Chapter Three
Farm Life, The Switch, and
Psychological Torture
I did some growing up on a farm.
Not a lot, but it’s where my mom’s parents lived in Jollyville, Texas. (I’m not
making that up. Google it.) Arrell Kelly and Essie Patrick were my maternal
grandparents, and they looked like
grandparents. My Paw Paw proudly wore his pants hiked well above the navel, had
thinning hair and spectacles. Mee Maw Essie was portly in a pleasant way, with
cottage cheese arms and her ever-present house slippers. (She wore these
everywhere, including the grocery store. Way before you ever thought about
going out in public in your Crocs.) They had a garden, an orchard of pecan
trees, and some livestock (which, back then, we referred to as “cows” and
“chickens”). I learned many things on that farm. I learned, for example, how to
shuck corn and snap green beans, how to (swear to God) churn butter, and how to
drive a tractor. I also learned that, if you had a farming question, that it
was wisest to wait until your Mee Maw came out of the bathroom to ask that
question, instead of barging in on her while she was taking a dump. This, I
learned, was improper.
Down on the farm.
Mowing the pasture. Evidently Paw Paw never heard of child labor laws.
The coolest thing about being a kid on a farm is that it’s basically a
big playground for your imagination. I made up a lot of shit in those days,
usually involving some sort of trek through the jungle (the corn rows), trying
to get the serum to the village or rescue the lost travelers before it was too
late. One summer I found a machete in Paw Paw’s garage, and as I had just
watched an old black-and-white film that had a scene of some dudes slashing
their way through the jungle with a machete, I thought this would be a fine
thing to do in my own little private jungle. I marched out back to the garden
and proceeded to hack my way through the thicket of corn. When I successfully
made it to the other end of the garden, rather than retrace my steps, I decided
to blaze a new trail down another row. I can vaguely remember my grandmother
shouting a person’s name I did not know: Jaysus. Jaysus! As I knew she was not
calling for me, I kept on hacking.
This episode inevitably brings
us to the subject of The Switch. In this case, The Switch is not a verb,
whereby one object is replaced, or “switched,” with another object. No, dear
reader, in this instance The Switch is a noun, and is the name of an object
used by many a Texas grandparent in my day to whip the shit out of a
grandchild. The Switch was a small, thin, green limb off of a sapling tree, solid
yet very flexible, that cut through the air with a shrieking whistle – like a
squadron of Japanese kamikaze fighters – on it’s way to the strike zone. Which,
in this case, is your bare naked ass.
Now, taking a beating across
your backside with a thin, green piece of tree was bad enough. But it was the
psychological torture which preceded this event that raised this particular
disciplinary action to an entirely, frightening new level. For I was required –
as many Texas children were in those days – to go and fetch the instrument of
my destruction. If there is anything worse for a little kid than the long walk
to pick out the switch your grandmother is going to beat you with, I haven’t
heard of it.
I refer to this as
psychological torture because it presented a unique and terrifying dilemma. On
the one hand, you know you are about to get a beating. Self-preservation
demands that you look for a switch that will do the least possible damage to
your tender southern hemisphere. Preferably a switch not too green, not too
long, that might even snap after a couple of good whacks. On the other hand,
you are very aware that, if you come back with an unacceptable rod of justice,
your grandmother will then go out and supervise the next selection. She will make
the choice, and you will still have to do the work of procuring it, knowing all
the while where its destiny lies. You will have time to ponder how many bright
red streaks are about to be semi-permanently etched across your behind, because
you had the audacity to come back the first time with what amounted to a piece
of driftwood.
The worst was the time I was
told to go get a switch, and I came back with a huge limb of scrub oak. It was
heavy and I had to drag it, though it was so dry I had to be careful not to
crack it in two. I guess I thought I was making a statement of some kind: you want to beat me so bad, do it right! Use
a whole tree! Maybe I was thinking something like that. Mee Maw looked at
what I had brought to her feet, then very calmly stepped off the front porch
and walked out to the driveway, in her house shoes that she never seemed to
take off. She approached her car – an old Buick, I think – and seemed to
inspect it for a minute. Then she walked around the back of the car, moving
along the passenger side as though she were searching for something. When she
got to the passenger side of the hood she stopped, then very slowly, very
methodically, began to unscrew the radio antennae from the hood of the car.
When she took a few swings with it, and I heard that awful whipping sound, I
paid full heed to my inner voice of self-preservation and ran like hell.
Well
played, Mee Maw. Well played.
Next week, Chapter Four: Dad At The End
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