My parents were very patriotic. Particularly in the area disciplining
us kids. If I did something really objectionable to my folks, Dad would supply
the stripes and I would see the stars. In my day, we called these “woodshed
woppens”. Don’t get me wrong here, we kids were never beaten but we did grow up
in an era when corporal punishment was the norm. Luckily, as a boy growing up
on our farm, I can count the number of “woodshed woppens” I ever received on
one hand. Truth be told and looking back, I probably deserved each of them.
Even from my point of view as a young lad, I could tell that
dad didn’t like punishing us but he really had to. Having raised a family of my
own, I can understand how he felt. One of the few ‘woodshed woppens” I deserved
sticks out above the rest.
Along with the normal menagerie of livestock we had on our
farm, dad raised and trained hunting dogs. Along with these dogs, we had three
pooches that were just family pets. One of these was an Irish Setter named Red.
Real original name there. The other two were beagles. One named Scooter and the
other Slippery. Some day I’ll relate how Slippery got his name.
Now Red, Scooter and Slippery pretty much had the run of the
farm. In one corner of the farm was a fairly large Black Walnut grove. The dogs
liked to mess around out there because there were rabbits they could chase
during the warmer part of the year. The problem with that grove of woods was
that during the month of August, the grove was usually full of cockleburs. If
the reader isn’t familiar with these little pesky plants, here is picture.
Cocklebur’s have a real nasty habit of getting caught in a
dog’s fur. Dad kept a little pair of scissors on a shelf in one of the barns
for just this. He used them to cut the cockleburs out of the dog’s fur. I’d
watched him do it many times. You can’t pull them out most times.
One day, I was eight years old at the time, dad was out in
one of the fields doing something, I don’t remember what it was, but I knew he
was real busy. Anyway, that day Red came into the small yard we had near the
farm house with his head looked like one big cocklebur. Being the obliging type of child I was
(right), I figured I’d just save dad some time and work by cutting those nasty
cockleburs out of Red’s hair.
The process started out real good. Too bad it didn’t finish
that way. As I clipped a little here and a little there, the cockleburs fell to
the ground. I realized I was probably in trouble when I finished and saw that I
know had a bald dog. Actually as dad explained latter, that wasn’t what got me
in trouble.
Being an ingenious child, I quickly came up with a way of
dealing with Red’s bald head. Sitting on another shelf in the barn was a
partially filled can of red barn paint. In my infinite but slightly skewed wisdom,
I grabbed a paint brush and quickly gave Red’s head a coat of barn paint.
When dad came in from the field and saw what I had done, he
ran behind the barn and I could hear his laughter. When he came back to were I
was, I thought I was in the clear. Wrong! Dad looked at me and then at Red and
then back at me and at Red once again shacking his head. “You know son I’ve got
to punish you for doing that” he finally said to me. Just before he supplied
the stripes he added, “Now son I want
you to understand that I’m not punishing you for trying to help me. In fact I
appreciate you trying. I’m punishing you for being so stupid as to think you
could cover up what you did by slapping barn paint on poor old Red’s head.”
Do you know that Red would never come near me again if I had
a paint brush in my hand.
