Traditional Trips

Tomorrow, my sons and I will travel to Austin Tx. to visit my son Joe. In review, I have four sons : Jefferson,Joseph, Robert, and Philip. Each and every one of my children are reasonable.

Reasonable children are good to have. This post is about how they learned to be reasonable with a slight explanation of why we make an annual trip to Austin each year.

When the boys were much younger... my memory was ages 6 to 12. They began to hang out with several neighbor kids from down the street. As things go, they began to pick up the habit of using crude language. I devised a plan to help them learn to control their choice of words.

I purchased a board of 3/4” poplar wood. I cut in a handle, drilled in a few holes,painted it a shiny black and added a leather strap. She looked scary.

Being a good parent, I decided to test it. My wife was available, so I talked her into experiencing a trial smack. We named the paddle “Sting”.

Before using the paddle, we introduced her to my boys along with some ‘if-then logic’. If they used foul language then they would grab their knees and feel the sting. They learned quickly.

This was an early step in becoming reasonable adults.

We get together each year in Austin so the boys can run in an early season marathon.

For today’s beauty, here is a picture from an historical event.

My boys.