To Spank or Not to Spank That Is the Question.

Today people frown on spanking and you see kids sitting on Ritalin instead.
I prefer spanking to drugs anytime.
Even at school, teachers and principals were allowed to punish.
Our school usually used a ruler on hands.

My Mom's sponsor that paid for the boat trip across the ocean to Halifax was this Jewish family . She had to baby sit and do the housecleaning and cooking for them for a year, as a live in.
Being young, she knew nothing about any of those things and the Mom of the house had to teach her many things, how to set the table, how to clean silver, how to do the washing, etc....
The family had a boy and a girl.
My Mom said when they did something bad the Father would give them two choices.
Either they got a spanking or they had to stay in their rooms a week.
She said the girl took her spanking and then went to do her normal things but the boy was a chicken and stayed in his room a week lol.

My Mom found spankings amusing because her own Dad sat at the table with a wooden spoon.
When the kids misbehaved they got spooned on the forehead lol
It can be intimidating if you are alone but with a group all getting the same thing...... it becomes fun.
Thank fully she said she was the oldest and when the war began she wasn't around much.

Being Jewish, this family she lived with was not allowed things like pork but for my Mother they provided her with bacon, kolbasa's and other tid bits they knew she would like.
She was extremely skinny but ate a lot and they always wondered where she put it all.lol

One day they were expecting guests and my Mom was told to bake the turkey.
Simple enough. She took the turkey , stuffed it into a dish and put it into the oven.
Come dinner time, the table was set and the guests seated and she served it for carving. This was when they found out that she did not clean it out inside. lol It still had all its organs .The whole dinner was spoiled. lol
So this was when cooking lessons were in order for my Mom.
She learned all kind of Jewish cooking . She liked that family because they were good to her.
So when she got married she cooked some of what she learned from them. Our family knew things like gifilte fish, mozza balls, cheese knishes lol These were good compared to the stew one woman made at our House.
My parents let this Rumanian couple a room for a few weeks till they got a place of their own to live.
They had a boy but he was in a private school and never came home but he did have a train set which I found in their closet. I put it together and played with it. It was a great train so I made sure to put it away before the couple came home.lol

One day this woman cooked this stew for my lunch . She put so much pepper I couldn't eat it and I began to cry. She was going to force me to eat it and even to beat me but thankfully, my Mom walked into the kitchen and told me I didn't have to eat it. I ran out of the kitchen so fast .
When they finally left I was happy lol

On the whole our neighborhood was great, very cosmopolitan. We had Italian families along with French Canadians English Polish Ukrainian, Black and when they all got together they began having moon shine competitions.One started it and then every one wanted to get into it.

Every one had their own little still at home and once a brew was made to taste, they went to each others houses for a sample. On week ends in winter, with 4 foot snow piles outside, parties were frequent at our house. lol
My parents did this for a few years and thought they better stop because you can't drink every week. My Dad was not a drinker He would have a few shots and then go take a nap. lol
But other people would not know when and things could get quite rowdy as discussions got into politics.
As kids we'd get together and discuss what our parents said and did at home.
One Italian family had a grown up son. He came home one day from university with a very long beard. His Dad didn't like it. My friend said her brother used to tease his Dad by sitting and putting his beard into the spaghetti sauce when he ate. Her Dad would fly into a frenzy and everyone at the table laughed as he chased him out of the house. lol

When we first built our house, the neighbor had a little boy my age, Carmenuch. He stood on his balcony with a bottle of chocolate milk and I stood on mine with my normal milk and we'd stand and point at each other talking jibberish.
Then I went out side and so did he and we would wet our underwear. I thought I would take mine off so my Mom wouldn't yell at me but she yelled at me anyway lol I was running around without clothes.I wouldn't listen so eventually I got a spanking for that. lol

One day Carmenuches' big brother came out and picked up a rock and threw it at me for no reason. I ran but it hit me in the back of the head. My Mother tried to find out who did it because there was a lot of blood but all I could tell her through my tears that it was it was a big boy and he ran away. I still have an indentation in my skull at that spot.
When we grew up this big boy, whose name I now knew as Dominic, wanted to marry me but I remembered the rock he threw at my head lol so this wasn't going to happen. He was an honors student in physics and quite a good looker with tons of girls after him.

My Dad didn't like to hear me crying all the time when I got bullied. When I went to school I was not a very small girl and quite athletic like my Dad. I was a good kid. When kids got bullied they'd come to me and hide behind my back and the bullies would look in my face and back away. It must have been because I never showed fear.

But one boy, Bobbie, would sneak up, in grade one, and push me from behind. I'd lose my balance and fall and tear my leotards. I came home one day like this then another day and my parents became very annoyed.
My Dad said if I did not stop him and stand up for myself, he would spank me. The next day I was petrified to come home again with torn stockings lol So he took me to the boys' Mother and showed her my legs. Bobbie got the spanking of his life that day.lol
I learned that I was allowed to stand up for myself because we were not allowed to fight at school. We'd get a ruler on the hands or a suspension.

Carmenuch had other big brothers and one sister who they married off at 15. The poor girl had baby after baby and by the time she was 23 she looked 55. The doctor told her she couldn't have any more, but being Catholic they didn't practice birth control, so she got pregnant again and almost died. The family was very upset with her husband but she refused to have an abortion so when the baby was born the doctors decided they would tie her tubes so she had no more babies.
She had no say in the matter. She had no say anywhere , not at home, not in her marriage and not with the doctor. I watched and thought, this will never happen to me.

I liked this family though. They were Italian and the Mom and Dad did not look like they had much schooling but the Mom was extremely smart.
She did lace piecework at home, always had a huge pot of spaghetti and a pot full of sauce on the stove and they grew huge dandelions, tomatoes and cucumbers for salad in the back yard.

Once when her oldest boy got into a major fight with his cousin. He came home with a torn ear.
Well this woman took out her needle and thread and began to sew it up. He was yelling and each time he yelled, she swatted him on the head and winked at me with a smile, while probably cursing at him in Italian saying: tapotsanachee lol.

This boy always fought with his cousin(, the one with the long beard and the spaghetti sauce). lol Once they began a fight and my Dad saw them.
He came out and said:
Boy, you call this a fight? You guys hate each other so much.
Why don't you just finish it?
He took out two 2 x 4's and pretended to check them out and to hand one to each of the boys saying: Now here.... with this you can do the job good and finish it once and for all. Just give each other a good bash on the head and it will be over. May the best man win. Lol

The two guys looked at him then at each other, turned and went home lol They thought my Dad was crazy and my Dad began to laugh. We never saw them fight anymore after that. He knew they wouldn't take the 2x4's.

The family also had an old beat up cat. He was a very nice cat but very scarred from all the fights he was in. He got very old and stiff, sorta like my Tatty became in old age. He always came for a pat but you didn't know where to pat him because of the scars.

My Dad brought home many cats but they seemed to disappear. We thought someone was eating cats in the neighborhood.
I also had baby rabbits.
Once I decided to take my favorite white bunny and drop him off the balcony to see if he would land on his feet, like the cats do. It was an experiment and it failed because the poor bunny broke its' back. I screamed and my Mom came running and she was so sad. She said
What did you do? I was crying cause my favorite white bunny was dying. I never expected that to happen but it was just a tiny thing so the fall must have been too high for it.

My heart always ached for animals when they were hurt. One day the same neighbors went to the market and brought home a black lamb. They left it tied by the legs on the balcony and I heard it bleating.
I came running and knew what was going to happen to it and became quite upset. I contemplated on stealing it but I had no place to hide it lol
So the poor thing disappeared and that was the last we saw of it.

Things were quite free in those days.
Dogs ran on the streets and we lost many dogs to rabies, including my own.
But going to school was fun cause a female dog would be in heat and she'd run into the school yard followed by many male dogs. These dogs would ignore kids but they would get into dog fights and this always made our day to watch lol
Someone eventually had to be called to round them up.

But we also had people who took very good care of their dogs. One old couple had an old gray terrier they named Nipper. He'd always come out to bark at you and they'd laugh and say be careful. You see, his name is Nipper. Why do you think he got that name ?.But he was too old to do any fighting or biting. lol

Another family had this small Chihuahua. He'd come running out at you into the middle of the street wagging his tail, looking as if he was smiling at you and being so friendly, just to get close enough to bite you lol Now his name should have been Nipper.lol

And then my next door neighbor had a female Boxer and she was my favorite. Her name was Tawny. Tawny and I spent a great deal of time together. The neighbors were an older couple and they saw I loved dogs so they let me take her for daily walks. Other kids came to ask them to do the same thing but they always said no so I was touched that they trusted me with their dog. In the morning on garbage day you would take the garbage out and hear this heavy breathing behind you. It always scared you thinking it was some pervert and then you'd turn and it was Tawny wagging her stumpy tail. She was a darling dog and you'd hug and kiss her and tell her how naughty she was scaring you this way.lol

One day I came to take her for a walk but she was gone. She was replaced by a black Doberman
who didn't look very friendly. I asked where Tawny was and the neighbor said her policeman son took it and gave her this one. I took this dog for a walk but he was not one to be told what to do. He'd give you a wicked look as if to say: Watch it. So he took me for a walk instead of the other way around.
I brought him home very carefully and handed him back to the lady and never went back to walk it again. But then.......lo and behold.....there was Tawny again.

We both jumped for joy to see each other and what a reunion we had. The lady told me she told her son to take the Doberman back because she was afraid of him as well. Things went back to normal.
One day Tawny had a litter of cute pups.
They offered my Dad a pup for 75 dollars and my Dad said no. I was disappointed and so were the couple because they said that was a cheap price for this dog and they really wanted me to have one since they saw how much I loved Tawny.
My Dad didn't believe in spending money on animals He always got them for free. I had problems with him when it came to cats and dogs. He liked to see animals run free and I knew they had to be tied. He'd have cats and always lose them once they began fighting with other cats but mine I neutered so they were home buddies.

I gave him one such cat and he was stuck to them like glue. Every where they went. the cat walked alongside like a dog. He stayed with them 18 years and they couldn't stop talking about what a great cat he was and how they lucked out with this cat. lol But they kept forgetting he was neutered. lol

Well to end on a spanking note, my Mom once thought she would please her husband and paint the dining room. She took out a can of paint, a roller and went for it.
She was so pleased and proud of herself and couldn't wait for my Dad to come home to show him.

Well he came home alright. But she did not get the compliments she wanted.
He grabbed his head aghast at what she had done. She used too much paint and it was all streaking down the wall. By now it was almost all dry as well.

He started screaming and she started crying. He grabbed sand paper and immediately began to scrape the paint before it got too hard to come off. He worked the whole night scraping while my Mom sat sniffling. lol

Boy that sure was a story they laughed at later. My Dad would hug her and shake his head laughing at what she had done and my Mom kept saying how he hurt her feelings cause she worked so hard to please him and instead, got a yelling of a lifetime.

I'd sit and watch the two of them thinking, if ever two people were meant for each other, those two were.
They were love birds till the end.

Have a good one :)