We were riding our bikes in the neighborhood in about 1971. Phillip was pestering me because that was his job. That is the job of every sibling that is 5 years younger. Annoy, pester, bug.... you pick the word to use but the meaning is the same. Phil was trying to get my attention and boy did he get it. I yelled, and screamed at him. All he really wanted was to be included in what was going on at the time. My job as the older brother was to make sure that he didn't get what he wanted. So he pestered until I got mad and then I yelled at him. We were just doing our jobs. No harm no foul.

Phil dropped his bike in the front yard and went into the house. Not long after that I parked my bike and went in to get a drink or pee or something. I was greeted by my mom and she was mad. No... she was pissed. She was so pissed she was vibrating. she was having a "parental seizure". You know, you've seen it before. The parent's head droops to one side or the other and kinda jerks on the end of their neck like a bobber on the end of a fishing line. Their shoulders and arms shake slightly like they are sobbing and then suddenly their whole body shudders like they just got a winter chill.

"Go talk to your dad... NOW.", she said through gritted teeth. Oh.. and the eyes... her eyes were pinched down into little slits like she was looking at the sun not the son. She really was mad.

She was madder than when I killed cousin Kevin that same summer. He was Phil's age (They were about 7 years old at the time, that's them in the photo on the right. It was taken about that time.) and the three of us were having urban commando games in the house and I made entry into the bathroom where he and Phillip were barricaded by kicking the door open. Kevin was sitting on the edge of the tub and when the door flew open, the door knob hit Kevin in the forehead knocking him unconscious and into the empty bath tub. So I was trying to wake Kevin up, but he wouldn't wake up and told Phil to, "go get Mom... NOW, Kevin's dead!".

Mom was mowing the back yard. Phillip ran out to mom waving his arms and screaming like the boogie man was after him. Mom turned off the mower to see what wide-eyed Phil is saying because with the noise of the mower it sounded like he was screaming over and over, "Mom, Mom, Kevin's dead....  Randy killed Kevin, Mom..... Mom, Kevin's dead in the bathtub." Nothing stresses a parent more than when her child tells her that her other child just killed her sister's baby boy. Mom was so scared when she turned the corner into the bathroom. What would she do? Who would she call first? She wasn't mad at all, just scared. The blood had drained completely out of her face and she was as white as the porcelain bathtub. 

By the time she actually looked into the tub, Kevin had started to come around and was starting to whimper a little. She bent and comforted him and instantly all the color returned to her face, maybe even more color than before. Her face got brighter because in the instant that she realized that Kevin was not dead, my mom went from being scared to being really mad. And she gave me "the look" and then had the all too familiar parental seizure. Now, all the color drained out of my face.

How is it that if you kill a cousin, your mom is scared and just wants to comfort you and the whole family and starts thinking how to protect the killer but if you "almost" kill the cousin and put a knot on his forehead, all she can think and talk about is how she is going to get her thin black belt and "beat you till you can't stand up and then you just wait till your dad gets home"? So at that point there was a little piece of me that wished I had killed Kevin so we could go back the part where I get comforted and protected because it was all just an accident. That was just so messed up.

Anyway back to the original story.....

So mom has sent me to "talk" to my dad. The talking only lasted a few seconds. Mainly a short lecture about how "we" don't talk like that and how I shouldn't be teaching my little brother such bad words. Then the spanking began. It was quite thorough and then thankfully finished. As I sat wiping "I'm not going to cry" snot from my nose. I said, "I never knew that fart was such a bad word."

My dad said, "What are you talking about?" and I responded that all I had done was call Phillip a "little fart" when we were riding our bikes down the street. Dad said that he and mom thought that I had said the "other" "F" word. They apologized but not very profusely. I think they thought I had done other stuff that deserved a spanking and I didn't get caught, so this was kinda like a catch-up spanking. I was lobbying for more of a banked spanking to be used in the future. Their belt.... their rules.... no banking spankings.