I may make you feel but I can’t make you think.
I’d forgotten this lyric to “Thick as a Brick”. Always liked the song, but the lyric took me back, this afternoon, a strange key unlocking a distant memory.
I took my license exam shortly after my 18th birthday. I had already been driving for some time by then, but I made it official after I was, myself, made official, so to speak.
I was working at the lumberyard at the time, my first real gig, the freedom of movement a new sensation. I could fill the tank in ther Valiant for nine bucks, and drive around Cedar Lake for hours.
I had chores to do, and I did them, more or less conscientiously. That first week of driving around town, going for the first time in my life where I wanted to go, doing what I wanted to do (well, as best as one could do on $2.20 an hour) was as freeing as anything I’d ever experienced, and I was loving it. The first Friday, in fact, I skipped going home altogether. I parked the Valiant by the lake, and sat on the hood watching the boats go by and drinking a six-pack of warm RC Cola out of bottles, smoking backwoods cigars and trying to look tough. Not easy, with a Valiant, but hey.
I got home around one. It was my first drive after dark, and I was exhilirated, all four windows open, the breeze blowing through my hair and making me feel pretty alive.
Dad was waiting for me in the basement. The house had a front and back door, but you had to go through the basement from the driveway.
“Why didn’t you let your mother know where you were?”
“I didn’t feel like it was necesary”
Dad made me feel a few new sensations. At 18, I was a big guy. Not so big that Dad couldn’t grab my upper arm and tie into me with that damned razor strop, and by god, did he ever. Dad couldn’t make me think for myself, but he could damned sure make me feel a great deal of pain.
The memory of that pain reminded me, every time I felt like hanging out by myself, or with the guys, I needed to let Mom know, and clear my activities with her. And I did.
it strikes me that you can discuss with a moonbat the error of his ways forever, and not one thing will change- logic and reason are lost on people who base their worldview not on verifiable facts, but on what they feel must be correct.
Dad didn’t bother to try to convince me of the logic of making Mom happy. He just let me know that feelings aren’t limited to the way I want to live my life, and how my life affects others- feelings can also result from the contact of leather against skin.
I can’t help but think that a few well placed asswhippings might convince strategically placed moonbats to stop “feeling” and start thinking instead.
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Amen. As a fellow member of the Brotherhood of Them As Has Been Whupped With The Razor Strop, I agree 100%.
Hey! I had a Valiant at 18, too. My parents bought it when I was 4, and that car went with me to college. Best air venting system ever – especially the one under the steering column. It made wearing skirts interesting if I was driving in mixed company.
My ‘rents had a long Tandy belt blank. Plain hide, no tooling, no buckles or anything, with the word Psychology inscribed on its length.
And when we kids got out of line, we were told to Assume the Position and we got a little Applied Psychology.
Yes. It DO have a salutory effect.
M
An old preacher friend of mine once said, “There are two buttons on the backside of each child that directly effect what goes on in the brain of that child. One must apply ample, quick, and broad pressure on them to activate the desired thought process.”
“Foolishness,” he continued,”will just rise up and choke a kid if you don’t smack it back down every now and again.”
Interesting how application of force against a kid’s butt results in a better blood flow to his brain, and makes him think better…
Bah. An ass-whipping would only give them a headache.
I took my share of whuppings as a kid, but by my 17th year I decided I was done with it. One night I informed my parents that the whupping I’d just taken was the last I would take without putting up a fight, and while Dad might win that fight, he’d sure know that he’d been in one, and from then on they could talk to me like I was an adult, including chewing my ass like one if they felt it was necessary, but I’d be damned if I’d let them whip my ass anymore.
From that point on I never took another ass whupping, but there were occasions when I regretting the decision, as both my parents are more than capable of discussing one’s shortcomings in a manner that would make one prefer a whupping.
Best asswhipping I ever gave was on my two older brothers, at the same time when I got home from infantry school.
Those two fuckers still got bruises.
The problem as I see it is that these morons have never read the manual… it clearly states that appropriate action needs to be taken from time to time while a child is growing. :-)
I guess they must be illiterate.
There’s nuthin’ like a Real, Old-Fashioned, Down-Home, Backwoods Ass-Whuppin’ to focus the mind and help illuminate what’s REALLY important in life.
However, Loonbats are so fkn stupid that I don’t know if’n a King Kong sized Attitude Adjustment would even faze the fkrs.
Prolly just make’m worse.
If that’s possible.
I remember fondly the time my kid turned to me and said, “Do you feel better now?”.
After that, I could reason with him.
He turned out alllll right.
My mother still likes to tell the story when my Uncle Steve (who was in his 30’s, married and had 3 kids) was approached by my Grandmother to help her do something, He told her to F.O., he was busy. She went back to her house (family farm, several homes), got out the broom, and proceeded to chase this grown man into the Barn and started to beat the crap out him. My uncle said the worst part wasn’t the hitting per se, but the fact that all his siblings came out to see the fun, and his WIFE said “When you get tired Ma, I’ll spell you while you rest!”
Strange thing is, though, after she tells that story, MY Mother looks at me, then looks at the broom closet, then looks back to me…
When I or my brother fucked up [mainly by making her worry] she would beat the shit out of us. And then when the old man got home from work he would finish ‘adjusting our attitude’.
Worked fairly well until ’til we got to about ten and had enough balls to out run her. By then we were smart enough to tell her where we were and when we would be home. No worries, no old man.
I still fuck up though.
My Boys got spanked on the ass with a bare hand. No more than 3 swats. We always counted to 3 before a spanking, and if they ceased the bad behavior at the count of two, then no spanking was administered.
If the word 3 left my mouth, they got a spanking. Always. No exceptions.
Only once did one of them be stupid out loud and say “That didn’t hurt”. THen next one damn sure did.
The spankings tapered off to almost nothing by age 6, and the last one was at age 10 for each of them. After that, grounding was enough to ensure compliance.
Both (23 and 21 now) are confident polite, caring, thoughtful young men.
YMMV – we had a two parent family going throughout and mom stayed home before the kids went to school at age 5.
I got spanked a lot, but it was the “I’m hitting you to make me feel better” kind. Took me until last freakin’ Sunday to finally stand up to my dad like a confident adult.
I’m never taking shit from him again.
Dave S: I don’t know if it would work or not, I DO love the idea of that silly Joanne Peterson being around, and my handing the strop to Tam, Bobbi, and Breda in turn. Hopefully it might bring a whole new dimension to reasoned discourse…