“The loneliest walk of your life—to get your own switch.” Richard Pryor
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I suppose relating to such a quote would depend on where and when one spent their youth. Perhaps it would apply mostly to little boys running around in their short pants, creating mischief with less brain power than a gnat. Now they’re wearing long pants with little change in the cognitive cortex.
We’re living in an era of where trauma of the past is being recalled and exposed publicly. I’m joining the #MeToo movement and exposing a lingering ordeal of my own. I need relief, too.
So here it is, my mea culpa: I admit to having been sent to retrieve my own switch for high crimes and tantrums committed in my youth. There, now…out and public. Free at last. Funny how relief follows confession, huh?
In my home, punishments were meted out according to the severity of the infraction. The House Ways and Means Committee was the ruling tribunal. It consisted of two members, my mother and father. In that order. Judge, jury and executioner
The administering of the remuneration for the transgression was decided by the severity of the delinquency…and the means was either a switch or a belt. I remember both. So do my legs. Flesh has vivid memories of some things.
Not to cast dispersion on anyone’s recollections, every detail of trauma is impossible to recall. Evidence fades faster than a morning fog, and verbal credibility, even with tears, is suspect. Simply ‘believing’ won’t get it.
But I can remember the first time I had to go choose my switch. It was a long walk in the back yard looking for a weapon of mass annihilation adequate for my penalty.
Seen today, the violation was minor. I just shoved my brother down for no good reason except out of pure meanness. Meanness is inbred in boys. Switches are preparatory means of driving the demon far from them.
In my case, Sunday School failed in the finer points of drilling the concept of ‘brotherly love’ into my head at the age of seven. The ‘he said, he said’ cross-examinations provided no credible or empirical evidence for a balanced view. The decision for the crime was based solely on size, and I was the biggest. Guilty as charged.
So, mama grabs me by the arm while I dance wildly, a futile attempt to avoid the sting of the switch. My little brother smirks, gloats and sticks his tongue out. My eyes lacerate him. “You’ll get yours,” they say. Afterwards I pout and slink off to assuage the humiliation. Mama’s lemonade later reconciles the disgrace. Ordeal over, life moves on.
Now the House Ways and Means Committee’s methods of reparations followed the legal theory that punishment is meted out to fit the crime. The Means escalates with age as boy’s brains mature to that of a fly.
At a certain age boys no longer learn from switches and belts. It takes something more substantial to get their attention. Like large, 2” x 4” wooden paddles with holes bored into them for effect. High school principals didn’t ask for evidence, or care who was at fault…everybody bent over the desk and received adequate recompense of reward for their transgressions.
In time parents soon run out of options, left with only the denial of perks for reparations, horrible things like denying use of the car for nocturnal visits with girls to the drive-in theater. Which borders on a virtual death sentence to teenage boys. I still see my father now, standing in the door, dangling the car keys and grinning. Such torture qualities for cruel and unusual punishment.
Meanwhile, Life keeps writing new rules, collecting its tolls, handing out its citations and exacting its fines for infractions small and large. All equations are reconciled, sooner or later. Optics, perceptions, facts and all equivocations fall into proper place, and social equilibrium is achieved whether we like its resolution or not. Keep your cash, buying Indulgences won’t provide absolution.
When it’s all said and done, Life is gonna make the ultimate decision on the outcome of everything. There’ll be no rebuttals about evidence for the final judgment. Because the Great Tribunal has the last say.
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Getting our own switch was once traumatic. It will seem like child’s play when the final verdict is rendered. After all, a switch in time saves nine.