If I Were President Pt. 2…
So this is a continuation of yesterday’s post, aptly named If I Were President Pt. 1. I left off telling you all how I almost murdered a woman at the bowling alley last week cause of her ill bred child. Today I want to talk about how things used to be back in the day. Now I am not going to talk about how things were before my time, but I am pretty sure if you go back far enough you could challenge someone else’s baby to a duel at high noon if he so much as burped at you funny. Since I wasn’t alive during those times I am just going to focus on my experiences.
“You sir have besmirched my honor!”
Needless to say I was raised way differently than the kids I have been bitching about. I had fear in me when I was young. Fear is a good thing. I wish there were more scared little children today. Now this is not to say I did everything out of fear. Some things, like manners or respect for elders, were just part of my psyche. They were taught to me from a very early age. However, fear is what kept me from doing a whole host of dumb ass things. You know how there are things where we say “he/she is old enough to know better”? Well what is it that keeps a kid from doing bad things when they are not old enough to know better? Common sense? Yeah, try again.
“You can take your common sense and shove it mister!”
Fear is what. When it wasn’t something that I could look at and say to myself, “I am not supposed to do that”, I looked at it and instead said to myself, “I am gonna probably get my ass whooped if I do that so maybe I’ll just keep playing with these legos.” It wasn’t just fear that my parents were gonna get me either. I honestly believed that any adult could beat my ass at any time if I gave them a reason to. Partly because my Dad used to tell everyone (my teachers, babysitters, neighbors, bus drivers, camp counselors, the mailman, etc.) to light my ass up if they felt it necessary. I say this only half jokingly. On top of that I knew the easiest way to get an ass whooping from my parents was to mess with an adult that wasn’t in my family. Yesterday I talked about how kids today are untouchable. Well let me tell you, as a kid I was very much touchable. (That did not sound right at all.)
This is not that kind of party people.
Let me share a story with you. This is why I love my parents (even though I hated them at the time of this story):
I was in sixth grade and school had let out early for a half day. Now instead of going straight home, I decided to go to the park with my friends without permission. After playing for about an hour we headed to the store for some quarter waters (thats juice for all you white folk). Just as I am running across the street to head into the store a car comes out of nowhere and hits me. I go flying in the air into a street sign on the side of the road. The woman in the car was of course panicked. The driver of the bus I had just gotten off of immediately called 911. My best friend Brendon looked like he had just seen a ghost. All eyes were on me.
I lay on the ground for a second trying to catch my wind. All I can remember is that I was trying to tell everyone I was fine. I did not want anyone calling an ambulance. Ambulance meant parents being called. I wanted none of that. I began to try and walk the getting hit by a car off, but no one was having it. I remember limping and smiling at the bus driver and the woman, while waving to signal that I was good. I couldn’t actually say that I was good because the wind was still knocked out of me. They finally grabbed me and told me to sit my stupid ass down and wait for the ambulance. The ambulance came a short while later, checked me out and determined I was fine, and then took me to my grandmother’s house where my Dad was waiting for me.
The woman who hit me followed the ambulance to my house. She was pale as a republican. She met with my Dad and apologized a million times, but my father assured her that everything was fine. I remember him telling her to let him know when her leg was better because she had hurt her ankle trying to slam on the brakes before she hit me. Meanwhile he told me to go inside and wait for him in the room. I almost shat myself on the way there. I knew what was coming.
After doing his own personal check to see if I was okay, my Dad gave me a mild spanking for all the crap that happened that day. “What the hell is wrong with you? Did you see how that poor woman was limping? She really hurt her leg!” This is what the man said to me not an hour after I got hit by a car. I remember the spanking didn’t hurt at all. It was just the principle of the whole thing. Spanking me so soon after such a traumatic incident. I was so pissed. I’ll tell you what though, now that I am a driver, I get it. Now that I am in a position where I could be that terrified woman, I understand.
Still, that was kind of fucked up right?
Against the Grain 
you know I was scared shitless of my dad and he never laid a hand on me….it was that voice and the “LOOK”! Reduced me to tears everytime.He was quick to haul my ass to the car if I dared to act up in a store and I was grounded most of my teen life but it kept me out of trouble. I see kids today and I just want to slap their parents!
Oh yeah, I can relate … the closest I ever came to a real beating (not just a spanking) was when I ran out into the street as a little kid. I managed not to get hit by a car, but I didn’t manage not to get hit by my Dad! And you are absolutely, positively right about the “fear factor” (not the show where people eat horrible things, either) being missing from kids’ lives these days. I remember the really mouthy, rotten kids being “strapped” (smacked across the palm with a leather strap) at school when I was in junior high. The only thing the Principal couldn’t do was draw blood. If you were really, really rotten, you not only got the strap, you got a call to your parents, too. Ack! Just to show how times have changed, I relate an anecdote from my teen years: A couple of friends and I were hanging out at my place in the evening. Another friend came over, let’s call her Jane. Jane tells the group of us that she’s really upset because her dad picked her up and slammed her against the kitchen wall. We all asked, pretty much in chorus: “What did you do to make him do that?” She replied: He was ragging on me about my boyfriend so I told him to “Go F**k Himself”. We gaped at her, then said “What the hell did you expect to happen?” (If I had said that to my Dad, my jaw would have been on the other side of the room before I could take another breath!!) There was no outcry of “abuse” over that incident. Nobody blamed her dad. Nobody called the cops. And more importantly, nobody took her side. We all figured that if you’re gonna take that chance, you get what you get. And live with it.I don’t advocate beating children (usually, although there are a couple of exceptions I can think of ) but a spanking never killed anyone. And it kept a lot of kids out of trouble – at the time, and as they got older. I mean, what kid is ever afraid of a “time-out”? Srsly. As kids get older, consequences naturally change … loss of TV, phone or computer privileges become more useful. But still, in the back of their minds, is the thought that if they push too far … So yeah … If you were running for President (or Prime Minister) I would vote for you.
Nah, not fucked up; just good parents at work. Now that you’re an adult you probably know that your Dad was going through the motions to cover up just how badly you terrified HIM with your antics! Oh, and for the record, I often will tell my kids’ friends parents when they pick up my kids to go somewhere to “Beat ’em like they’re yours!” I’m sure the suburban Mamas love that. Now that I think about it, I’m lucky they haven’t called the cops on me yet. I tell my kids, directly and in a semi-threatening way, that I would prefer for my WORDS to get them to behave; but if necessary, I can and will use my hands to get the message across. I haven’t had to resort to the latter very often; but they most definitely knew the possibility was there. And if they didn’t, I’d just get big, intimidating Daddy and his deep bass voice to reiterate the message… loudly.
I like your dad. In my little circle, so as not to have CPS called on all of us for spanking our children, we just tell one another that “it takes a village.” In plainspeak: “If my child misbehaves, you dang sure better bust her butt!”
Christ, sounds like my dad. And I completely agree that the fear of God has been kept out of children. But, anyways, fucked up or not, who says that fucked up is a bad thing?
that photo “this is not that kind of party”…you wrong for that! LMBOhaha…AND DON’T LET ME CATCH YOU IN THE STREET AGAIN…
Haha… you have a way with slinging words around. Great timing in the narration.I have to confess I don’t really approve of coporal punishment… my mother was the sort to take privileges from me. And the last time I actively lied to her, at the age of ten or eleven or something, she questioned every single thing I said for a year. It felt like a year, anyway, of her looking at me every time I said pretty much anything and asking, “Are you sure…?”I definitely had my own brand of fear. 😛
LMAO @ “I almost shat myself”. Classic. Anyway, yea, kids today have it so easy. What with all the child protection laws and such. A little ass-whoopin is good every now and then…..but some parents took it too far, and the rest of the parents now have to suffer because of it.Albeit to say, it was wrong for him to beat you so soon after getting hit. He should’ve waited like, a day.
yeah, man. i remember being afraid of doing the wrong thing, because of my parents, and not because cars are much bigger than i am. i was a good kid cos of them, not because i valued my life. haha. i’ll bring that back when i have kids. “COS I SAID, that’s why!”
@Melosa – Nah, dogs and children – immediately or not at all!
Wow, what a story! I’m glad that nothing serious happened!
i was never hit. does that speak volumes to you? LOLDAVE FO PRESIDENT!
i remember back when everyone seem to have the right to give you a good whipping! LOL
That is hysterical. Thank you so much for sharing. Now I don’t feel like my childhood was all that crazy. 😀
That was kinda fucked up, but yet I do understand it… which is even more fucked up? *laughs*I think a lot of the problem these days is that the Spock-mothered kids are having kids. They weren’t disciplined and they’re bad role models. Like that bowling alley mom. If you behave in a polite, respectful way, your kids are likely to imitate you. There’s good role models out there, but I don’t think they’re as plentiful as they were when I was young.
Is that pic you?It is isn’t it? You could not possibly have been cuter!!Your dad was upset ,we do things when we are upset that we would normally not do.
When you said you had fear when you were young, I thought you were describing ME! I used to be scared to do anything wrong in fear of getting “principled” by my parents. Now that I’m older, I’m glad they put me in my place the way they did because I can understand that it was necessary for me to stop acting like a dumb ass and man up.
Your dad is awesome! Haha! My dad was pretty tough, too, we didn’t screw around – that’s for sure!
Damn, Dave. I’m glad that the only thing that got hurt when you got hit by the car was your pride…I have plenty of stories of my Parents, the Enforcers…
@Redshirte – my Dad still gives me crap about this till this day.