I’ll tell you something, if you listen to Shirley she’ll tell you she took a lot of beatings for me while we were growing up. However, I remember a few times we both got whipped and I never remember her getting a whipping by herself. I was the one who always got into trouble, which is why Dad wouldn’t let me go any place without Shirley.
When we lived across from the railroad tracks, I got whipped almost every day because I didn’t want to stay in the yard. Mom would make Dad whip me when he came home from work. She would nag at him until he got mad and then he would tell me to go and get the switch. I would have to go cut three branches off a tree for Dad to braid them together to make a strong switch. Of course, you knew that branch had to be at least as long as his arm, any shorter and he would send you back to get a bigger one. They would leave marks, almost cut your skin open, wherever he hit you. The other kids would them and know you got whipped and make fun of you. As i got older I got a lot smarter, I tire him out by chasing me; I would crawl under the table, behind a chair, a couch, or anywhere to hide myself. Sometimes I crawled under the bed, if we were close enough, he would then grab me by my feet and pulled me out.
Mom would cry and plead with him to stop but nothing stopped him until he got tired. After Mom nagged Dad into beating me than she would come around me and tried be nice to me. I would tell her to leave me alone, I blamed her for my beatings. I certainly didn’t need her to feel sorry for me afterwards.
I only remember him hitting me once with his fist and that was for repeating a bad word he said. See, my girlfriend was at our house and Dad was gossiping with Mom about a woman they knew; she was “chuckling” her husband. My girlfriend asked me what Dad had said and when I repeated it to her Dad took me by surprise and hit me. He told me I better not repeat anything he said to anyone. He had me cornered between the coal stove in the kitchen and the wall. We used a kerosene stove for cooking; it look like a gas stove with a potbelly stove for heat in the winter. He hit me on one side of my face and the other side would hit the wall. I didn’t cry and he finally gave up. That was the last beating he ever gave me because I was only home after that if I had no place else to go.
And when I was home I wasn’t good to my mother. I tormented her, do things to her just to make her angry. I remember this one joke I pulled on her; I got her a couple of times with this same joke. I did it to get her attention because I thought she loved the other girls more than me and I was jealous. I think all middle children feel left out in a family. I picked some wild roses, took them into the house, filled them with black pepper and then I took them to her. I gave them to her and asked her to smell them then I would run. She take a big sniff and then she would choke and cry. She’d throw rocks at my feet to knock them out from under me and believe me, her aim was good many a time I landed on my rear. And if she caught me, I was lucky she didn’t kill me.
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