Chapter 61
Originally Titled—She Would Rather Smite Than Switch!
As I was walking to school to pick up the kids, I had to push a low branch of a tree out of my way. From somewhere back in the dusty, cluttered attic of my mind surfaced a thought which reminded me of other little low branches like that one.
In the days of my childhood people did two things when they got married. They bought a housekeeping outfit and they planted a tree. The housekeeping items were for immediate use, but the tree was planted for future plans, not all of which had to do with producing shade.
Most usually children came along, and the tree was expected to provide the only child psychology known to be effective in those days. Of course, they didn’t call it psychology then. It was simply known as the switch! And that, dear hearts, was a bigger cuss word than anything.
Those switch trees were kind of special.
They’d make more switches some years than others.
If the switches weren’t picked, I thought, the trees would swivel up and die.
They might’ve too, but Momma was sure enough careful to keep them picked!
If she picked one and did not put it to use, it was right next door to being a sin, and believe me, in that respect she was saintly!
We had a wet spring the year I was ten and the tree just absolutely went wild.
It just happened to be the year when all the other parents began to “reason” with their children.
Through reasoning, they could mold their little minds and modify their behavior.
Momma continued to “reason” a good deal lower and stripped our poor old tree nearly bare.
Nostalgia, it is said, is remembering the fun without recalling the pain.
I wouldn’t say I was nostalgic about those switches one bit!
But I do have to smile when I think about all the soapy, bleach water I poured on that tree after my tenth summer.
The next year it didn’t have nearly so many of those little low limbs!