The Wooden Spoon

     I don't know how my cousins were punished for misbehaving, but when we were very young, punishment was a spanking with a wooden spoon--but only until we were old enough to resist.  The disciplinarian was always Milly; Vake never spanked a child (at least that I know about); I don't remember his even raising his voice in anger. Even Milly figured that once the child resisted, spanking wouldn't do any good.  I remember her last effort to paddle me.  We were living in Coos Bay, and received firm instructions to stay away from the neighbors' back yard, because the cesspool had caved in, and it was dangerous.  I immediately headed to the Kemps' house to look at the cesspool, and I saw Milly coming after me. I ran around behind the Kemps' house, and she ran right after me,  and I circled back for home.  She caught up with me at the steps of Eli and Sofia's house.  I sat down and made myself weigh 500 pounds so she couldn't move me, and I didn't get spanked.
     (Besides making myself weigh so much, I could also fly down Sofia and Eli's steep driveway and stay airborne so long as I didn't take a breath and concentrated perfectly.  That never lasted long, and in my mind's eye, I can still see the little bits of crushed oyster shell and orange clay in the gravel driveway rushing up to meet me.)
     Milly gave up the paddle when she broke the wooden spoon on Mark's butt. In her defense, I will say that the spoon was worn out, and probably had dry rot. Mark was an intense child and bellered a lot, and Milly told me that once, she had to restrain herself from kicking him. She blamed her anger on being anemic for years.   Sofia chided her, saying "Finns never spank their kids."  No doubt thinking of Sylvia, Milly retorted, "Maybe you should have!"