's garden well after dark. None of these things were considered offensive unless we were caught in the act.

But it was the more serious offenses that got us into trouble. "Talking back" to our parents OR our neighbors OR the parish priest was big on the list. However talking back to people that your parents didn't like was forgivable. Stealing was always bad since it was covered under secular law and the Commandments. Getting into fights was marginally bad, depending on who won and for the reason that the fight initially broke out.

We all know the reasons why our parents would occasionally blister our behinds. Incidentally, a very good friend and songwriter wrote "blister your behind" in a song and had to literally soften this since he got so many complaints from his listeners. Were we abused as children? Did our parents raise up a bunch of kids so that we would occasionally appease their sadistic psyches by becoming objects of torture? Were we just destined to go under the lash once in a while?

Those of us who grew up in Smock were familiar with the phrase "If I hear that the teacher paddled you at school, you're going to get twice as much when you get home." Was this a bold threat by our parents? No, it was a promise. An oath.

And then there was confession since practically everyone in Smock was Roman Catholic. Most of you who read this know what confession is. This is not admitting your sins to your parents. Nor is it even admitting your sins to a priest. It was admitting your sins to GOD, while the priest was an intermediary. But in the secret room of the confessional, sometimes the sacred seal of confession was broken when we all heard the priest loudly exclaim things like "YOU DID WHAT?????" or "WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO STOP?????". There was one incident that I recall when one of the Smock Hill boys was in the confessional and the priest came out from the other side, grabbed the poor kid by the scruff of the neck, and escorted him rather roughly to the communion rail only to command him to kneel on the floor and not on the ugly red kneeling pads that were off to the side. All of us in line quietly left the church before our turn in the box thinking that this kid must have killed off a family member or stole from the poor box or something equally as heinous.

So how did we turn out from this life of threats and abuse? Pretty well, and with little or no psychological trauma. Of the kids that I grew up around, I do not recall hearing any stories of repressed rage resulting in bank robberies, murder or car theft. But, all kidding aside, I also know that many of us went on to be good husbands, wives and parents. Shoot, some of us even won national awards for things like bravery, journalism, medicine and flying into space.

I don't think we bear any physical or mental scars for that matter. And you can rest assured that if we got our backside's kicked for doing something bad, we never did it again.

Well, almost never.