I would be the first to say that I wasn’t a very naughty child. Being the youngest of eight siblings, there were plenty of “mind your elders”, or “you’re too little to know better,” comments. Aside from being picked on by my brother Robert–and he could torture me to tears–I didn’t get much discipline from siblings. One time my oldest sister Carol poked me in the butt with a pitchfork because I was walking too slow, but I really don’t know if she did it to prod me to go faster, or she just bumped into me. It didn’t break skin so there were no tetanus shots involved, but it left an indelible “mark” on my memory.

I was spoiled. All my siblings told me so, so it must have been true. Why should I be naughty when everyone catered to my every need? I don’t remember wanting for anything. I had shetland ponies–live ones–that I rode and worked with daily. But when I visited Tina Powers and she had a Wonder Horse, I wanted a Wonder Horse. I begged for a Wonder Horse. I loved the way the molded plastic captured the galloping legs and hooves, and the plastic straps riveted to the horse’s mouth were a poor facsimile of leather reins. There were springs on all four corners of the horse’s body, with footrests that I could stand on to make the horse bounce harder. 

Of course I got the Wonder Horse. I think in was for my birthday.

One of my brothers, probably Harry, closely examined the springs after about a week of me riding it incessantly, and declared them,”well worn and a sign that I truly needed and wanted the Wonder Horse.”

So, OK, I was in a bubble of bliss most of my childhood. At least that’s how I would like to define it.

But then, sometimes even the most complaisant and obedient child can run off the tracks. I had a moments like that, due to the fact I loved to read late at night, and had trouble waking in the morning. 

By the time I was about 14, I was like an only child. Reading was my escape to the outer world, and I was a voracious reader, often staying up through the night to finish that last chapter, or the next to the last chapter, or the next, next… making mornings come waaaaay to early.

In the late summer, we would all work to prepare our sheep for sheep sales throughout our part of the world. We would groom the rams and a few of the ewes to be sold as breeding stock. There would be about 250 head to be prepped for sale. Nowadays breeders shear the sheep nearly down to the skin so that every bump, slump and hump would be evident, but in the olden days we would camouflage the body flaws with puffed up wool; we hand carded (which fluffed up the wool) hand sheared and shaped, then covered the animal with canvas coats that we made to keep them looking clean and sharp. Everyone would be enlisted to do the work, and my dad hired the Braaton family who lived down by the river to help us. The Braaton’s had a large family as we did, although by the time this work was being done, there were probably only my three brothers, one sister and me. The Braaton kids were younger than I, and so I thought of myself as their “boss.” 

It didn’t bode well when, after a night of reading, I couldn’t make it out to the barn to pull my fair share of the load. All the Braaton kids were there with their folks. My siblings were there, but I was dragging my ass because I had been reading all night.

My dad was not a reader. I can’t recall one book that he read cover to cover. He was not sympathetic to my habit of staying up all night to read. Usually, my mom would yell at me in the morning to get up and get out to the barn. Her yelling would escalate until it was, “Your dad’s coming, you better get up.” I’d usually roll out in the nick of time, dress and get to the barn long after everyone else had already begun the work of the day.

One morning I delayed a bit too long, and my dad, who hardly EVER climbed the stairs, appeared at my bedroom door with a fly swatter in hand. It was one of those wire flyswatters with the plastic swatter. He tore into me with that flyswatter like a man on a mission. I was still in bed, blankets pulled over my head. He was batting me with that flyswatter, yelling at me to get up and go to work–that it was such a bad example to be the last one in the barn–that I wasn’t pulling my weight. 

I was mortified. He had never hit me that I could remember. And he was swatting me like a big bug, buried under the covers, in my flannel pajamas. There was humor I could see in the situation, even back then. After all, I was 12 or 13, the size of an adult, being hit by a flyswatter.

No permanent damage was done. I never overslept again. And I worked harder than ever to cover my embarrassment before the Braaton kids. 

I think back on this event and until now thought mostly about how mad my dad must have been to swat me with a flyswatter. Now as an adult, I wonder what (or if) the Braaton kids remember. Their mom and dad worked tirelessly, and I never heard any of the kids complaining of the long hours, dirty, hard labor. 

Clearly there was a lesson in this for the spoiled kid with a Wonder Horse.

To Be Continued: More Punishments