THAT KIND OF GIRL

Photo: "Steele Paddling"
Taken by a sweet friend

THEN:

    I grew up in the "spare the rod and spoil the child," years when Appalachian parents and schools meeted out strict corporal punishment for any kids that didn't understand that children should be seen and not heard. The idea that a shepherd does not beat his flock with the rod, but instead gives them guidance, had not occurred to anyone I knew, including my own parents and every teacher that I heard express an opinion on the subject believed in strict physical punishment.

    A paddle hung in many of the classrooms as a constant reminder of what you risked if you dared to disagree. The most formidable ones had holes in them or tape wrapped around them. Teachers with holes or tape were serious about inflicting pain. My first teacher didn't even have a paddle and the only physical punishment I got from her was near the end of the school year, right before summer break. My normally sweet teacher bent my hand back and smacked my palm hard, three times with a ruler. I loved my first grade teacher, but I felt she should have understood that a bird flying around in the gymnasium ceiling was much more interesting than a visiting choir group. I simply could not sit still, be quiet, and watch a bunch of high school kids singing when there  was a tragedy going on right in front of me. That poor little bird was trapped inside the school. It might die of hunger, thirst, or even fright! And everyone was ignoring it!

    I suspected, even then, that I would not have been punished if my teacher's sister hadn't been among the singing troupe. She had admonished us before the program to be on our best behavior because her sister would be singing for us. My classmate Kim had been equally excited and concerned for the trapped bird. She was punished in a like manner. Kim cried pitifully, but I did not. Even though the teacher took me behind the blackboard for the punishment, it embarrassed me much more than it hurt. My teacher had no idea, and at that time neither did I, that my hands are malformed. I have no sweat glands or oil glands in my palms. I only knew then that they were tough as leather, more like my daddy's work roughened hands than my mother's smooth ones. I only knew that the teacher could have pounded on them much more and much harder and I would have barely felt it. My feelings were hurt and I was embarrassed, but not enough to cry in front of all my classmates.

    I didn't get another physical punishment until I was at a new school and in the fifth grade for the third time. Thanks to my sister Sandi's urging, I had turned over a new leaf and decided to stop deliberately failing all my subjects. I brought home predictably good grades and made honor role several times that year. I had always been a little prone to laugh and play, a bit of a distraction, but I was a fairly obedient child. The incident with the ruler had been the extent of my physical punishment for all my years of school. And yet, that year I got not one, not a dozen, but twenty-four paddlings, and they were all from one teacher, Mr. Steele.

    Mr. Steele was not very tall, but what he lacked in height he seem to make up in girth. Looking at him now, I'm surprised he seemed so big to me then. But at that time, to see him coming down the hall in the mornings was a frightening sight. As students, we spent most mornings playing in the parking lot. I was one of three girls I knew that usually played touch football with the boys. But on wet or extra cold mornings, we were disallowed that pastime. We were herded off the buses and into the hallway to wait for classes. We would sit near the door that led to our homerooms, our backs against the wall, and socialize or work on the homework that we should have done the night before. We were not allowed to enter our classrooms for a while, so the hall would soon be teaming with as much activity and the noise as fourth through seventh graders thought they could get by with. Mr. Steele was sometimes hall monitor and we dreaded those days. But, monitor or no, every morning he would come walking down the hall, swinging his paddle in his hand. Though almost every teacher would paddle you, he was the only one I knew that carried his paddle nearly everywhere he went, prepared, like a big boy scout, to blister your bottom. He moved fairly quickly for a man of his size, but that required some fierce swinging of his arms, and therefore some fierce swinging of the paddle in his hand. He seemed to rush down the hall with the broad paddle narrowly missing some wiggly fourth grader's head. If he passed someone that was producing more noise or movement than he deemed allowable, he would pull them into the middle of the hall and set their backside to burning with several licks of that fierce paddle while spectators wincingly looked on. As far as I can remember, these hallway offenders were always boys. Children far enough away to get by with it often snickered and made fun. No matter how far away I was, I did not snicker. I did not find Mr. Steele's paddle to be one bit funny, and I felt utterly sorry for anyone on the receiving end of it.

    Mr. Steele taught my grade, Health and Spelling. In his classroom, we played a little game that only he enjoyed. He would ask the students questions by turns, and anyone that gave a wrong answer would get one lick with the paddle. Correct answers bought you only a delay, another chance to lose later. It seemed to be more of a pretend paddling for most of the girls when they missed a question. But me, he paddled like he did the boys, fiercely. Looking back, I wonder if that was because I was a tomboy. Surely, he saw me playing football with the boys outside in the mornings. At any rate, he set me on fire every time. And "a lick", like the other kids would get, would rarely do for me. Often if he called me up to be paddled for missing a question he would strike me three or more times before allowing me to sit back down on my now fiery bottom. After Mr. Steele got hold of you with that paddle, you had to sit slowly and easily.

    I found it odd that he would give me more than one lick when one lick seemed to suffice for everyone else. Odd that he wore me out when most of the girls got easy licks. Odder than either of those, though, were the times when he'd say to me, "Come on up here and take your whooping." And I would protest, ask what I had done, proclaim my innocence, only to be told, "Girls like you need whooped now and then whether they did anything wrong or not. You're that kind of girl!"

    I did not want to be "that kind of girl," but I accepted his skewed reasoning. I took the three licks when it was supposed to, by his own rules, be one. I took the real paddlings when most girls got easy ones. I took the paddlings that came out of thin air for no reason. I did not cry, but instead I smiled or laughed. He pretended it was funny, and I tried to pretend I was in on the joke... But I wasn't. I simply would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry. I thought that was what he wanted, and besides, crying would humiliate me even more in front of the other students. So, the built up tension came out of me in laughter.

    I had decided years ago that telling your parents can only make a bad situation worse, and that, in this world you were largely on your own. Most likely, I would be in a different grade with different teachers next year, and I was determined to tough it out until that time. Toughing it out had worked brilliantly in the past. I felt certain it would work now.

    Near the end of the year, one of my classmates brought her camera to school. She was a sweet friend. She asked for a photo of Mr. Steele pretending to give me a paddling because it had been such a common sight for the fifth grade. I objected because I knew him well enough to believe that he would actually paddle me if he got that close to me with a paddle in his hand. But I really loved this girl; she was one of the sweetest girls I'd ever met, and I marveled at the fact that she treated me so kindly, when clearly, she was "above me". She was very pretty, and wore nice clothes, she hung out with the "popular" and the "rich" kids. And I was so grateful for her kindness, that when she asked me twice I was petrified but felt I had to do it. I took the photo with my arms drawn up against my chest, trying to brace myself for the blows that might come. I don't remember if he managed to get a lick in that day or not, but now, I'm glad I took the chance and took the photo. I love the picture. If you're going to endure something painful and life-altering, it's nice to have a souvenir.

    That summer I saw a woman named Norma get shot and killed in the supermarket in front of my home, and I was relieved to get back to school where the threats held paddles and not guns. When I came back for the sixth grade, I wondered if everyone would know that I was there when the cashier was shot. Our town was a small one, and people were not often murdered in the supermarket. I was concerned that it would be the topic on most of the students lips, and prayed so desperately that they would not know. I didn't want to hear about it, or tell the story, not even once. Finally, my life was "normal" and if they knew what I had seen it would explode into something else. I didn't want to be "the girl that saw the murder." I loved blending in with that grade full of kids that didn't treat me like something or someone different. To my great relief, Norma's death was barely mentioned, and no one seemed to know that a young girl was in the store at the time. Instead, everyone was bustling with the news that Mr. Steele had died of a heart attack over the summer! After the shock wore off, some of my classmates started the joke that I had killed him. All those paddlings had worn him out and given him a heart attack. It was all my fault that he was dead, they told me. I smiled but I didn't really find it all that funny. Unlike my classmates, I had looked death right in the eye and I did not consider it a humorous subject. It seemed to me that no one deserved to be that still forever, that gone from this world. I wasn't glad he was dead, hadn't hated him, and certainly had not killed him. The only thing funny to me was the fact that he would never again single some girl out for being, "That kind of girl." The idea wasn't funny enough to make me laugh, but it did put a smile on my face once and a while.

    I only received a few paddlings that year, though one of them did send me sprawling down some steps. When the teacher saw that I had righted myself without plowing nose-first into the floor, I imagined, for just a moment, that she might she be ashamed of herself, might call it quits for the day. She did not. She ordered me back up to her, faced me in the other direction, and administered the rest of my punishment.

    I was middle aged before I realized that, just maybe, Mr. Steele had enjoyed not only sadistic pleasure from striking me, but possibly sexual pleasure. I was two years older than the other girls in my grade. I was a short girl, but my body had developed more than most. A friend said he paddled the kids he liked. At that time, I'd rather have been disliked by him, if that were the case. I still don't know why he did it. I only know he did, and that I survived it, and learned from it.

    By the time my sons were in school, corporal punishment was not allowed in most states. We did live briefly in a state that allowed it though, and I met with the boys' teachers and the principal. I explained that if anyone ever deemed it appropriate that one of my sons have a paddling they absolutely must call me in. If the child needed a paddling I would do it myself. I further informed them that if my sons were ever paddled without my consent and my presence I would not only sue the county school board I would physically punish whoever had hit my sons. I wasn't very popular at that school, but I didn't really mind then or now, and no one ever took a board to either of my boys.

    Mr. Steel, and a few other teachers, beat me. They taught me that I did not support corporal punishment. They taught me that children often need protection from adults, and that sometimes you have to defend kids in advance because maybe they'll be convinced that not telling you is a good idea. They helped me make sure that both of my sons made it through school without one of the dozens of paddlings I got. In the end, I think I owe them. I would not want to be without those lessons.