I pointed this out to the group and it sparked an even more lively exchange about the fond memories they guys had of their grandpas tanning their hides.
I could only sit back and listen for I never knew my grandpas, nor experienced the pleasure of having either of them whip my ass. But the rest of the quorum sure had the tales.
“I remember wearing my ball cap to the dinner table and grandpa telling me to take it off. I refused,” one recalled. “The next thing I know I’m waking up on the floor and my mom and dad are sitting there laughing. Grandpa knocked me clean off the chair and then said, ‘You gonna wear that cap now?’”
Back in the day, grandpas didn’t wait around for moms and dads to mete out discipline if a kid did wrong. You were more likely to hear; “get a switch” then “wait until your mother gets home.” I always found that directive to be doubly cruel. Kinda like the hangman saying, “Hand me that rope.”
One of the best stories was one of the guy’s grandpas told him to mow the lawn but make sure not to cut down any sassafras. Of course, we all know how that story ended. Ironically, the whipping was administered with a sassafras switch. Ouch.
Maybe it’s just the crowd with which I run but it didn’t seem coddling, “Little House on Prairie” grandpas were around when they were growing up. Grandpas didn’t seem to be skittish about raising a hand and didn’t ask anyone’s permission to do so.
But for all the whuppins’ by buddies endured not one of them had anything but reverence for their grandfathers.
“I didn’t get any punishments I didn’t deserve,” one said.
“Oh yeah, I had it coming,” added another.
“Hell, we knew we were doing wrong and that there’d be a price to pay if we got caught, but it was worth the risk at the time,” said another.
About the only bad memory the guys could agree upon when it came to the punishments was when one certain make-shift tool was used to administer the pain: the Hot Wheels track.
It was flexible, plastic, orange and a switch didn’t hold a candle to it.
“It was the one thing you didn’t want used. It hurt,” one of the guys said.
“I’d rather get it with a cane pole,” another chimed in.
I’m not certain they were referring to grandpas wielding sections of racing tracks at this point in the conversation. I think it was just ass whippings in general that was being discussed, but there clearly were some bad memories of those thrashings.
The meeting adjourned and we all went our separate ways but I could tell they guys enjoyed swapping stories of their youth and, even though they all ended the same, they took time to think about their grandpas.
Do you have or your grandpa you’d like to share. Post them below.
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