I’ve been told that dad only spanked me two times in my life, and that I didn’t deserve one of those. I can honestly say I don’t remember either one of the whippings because they happened when I was very young. That’s not to say Dad didn’t discipline me, he did, he did it in his own special way. I’m sure I got away with a few things I shouldn’t have, but at the same time I always wanted to please him, and do what he wanted me to do.
Dad had taken care of things quiet well in terms of calling me on the carpet. He handled the whole deck of cards things with a few words and a “You better not do something like that again.” I think I told you about that incident, but I’ll go ahead and give you the high points of the event. The junior high and high school students were taken by the school to the South Plains Fair, in Lubbock, every year. On the way to Lubbock that day I was seated in the second row of the yellow dog directly behind Mr. Mac the school superintendent. About half way through the trip someone behind me tapped me on the shoulder and then handed me a deck of cards. I won’t lie to you; I rather enjoyed the deck of cards because each card had a different, very pretty, topless girl on its back side. Now at this point I be knowing one thang, and that was that I didn’t need to get caught with these attractive fifty-two cards in my hands, so I quickly tried to send them back from whence they came. (Thought I’d throw in a little King James language for you.) Suffice it to say, I got caught with the cards, and when Dad found out about it he took care of the situation without laying a hand on my backside.
This brings me to the story of the one time he did tell me he would whip me if…
Paula and I had been married a few years and were living on the Fourway Gin property outside of Seagraves, Texas. I had been encouraging Paula to plan a holiday party of some sort, maybe a Memorial Day, or Labor Day party, so she did. I don’t remember which day it was but she invited a few friends from church along with her parents and my parents. We were going to grill burgers and such, you know, the whole ten yards of back yard entertaining. Now on each holiday the Yoakum County Golf Club had a tournament. It was always a scramble with four person teams, and I was going to play in that tournament. It would be my first so I really didn’t know what to expect, but it had a start time of 9:00am so I never dreamed that wouldn’t be home by around 3:00pm. Well such are the plans of mice and men. At the turn we suspended play for lunch, and then there was this thing I had never heard of called a Calcutta. It amounts to the scores of each team being posted at the half way point of the event, and then teams could place their bets, or buy the team they thought would win their respective flight.
Well, now it was easy for me to see that I wasn’t going to make it home by 3:00 so I called Paula and told her I would be a little late…er than I had originally thought. We began the back nine and all was well, until on the last hole when I chipped in from off of the green. Now this would seem to be a good thing, but the chip-in had busted us out of our flight and into a tie for the lead in the next flight. I soon found out that since money was being waged in the Calcutta we would have to play off the event. With much trepidation I called Paula and told her that I would be home a later. Seems that we already had guest, and she wasn’t exactly thrilled to hear about my possible win in the tournament. Priorities and commitments girl, I can’t abandon my team in the middle of a round of golf!
We began our play off with an actual gallery. Now let me be perfectly clear. When you have the golfing ability that I have, a gallery following you around is a pretty heady experience. I have no idea how many holes we played before the match was over. I know it was several, and I know it took a loooonnnngggg time. In the end my wonderful chip-in on the last hole of regulation not only kept us from winning our flight, it also knocked us out of the money all together, because we didn’t win the playoff. I got to the club house and called home again to report that the match was over and that I would be headed home soon. Paula was short and curt, and I knew that things were not going swimmingly well at home.
When I pulled up at the house I noticed that not many folks had come to the party. I fact there was only one car there. It belonged to my parents. As I opened the door of the pickup and stepped out I saw Dad coming out of the house. He met me before I had taken my second step and said “Son if you ever do that to that girl again I’ll whip your (we are going King James Version again) ass.” With that He and mom got in the car and drove off. All of the invited guest had been to the party, including Paula’s parents who had driven seventy miles to get there. I was so late to my own party that I missed the whole things.
You may be surprised to learn that Paula and I did not have a fight that evening. There was no argument, there were no harsh words. I went in apologizing, knowing that I had messed up royally, and that was that. I had hurt Paula deeply, and I made a determination that I would do my best to never do it again. I know I have failed in that department. I know I have hurt her a few times, but it was never because I failed to show up at our own party again.
As for Dad? Well let’s just say that he has always been a man of his word. He had spanked me twice as a child, and there was no question in mind that he would whip my ___ if I ever did something like that to his beautiful girl again.
Till next time,
Grump