cont'd from "Tales From the Crypt"  by Wilma Robinson

Another early memory was when I must have been possibly two years old. I
had not yet learned to dress myself and was standing on top of a built-in
bench next to the stove so that my mother could dress me. She was about to
put my "vest" on me (that was a small undershirt, opened down the back
and closed with a vertical row of eight or ten small pearl buttons down the
middle.)when suddenly the phone rang. The phone was near the front door,
at the other end of a long hallway. It was one of those early phones with the
long black speaker and the ear-piece which hung up on the side of the
phone-box. I don't believe we had had the phone very long so it was
something of an occasion to be able to talk to ones neighbours so easily.
Anyway, my mother left me to my own devices and hurried off to answer
the phone. I could hear her talking away off down the hall and, becoming
bored, I decided to try to put my vest on by myself. Not knowing it went on
"back to front", I laboriously put it on with the opening down the front
instead of the other way around. I had recently learned how to "do buttons"
and was proudly up to the middle button when my mother returned. To my
chagrin, she burst into laughter when she saw me and, still giggling, she
quickly undid all my hard-earned buttoning, whipped off my vest and put
it on the proper way. So much for independence!
I had a great deal of respect for my mother's authority while I was growing
up. I remember her threatening us children with "the kindling-stick" but I
don't really remember actually getting hit with one. The kindling-stick was
used for quieting us down so that we would go to sleep at night. All four of
us girls slept in the same room, two to a bed. All the bedrooms were
upstairs and my mother would whack the stick against the stairs leading up
and shout "Girls! Stop that giggling and go to sleep or I'll come up there
with the kindling stick!" For some reason that seemed to do the trick and
the giggling stopped, or at least was muffled until the next time.
She had another little trick to keep us under control without resorting to
violence. When one of us was acting up she would put on a very angry face
and tell the offending son (or daughter) to "Get along outside and get me a
willow switch so I can teach you to behave properly!". The miscreant
would exit, sobbing all the way, to the backyard where she(or he) would
search the bushes for a switch of suitable size for acceptable punishment.
Then back inside, still sobbing, to hand her the switch, resigned to getting
whacked with it, only to have her say "That one's far too thick, you'll have
to go back out and get me a thinner one," This would go on until she
decided the punishment had fit the crime and after a lecture on where sin
would lead one to, she would drop the matter. I remember only one
deviation to this scenario and that was when my brother, Jim, the eldest of
us five, was in trouble for teasing one of us girls. He completed the first
part of the "willow switch" but when he was told to go back out for a
replacement switch he, instead, scrambled beneath the kitchen table and
laughed at her. After some wild swinging at him below the table and
missing every time, they both dissolved into laughter and he never did get
his "comeuppance". Even at my tender age, I realized that if one of us girls
ever did that the outcome would have been considerably different Boys
can get away with murder!
But I really loved my big brother! I thought he was "the cat's pyjamas".
There was nine years between us and when I was five year's old, fourteen
seemed like a real grown-up! He would play with me in a much more
exciting way than my sisters did. He could lift me up on his shoulders and
he could swing me around by my arms 'til I was dizzy. He did something
he called a Dutch-flip. I would bend over, put my hands back through my
legs towards him, he would grab my hands and with one quick flip pull me
back upright again, I wasn't very old when he did this but I can remember
running after him and crying for him to"Gimme a Du'fip! Gimme a
Du'fip!" In later years I tried the "flip" on my small sons and even on one
of my grandsons I'm not sure whether it went over quite as big for them,
though.