MEMORIES and TRADITIONS

Good Day everybody - First week of August and the dog days are really here.  This is our anniversary week and Ray and I are taking off for a few days.  Hope everyone enjoyed their weekend and make the week ahead memorable.

Karen and William Johnson had been doing a heart-wrenching chore for the last several weeks.  Bill’s mother passed away two months ago, and the task of cleaning out her house and getting it ready for sale had fallen to me, her only son.   

Estelle Johnson wasn’t a hoarder, but a lifetime of living in one house your entire life creates a mountain of possessions.  Possessions from not only my mother but, my grandmother and great grandmother too.   This house was built by my great-grandfather as a wedding present to my great-grandmother, and so it passed to their only daughter, Grandma Emma upon their passing.  Not only the title passed, but the accumulations of their lifetime together went along too.  Grandma Emma and her husband George resided in the house too and then the title passed to my mother, Estelle.  My mom met the love of her life in high school.  Before he went off to serve his country in WWII, she married him and became pregnant with me.  I never met my father; he was shot down over the Pacific in 1944, the year of my birth. 

My mother and I lived in that house with my grandmother and grandfather.  After my grandfather had died, there were the three of us until my mom met and married John Tyler. Since there was already a ready-made family and house, John moved in.   They never had any children, so I remained the sole heir to the house.

Now here I was going through and clearing out four generations of accumulations, a daunting yet eye-opening task.  The attic was a treasure trove of family history and Karen, and I were enjoying ourselves sifting through the sands of time, so to speak. There were many interesting things, but the biggest surprise of all was that each of my grandmothers were in marriages that included domestic discipline.  We found diaries from my great grandmother and grandmother that described how they had been in trouble and spanked by their husbands for their naughty behavior.  I didn’t know my great-grandmother, but my Grandma Emma was a strong, outspoken woman. I tried to picture my Grandfather George taking her over his knee for a paddling as described in the diary, I couldn’t help but laugh. Grandpa was a tall skinny man and was outweighed by my grandmother by at least fifty pounds.   According to the diary, she was spanked quite often in their early years or marriage but less and less as the years progressed. As we got further and further along in the attic, we actually found a paddle my grandfather had handcrafted and figured this was the weapon he used on my grandmother’s backside and maybe even once or twice on my mother’s when she was a girl.  I don’t remember ever being paddled, but I do remember get switched a time or two by my grandmother.

Karen and I put the paddle aside for future use.  Early in our relationship, I spanked Karen.  Karen, like me, was an only child, but unlike me, was spoiled rotten.  When she didn’t get her way, it was not above her to throw a tantrum.  One day, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with her shenanigans, and I just took her over my knee and spanked the daylights out of her fine ass.  She was shocked but no more so than I and after that whenever she started one of those temper tantrums I would remind her that she would wind up over my knee if she continued.  After that initial spanking, Karen was spanked for many things other than temper tantrums.  Overspending the budget, speeding tickets, and just plain naughtiness would earn her a trip over my knee.  A good spanking cleared the air, and Karen was usually on her best behavior for a day or two after the incident.

Once we had children, privacy became an issue.  More often than not, I would swat her behind at the time it was necessary.  Sometimes I’d tell the children that Mommy was being naughty, but mostly it was just ignored.  Since they often received bottom pats (sometimes harder than others) they thought nothing of it – it was what mom and dad did.

Frequently, as time and privacy allowed, Karen was spanked for no reason other than it gave us both pleasure.  A trip over my knee usually ensured there was hot sex afterward and now that the kids were grown and gone we indulged more and more.

I don’t remember my mother ever keeping a diary, and I don’t think I would have felt comfortable reading it even if she did.  Her marriage to John Tyler was more a marriage of companionship than great passion.  They were both in their late thirties when they wed.  I was already in my junior year of high school and too busy with my life to think about them, but looking back I’m glad they had each other.  My grandmother died the following year and with me off to college the next year my mom would have been alone if not for John.  He was a good man, and they were totally suited to each other.

He was a wonderful husband to my mother and a terrific grandfather to my children.  We all mourned his passing when he died suddenly at sixty-eight years old.  He died as he lived, quietly.  He went into the living room to sit in his favorite chair after dinner to read the paper.  My mother heard him call her name, and when she went to him, he was already gone. 

After that, my mother immersed herself in her clubs and charitable activities.  She traveled extensively and visited all the places on her bucket list.  When she passed this year, she had lived a full, happy life, and while I would miss her terribly, I had some beautiful mementos and memories I could carry in my heart and head.

Karen and I were down to the last corner in the attic and were rejoicing in finally being done.  I opened a box to find reels of old movies.  I hadn’t ever recalled seeing any of them, and there wasn’t any projector anywhere, so I bundled them together and would look for a place that could transfer them to disc. No matter what was on them, they had to be of the family, or something important to the family, so whatever it cost would be worth it to me and someday maybe to our grandchildren.

When Karen and I closed up the house that night, we knew it was really for the last time.  The realty sign would go up in the morning, and she assured us it would sell quickly. It was priced right and in a wonderful old neighborhood of older homes that were in high demand these days.  We had hoped that one of our children would be interested, but their lives had taken them far and wide from here, so some other family would be moving in and making new memories.  We were both a little saddened and teary eyed.  Karen held up the paddle.

“Let’s make our own lasting memory in and of this house.”  

She didn’t have to ask twice. I took her to the kitchen, pulled out one of the chairs and over my knee she went.  After a couple of warm-up  hand swats, I took the paddle in my hand and did what my grandfather did. I spanked my wife’s bottom.  I don’t know if my grandfather was watching or not, but I definitely felt motivated knowing he had handcrafted the paddle with love. Now it was definitely a family tradition.  I planned on leaving it to my son, along with his great grandmother’s diary.

When my wife was well and truly spanked, she told me she planned on leaving an addendum to that diary.   I hoped I was gone by then.

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A couple of weeks later I received a call from the photo lab.  The reels were in surprisingly good shape and they were able to transfer all to a disc. It was ready for pick-up.  That night, Karen and I set up in front of the television and I saw the first live pictures of my mom and dad together.  Watching the footage, I could see my dad’s love of my mom.  She was captured, mostly unawares, and always lovely.  One of the last pictures was taken by someone else, possibly my grandfather.  It was a plane, flying low overhead, with the wings waving.  I knew it was my dad, flying over the house, on his way to his assignment, my mom was waving at him.  It was their last goodbye.

  

*This story, with much author’s poetic license, was inspired by a snippet on yesterday’s Sunday Morning program.  See you later for Aimless Ramblings.