SPANKING MACHINES

Spanking Machine sign-ups

This blog was published on Brazil Times website in August 2014.  I am still trying to locate a Spanking Machine Store!

Our two eldest granddaughters, the original Hailee Lynn and bon bonny Britney, will all too soon be starting their sophomore year at Northview High School.  As the newest part of the back-to-school ritual they went with their father to get new laptop computers.  As it is easy to tease granddaughters, I keep bugging them about getting fitted for a “teenage girl size spanking machine”.

I was first introduced to the spanking machine by Mr. Tish, long-time custodian at Walbridge grade school in St. Louis. (Mr. Tish, would forgive me if after 60 years I’m not sure how to spell his name.)  Mt. Tish was the commander of that mysterious part of the underbelly of the school which held those huge boilers and tanks and things that made noise.  The only time we dared entered his domain (he was a formidable presence) was to use his wheelie-machine to clean blackboard erasers.

For those who may not know, blackboards used to be black, and white chalk was thereto applied.  The chalk was periodically erased with a hand-held device known as an eraser, made of felt I believe.

To get the coveted eraser-cleaning duty one had to be old enough (at least 3^rd grade), well-behaved enough, and it had to be your turn.  Best guess is this was only done a few times a year.

Mr. Tish had us convinced there was a spanking machine behind all that mysterious machinery only he could master.  And we believed him.

Somehow I do not recall ever actually seeing his enigmatic machine.  However, it was like the legendary paddle Principal Wolf had with holes bored in it to speed up its flight to your rear end, you believed in it precisely because it was never seen.

No one believes in spanking machines or paddles of any description anymore.  I think that is society’s loss.  I was never more than a C student; but I didn’t get in all that much trouble, either.  The biggest problems teachers had then was bubblegum stuck on desks, kids getting “out of hand” when she left the room, and an occasional heated playground argument (with bad words).  You see, even by the time we got to be grown-up 8^th graders there was still the specter of the spanking machine, whether we admitted belief in it or not.

Would signing up for a teenage girl size spanking machine make my granddaughters better students?  Probably not.  But the jury is not yet out on whether giving every student a laptop will return us to the days when a teacher’s greatest problem was listed as bubblegum.

David L Lewis is an observer of and sometimes commentator on life who may be reached at thedaddy1776@gmail.com