Bush League

     Mama didn’t have much luck growing flowers and plants in the yard.  Almost everything she planted, with the exception of the family garden, was dug up, torn apart, eaten or otherwise inhumanely tortured and killed by me, my brothers and our dog.  We were allowed an enormous amount of playtime in the yard, and often invented things to do that she may not have approved of if we had thought to ask her before we did them. It was a hard thing to remember, for example, to turn the hose off after it had been turned on, and it was only after a couple of hours that we discovered the mud hole we had accidentally created right where she had just planted gardenias was absolutely perfect for mud wrestling, and we couldn’t resist the temptation.  Neither could the dog. Evidently newly planted gardenias come up easily when surrounded by water and a mud wrestling contest, and while she did notice their plight when she thought we had been too quiet for too long and came out to see what we were doing, it was soon forgotten when she had to rinse off our muddy clothes before they went in the washer and us before we went into the tub. By the time she remembered the plants, the dog had successfully chewed them into toothpicks and was rolling in the twigs and leaves that were left.  That sort of thing seemed to happen a lot around our house.  

     Once she bought us one of those little plastic blow up pools.  I can see now what she was thinking; she would give us a little outdoor time that meant a little front porch time for her and we would be at least partially clean when it was time to come in.  It was a good plan, but adults have forgotten how to think like kids.  Adults reason and plan; kids react.  We loved the pool, but noticed as the afternoon went on that the sun, even in the pool, was hot, and the pool might work better for us if it was in the shade.  It didn’t take much to hold one side of the inflated pool down and let most of the water drain out so we could move it to a cooler and shadier spot and refill it again.  Unfortunately, the shady spot we chose was right smack dab on top of the new pansies she had just planted, and they did not survive the ordeal. We felt bad about it, but it wasn’t like we thought the process through with wicked intent, it just seemed to happen because our thinking only went so far and our horticultural responsibility quotient was not very high at that age. Irises, tulips, peonies, day lilies, Four o’clocks, begonias…we could kill almost everything she planted, and her valiant attempts to beautify our yard with something besides us, our cast off clothes and our toys were in vain. Flowers and plants didn’t stand much of a chance against us and the dog.

     Now don’t misunderstand; we didn’t set out to kill her plants, it just seemed to happen in such a way and so frequently that it might appear to the untrained eye that we did it deliberately.  Once there was a dodgeball game where, in the heat of the moment of trying to kill each other with the ball and not get killed ourselves we didn’t notice the flowers were hit and trampled repeatedly.  We recovered; they didn’t. Once we were going to “mow the yard” with Daddy’s roller blade push mower - you know the kind with the curved blades on the front on rollers that later became something we avoided at all costs - and it took at least two of us to push it and we weren’t always looking where we were going.  Goodbye peonies.

     Like most kids our age and generation, we usually wore as little clothing as possible at every possible opportunity, especially in the Mississippi spring, summer and fall.  Underpants or shorts with no shirt was pretty common attire, and if the opportunity presented itself, we were shameless in our nakedness until the neighbors complained. I think most kids are like that until society tricks us into thinking clothes are not optional.

     As much as Mama was committed to the Free Range Parenting concept, we were still expected to follow some rules without question, and compliance was not subject to question or delay.  When Mama called our name off the back porch, we knew the correct answer was an immediate “Yes Ma’am” and there were consequences for not following through. There were also dire consequences to not remaining within hearing range.  Allowing ourselves to wander out of earshot was no excuse, and we learned that the hard way. We also knew that if we heard two names it was a warning shot and we should be moving toward the porch when we yelled our response.  If we heard our full names our heads jerked up and we tried quickly to recall anything we might have done that could be blamed on one of the brothers;  there was trouble brewing and we had better report in quickly and not run away and hide. We tried running and hiding. Once. That was the first time we learned about the one plant we couldn’t kill.  The Chinese privet hedge that became known to us - and many kids of our generation - as the switch tree.

      The switch tree is an invasive species (lingustrum sinense) imported from China and first used in the US, especially the southeastern states, as an ornamental hedge.  It grows rapidly, is almost impossible to kill and the seeds from the berries are spread liberally by birds and small animals. The flowers each spring have a cloyingly sweet smell that many children, with good reason, learned to associate with painful lessons in behavior modification.  The trunk can grow to several inches in diameter, and is usually surrounded by hundreds or even thousands of shoots that grow rapidly into an almost impenetrable wall.  It grows almost as quickly as kudzu, and most southerners were convinced both were created by the devil, Yankees or both. The branches are long and slender, and when the leaves are removed may be used with a painful effect on the bare legs of youngsters that repeatedly fail to follow directions as they learn the intricate steps of the traditional “switch dance.”

     The first step in the process is learning just how far parents can be pushed.  Unfortunately, this is learned through trial and error, the error part coming when you reach the last nerve Mama has and step on it by refusing her instructions for the third or fourth time. It took a lot to get our Mama to that point, and usually we backed away from the danger point when we took note of the inflection in her voice. She was one of those that got quieter as she got mad, and would not raise her voice beyond a certain point.  What she did instead was take one of us by the arm and softly say “go get me a switch.”

     The walk to the switch tree was in reality about 30 feet, but seemed much farther and in kid time took about an hour.  The path to the switch tree was definitely near the event horizon of a local black hole in the space/time continuum, and seconds stretched into hours. The deliberations during the walk ranged from running away to joining the army to extreme degree of self pity and and Machiavellian processes for emotional retribution - “they’ll really be sorry when I’m gone” - that lasted up until we reached the shrub itself.  It was about 25 feet high and had thousands of small limbs that might serve the behavior correctional purpose, but that was where the deliberations really began. The thought processes involved were akin to the professional deliberations of a Mississippi politician and just as self centered as to be nearly pointless.  We knew what was coming and desperately sought any way to avoid it.  “You’d better find a good switch or I’ll go get one myself and you will not like the one I choose” was in the back of our mind.  If it was too big, we reasoned, it would hurt more, but actually that wasn’t true.  

     Choosing a small, flimsy switch would only mean we had to start all over again and repeat the process. I had done that on my very first trip, and she took my hand as we slowly walked back to the shrub.  The medium size switch we invariably chose, when the leaves were quickly removed, was far more painful on our bare legs than a larger one, but we always seemed to think that the larger size would hurt even more.  It didn’t, but that didn’t stop us from thinking it would. 

     The flight part of the “flight or fight response” was in full force on the slow walk returning to the porch where she waited.  I’m pretty sure the anticipation of the pain on our legs was made  far worse by our own expectation of what was coming than the reality of the event itself, and we usually, at this point, tried bargaining.  “Mama I promise I won’t do it again!” came out in an agonized, pleading voice, but it never worked.  She knew from experience that kids (and people in general) would make impossible promises to avoid consequences, and she wasn’t about to raise disrespectful children. So we learned the switch dance. It was all the rage even before American Bandstand, and the steps, while complicated, were universal.

     The switch dance involved intricate gyrations, hopping up and down on one leg then the other, and repeated attempts to levitate while Mama had firm hold of one arm with the switch in the other.  The point of contact was never anywhere but on the tender flesh of the back of the thighs, and we were pretty sure it was like getting stung by red wasps over and over again, but I doubt if she ever swung the switch more than 3 or 4 times.  It just seemed like 3 or 4 hundred. The prelude and the aftermath lasted far longer than the actual event itself, and what seemed like an eternity was actually 15-20 seconds in real time.  Like most childhood remembrances, it seemed far longer, much like the walk to and from school each day.  In the snow.  Uphill both ways.

     My memory, suspect in even the best of circumstances, tells me the worry, anguish and self pity leading up to the event was much worse than the actual event, and that pride suffered far more grievous injury than the body.  The lesson, however, was successfully ingrained. When Mama calls, you better listen and respond, and if you ever discovered her last nerve, back away slowly and carefully.  She knew there had to be consequences or there would indeed be a next time, for promises made in fear are rarely kept, especially by kids.  Her way, our choice of whether the “next time” occurred or not would be accompanied by intense deliberations on our part, and  by memories more of ignominy and shame than of pain.   She always followed through, because she knew that poor behavior without consequences would only be repeated, and that unacceptable behaviors uncorrected are behaviors reinforced and taught.  

     I don’t think many of our children or grandchildren have experiences to match the switch tree for behavioral modification, and maybe us thinking time out in a corner or “go to your room” was just as effective was poor judgment on our part.  Sometimes it’s difficult to be a parent, and it’s even more difficult to provide the discipline children need to learn the difference between right and wrong.  Psychologists tell us that children do not develop reasoning ability until around the age of 7 or so, and by the time that occurs their basic personality traits have already been formed.  Ascribing the ability to reason to our children under the age of 5 or 6 seems to have given us the false sense of having taught them a lesson without inflicting a painful consequence, and perhaps all we taught them was there were no real consequences of any consequence for bad behavior.  I have noticed that children that argue with, ignore and otherwise do not respect their parents rarely respect anyone else, and that perhaps we were lucky enough to have parents that may not have known much about psychology but knew enough to make sure we knew the differences in right and wrong and had respect for others at an early age. 

     I’ve heard many great coaches say they correct and discipline their players because they love them enough to want them to be the best they can be. Maybe our parents loved us more than we knew, and I’m pretty sure we are better people for them having done so.  I remember Mama saying “this is gonna hurt me more than it does you,” and I always thought that was a crazy thing for her to say.  Once again, however, she was right, and now I understand just exactly what she meant.

     Maybe it’s just me, but it seems there’s a whole bunch of people now that don’t have much respect for others or for themselves.  Maybe it’s the internet, maybe it’s societal deterioration or maybe it’s an evil combination of lives lived with more focus on technology than on relationships, or it could be that those time outs didn’t work as well as the switch dance in teaching manners.