MOTHER WOULDN'T APPROVE

The other night I watched on the Discovery Channel a program about one particular gang that is spreading like a virus across this country and even to other countries. On the news I’ve seen too many reports on how teenagers are out of control. Heck, I viewed about ten minutes of “The Nanny” last night, just enough time to watch an eight year old and a ten year old defy their mother and treated her like “garbage.” All I know is, my mother wouldn’t have approved.

Throughout my childhood the groundwork was laid for what was acceptable and unacceptable behavior. I learned most of those lessons quickly; a whack on the backside usually made a big impression. Other lessons required review. I spent plenty of days during my high school years at home under the penalty of grounding for things like poor grades or curfew violations. Some might say they’d sneak out after mother went to bed. First, my mother slept fitfully. She might be up two or three times a night, and I’d surely come home during one of her “awake” times. Second, I wouldn’t do that because Mother wouldn’t approve. That reason is what has kept me from doing plenty of things during my early years.

I was fortunate to date some girls in high school. In the old days, part of the date was parking along some abandoned road or newly developed subdivision street. “Necking” was an accepted practice, and sometimes, teens got a bit carried away. In the heat of passion, teens don’t think clearly, nor do they much want to. On occasion I found myself in that kind of situation. It would have been so easy to have carried the passions of young love further, but I was lucky to have a guardian angel—of sorts. For some reason, I always gained enough lucidity to think of what might happen as the result of a heated session with a gorgeous young girl. Then, I would realize that “Mother wouldn’t approve.” That meant that she would be disappointed that I had made such a stupid mistake. No evangelist could have ever turned me from the slippery slopes of possible parenthood so quickly.

I am a chilled of the 60’s and 70’s and often relate events to my English students as a means of comparing their lives to mine and to a piece of literature that we might be studying. Today’s teens know the stories of my generation, especially the sordid ones. They asked what it was like to be around so many people who dropped acid and smoked dope. I tell them that nothing is much more repulsive than a person who is in an altered state. Then they asked me about my exploits. When I tell them that I have never smoked marijuana, they sneer in disbelief. It’s true, however. Sure, I sat around with friends in high school and college as they passed a joint, but I never touched the stuff. The reason was I always thought of how disappointed Mother would be if I were to have been caught and arrested for using the stuff. Even when she was a hundred miles from my college home, she had a grip on my conscience and controlled my actions.

During my adult years, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to do things that would advance my cause while I did in another person. I couldn’t do it because Mother had drilled into my head what was and wasn’t the right thing to do. So, I have lived a rather law abiding life and haven’t overstepped the line of what is doing to others as I would have them do to me.

I don’t want to give the impression that I am a saint. I’ve done plenty of things of which I’m not proud. However, things could have been much worse. Daddy died when I was thirteen, and I could have pulled the line that too many kids use today—“I didn’t have a parental figure to help me.” It would just be a lie. Mother struggled to teach three teenaged boys what the right things were. Evidently, she succeeded to a large degree. The three of us grew into manhood gauging what we should do by determining whether or not Mother would or wouldn’t approve.

TIckle Boxes Turned Upside Down

Someone once said “laughter is the best medicine.” I only partially agree with that statement. While it’s true that positive attitudes and joyous moods can lead to or result from laughter, those ha-has are appropriate only at certain times. During others they can lead to nothing but trouble. We’ve all been overcome with the giggles at wrong times.

Until we left home for college, my twin brother and I shared a bedroom. As little guys, we play hard, fought constantly, and laughed often. Most of the giggles came at the wrong time. On one occasion, we came to the supper table to full of energy. Our family began our meals with a blessing that we boys recited. Jim and I began, but only a line or so into the prayer, we were overcome with the giggles, and snickers came before we burst into guffaws. Our laughter was ended in tears are we received a well-deserved spanking.

On some nights, bed time brought out fits of laughing. Our parents would hear us and call from the kitchen or the den with demands that we get quiet. The next warning came from the doorway as one adult stood there with the warning, “Don’t make me come back in here!” Asking little boys to hold back their floods of laughter is the same as demanding they stop the waters from a burst dam. Oh, we tried to hide the noise. I’d stuff my pillow in my mouth and Jim would chew on his blanket until we both feared that we’d smother ourselves. On some occasions, the urge momentarily subsided, but then the laughter would spill from our mouths and fill the room. Even as one of the enforcers stomped through the house to our room, we laughed. Another spanking was administered, and even with sore bottoms, we were grateful for the fun.

We boys dreaded attending church. In those days, no children’s church was offered, and we were stuck in the sanctuary for the hour-long service. Jim and I sat together at the beginning, but in no time one of us had been roughly seized and plunked on the other side of our parents. Still, we could see each other, and it was as if twins possessed a telepathic gift. We could imagine what the other was thinking, and that led to an almost smile, a grin, a snicker, and then an all-out laugh. We swallowed them, but not before Daddy had promised us some attention when we arrived home. Too many Sunday afternoons began with punishment for inappropriate behaviors by Jim and me.

Some teens apparently have death wishes. They manage in some way to violate a parental rule. Of course, it’s no big deal to the teen; to the parent, it’s a different story. At times like these, lectures are standard fare. The adult starts on a tirade, and the longer it goes on, the more ridiculous it becomes. Out of the blue, a mom or dad says something absolutely ridiculous, and the comment becomes a heat-seeking missile that is targeted for the teen’s laughter zone. It finds the target, and as it explodes, a roar of laughter gushes from the teen. What might have been a relatively minor offense has now escalated into a serious adolescent felony. The parent is incensed and being throwing excessively harsh punishments at his child. Life as the teen has known it won’t exist any time soon.

Even adults laugh at inappropriate times. At funerals I’ve thought of things the deceased has said and must hold in the laughs. Mistakes by young performers at band and choral concerts can start a flood of giggles as well. Just recently I attend a graduation ceremony. One of the speakers put on a show. Cracked jokes weren’t funny, overly expressive voice was annoying, and “pie-in-the-sky” comments about what lay ahead were absurd. Taken together, this speech was a failure, but the speaker was sure it was an award-winning presentation. The looks on those around me said it all, and I worked hard to stifle the laughs that tried to escape.
Laughing eases stress. It relaxes otherwise tense situations. However, when it occurs at the wrong time, it can lead to punishment, hurt feeling, and occasionally, physical pain. Still, we can’t do too much to avoid those times when our tickle boxes are turned over. A force outside ourselves is in control at during those moments. We can only attempt to hold it back.

A Thundering Velvet Hand

Kids these days look with shock and amazement when parents talk about the spankings that they received as children. In fact, the department of human services would probably bring today’s parents up on charges of child abuse if they employed some of the discipline tactics moms and dads used in the 50’s and 60’s. Back then, my dad was a master of discipline in our house.
I’ll begin by saying that my mother was the enforcer for most of the punishment meted out to my two brothers and me. She was a short woman at 5’2”, but she could wield a paddle, belt, or switch as well as any giant of a man. She was a teacher, so many other children experienced her prowess with the “board of education.” We boys dreaded hearing her footsteps hit heavy on the wood floor of our home because we knew that she “had had enough!”
Still, it was Dal Rector who truly struck fear in the hearts of his three sons. Daddy was a no nonsense type of person. He worked hard at Southern Extract, a paper mill located in Lonsdale. Split shifts cut into his sleeping, and poor pay and constant worry added to his bad mood. My twin brother is much like Daddy, and his friends, children, and extended family refer to him as a sometimes hateful old bear. That tag fit our dad as well.
No, Daddy didn’t administer too many spankings. Only a couple remain in my memory. One was the result of misbehaving at the supper table. On that summer evening, the family had sat down for the meal. We always began with “God is great, God is good, and we thank Him for our food.” On this night Jim and I made it only that far when we burst out in laughter, the result of having the giggles and bringing them to the supper table. Our irreverence infuriated Daddy. He scooted his chair from the table, walked to the hallway, retrieved a razor strap that hung from one of the coat racks, and returned to the kitchen. He then tanned both our hides. Weeping and gnashing of teeth ensued, and Daddy realized that his anger had gotten the best of him. He’d used a strap that he considered was much too large for punishment. His actions tormented him, and he left the house, got in the car, and sped away. Jim and I stood in the driveway and cried over the spanking and whether or not our dad would ever come home again.
The next incident came when Daddy caught us smoking. Jim and I were probably in third grade, and our older brother Dal was in the seventh. Daddy was addicted to cigarettes but wasn’t about to have his sons pick up the habit. He asked us about missing cigarettes from his pack, and when we lied, he began the spanking. Our bottoms were sore, but our consciences hurt more because we’d lied to him.
That was the thing about Daddy. He rarely spanked us. Yet, he could easily have us crying with “the look.” His expressive green eyes seemed to look into our very souls, and they showed the hurt and disappointment that we had caused. That was especially true when it came to education. Daddy had made it only through the sixth grade. Then he dropped out to help at home. For the rest of his life, he felt inferior to others, even though he had wisdom far beyond what most educated people had.
If we boys did poorly in school, he sat us down at the kitchen table and asked what the problem was. He listened and then told us that we better not bring in a bad grade again. Daddy never raised his voice, but we shook with fear that we would disappoint him. If a misconduct note came home or if we received anything less than perfect comments on behavior, the man was livid. He told us that we might not always be able to make perfect grades, but we knew how to behave and we had better do so.
My dad died in 1965. Forty-two years later, I remember the times that he disciplined us. As Dan Fogelberg sings in the “Leader of the Band,” Daddy disciplined with a “thundering velvet hand.” I wish he’d been around longer so that I could have learned more about that kind of discipline for my own kids.

Blue Hair

Women have a flood of products aimed at their every need. Television shows are interrupted by commercials for hair coloring, tinting, and conditioning products. Make-up manufacturers rake in millions in profits each year. The general public is even bombarded with a litany of feminine hygiene products as they are peddled between show segments. None of us is too shocked because women have for years have been concerned about their appearances. Nothing shows their concern for appearance as their attention to their hair.

My mother wore a little rouge, she powdered her nose, and she used lipstick on her lips. Her routine was a simple one, so when I began to date in high school, waiting on a girl to finish getting ready made no sense to me. Yes, they had more hair than I did, but drying the stuff didn’t take two hours. I remember when Amy and I began to date. She had long hair that was impossibly thick. She’d have her hair wrapped around giant rollers that gave her appearance another world look. Mother rolled her hair when we were young. She used “spoolies” and bobby pins to make tight little curls. Occasionally, she would have a permanent done by a friend or family member. The stench from those ingredients cleared the house for several hours, and the resulting hair-do was one that resembled Little Orphan Annie. I remember how women during my early years kept their hair pinned up all Saturday so that it would be just right for church.

Later, Mother visited a salon weekly to have a professional fix her hair. Her coiffure was the result of excessive hair teasing held into place with a half can of lacquer (hair spray). Some women still make that trip each week. My mother-in-law is one. Before bed each night she slips a head cover on that keeps her hair from mussing. All that is required the following day is a bit of straightening with a pick. What bothered me most was the fact that women who had their hair fixed each week couldn’t wash the stuff for an entire week. Is a perfect “do” worth all the trouble?

My mother had beautiful hair. It was white. As a teen she contract typhoid fever, and her hair fell out. She swore that it grew back more white than brown. On one occasion she decided that a change was needed. Maybe she wanted a more youthful appearance. Daddy had died when Jim and I were thirteen, and perhaps Mother was trying to be attractive to other men. At any rate, she came home from the beauty salon one afternoon with her hair a light reddish-brown color. Jim and I hooted as she walked through the door. Yes, it was insensitive, but all we’d ever known was our mother’s white hair. Mother was mad at first, but then she was hurt, a fact I wish I could change. She allowed the color to grow out and never attempted another change.
Eventually, Mother grew content with her hair, almost. She kept the natural color, or lack of color. She sometimes visited the salon, but by then, her preference was to have a permanent or a pageboy haircut. Her only other grooming technique was to use a special rinse. Like so many other women, she didn’t want her white hair to have yellow streaks caused either by the sun or her body’s chemical make-up. To combat this yellowing she applied a blue rinse when she shampooed. Mother became one of “the little ol’ lady troops” with the application of this product. Her hair had the same color quality as a white shirt exposed to a black light.

In her last years, mother opted for minimal care of her hair. She kept it cut short and curled in defense against hot summers at Dollywood, where she worked for several years as Miss Carrie. It was still thick, but during the last days of her life, Mother cared nothing about how perfectly fixed her hair was.

My hair is racing to turn gray or turn loose. Sadly, turning loose is winning. These days, my only attention to hair consists of cleaning it from the shower drain. What I have is gray, but I won’t ever have need of the blue rinse to keep it looking nice. Using the product would permanently turn my scalp blue.