Which Switch

When I was a bad little boy my mother punished me with a butcher knife.

She’d hand me this big sharp knife from the kitchen drawer and make me go out into our backyard and cut a switch for her to swack me with.

She never cut the switch herself.

She always made me do it.

I remember standing in the yard looking at various bushes asking myself questions. Would a little switch hurt less than a big one? Long and thin? Or short and thick?

I’d ponder about bamboo: those knotty places where the leaves branch out hurt like crazy. Tea weed grows flexible and tough, but the fibers and rough bark will cut my bear legs when I get switched with it.. Plumb branches sport thorns and they are not as flexible as tea weed or bamboo, but, even if I trim the thorns off, those little knobby places where they grew will snag my skinny legs..

I have to make a choice.

If I go back into the house with a switch too little, the wrong one, Mama will get mad and make me come out again to cut a different one…

That was sixty years ago.

Odd thing is that I never remember what it was I’d done to deserve punishment. And I never remember the actual whippings she gave me… All I remember of those long-ago days is having to chose which switch…

Now why in the world am I dredging up those painful memories this morning?

Oh, yes,. tomorrow is Election Day.