Andrew Powell

You think that I don’t even mean
A single word I say
It’s only words, and words are all I have
To take your heart away 

-Bee Gees, “Words”

As a child growing up in Lutz in the ‘60s, I was no stranger to corporal punishment. Children are children and there must be certain disciplinary actions taken by their parents to correct some behaviors and set the child on the correct course for life.  

I’m not talking beatings or cruel physical abuse, but rather a smack on the bum when needed and maybe to reinforce the behavior modification, have the child choose the switch from the tree to make a mental bookmark that will last longer than the actual spanking. 

At my house we had plenty of Australian pine trees that produced the perfect (in my parents’ minds) size switch for the job. We also had a store-bought “fanny whacker” that hung from a hook in the kitchen as a silent reminder to us kids of the cost/benefit analysis involved in not listening to our parents and behaving. 

Of course, as a child grows up into puberty and beyond, spankings seem to have a smaller return on investment and other punishments must be used to accomplish the overall goal — which is not the infliction of pain, but rather education, behavior modification and raising a child who can thrive and succeed in the world they will be released into. 

My parents used all of the standard tried and true methods, such as grounding, loss of privileges and having me write “I will not play with matches” 100 times. There was no internet or cellphones for them to take away in those days, so they had to make do and improvise when necessary. And they were good at that.  

One particular punishment they devised was very effective and continues to benefit me to this day. 

It was when I was in seventh grade at Buchanan Jr. High School. My ninth-grade neighbor and his class were sharing the classroom with my class for an educational A/V presentation and, of course, I thought he was Joe Cool. He whispered a crass comment about a girl in my class and I, being the impressionable little fool that I was, wrote it out in a note and passed it to the girl. 

Bad idea! She, of course, gave it to the teacher who gave it to the principal, which resulted in a trip to the dean’s office for me. My parents were called to come pick me up and it was their job to craft the appropriate punishment. 

I was grounded for awhile, but the long-term actions to correct my behavioral issue were yet to be decided. Finally my parents sat me down and told me that apparently my vocabulary needed some refinement and they were going to make that happen. 

Every week my father would go through the dictionary and select 20 words from each letter, starting at “A,” then “B,” then “C” and so on. My job was to write out each of the words, learn the correct spelling and pronunciation and be able to recite the definition to them at the end of each week. 

It was a lot of work but, looking back on it, I think I may have enjoyed it. I learned words that many people don’t know as adults, and became acquainted with the roots of words and how languages developed and intertwined with one another. 

I developed a love of language and in college, after I finished my business core classes, I took some “fun” classes, like Vocabulary and English Literature. 

My punishment was never completed though. It was a lot of work for me, but apparently it was a lot of work for my dad, too. Either he felt I had learned my lesson, or he just got tired of it, because he stopped the routine at “M.”

So I am really good with words starting with the letters A through M. Not so good with the second half of the alphabet. 

Of course the advice I got from the Dean of Boys was also instrumental in my rehabilitation. He told me “Never put anything in writing that you would not want to see on a billboard.” Words to live by! 

Randall C. Grantham is a lifelong resident of Lutz who practices law from his offices on Dale Mabry Highway. . Copyright 2024 RCG

Published May 29, 2024