It had always been a small village, and now there were only about 1500 inhabitants. Life had changed far less than in the nearby towns and cities. Everyone knew everyone else; front doors were never locked; people took care of each other and each other's families. The local school was untroubled by the problems facing schools in larger cities. Thus, it was a small shock to the villagers when the edict came down from the state and county boards of education: "As of this date, corporal punishment of any kind is forbidden in public schools, and any teacher or administrator who uses corporal punishment may be dismissed for cause immediately." The village had only one school, enrolling about 300 children from kindergarten through high school. The 15 teachers varied in their attitudes towards discipline; some ruled the classroom with only a occasional stern word or glance, while others reserved the right, in certain circumstances, to apply a paddle, in class or in private, or to ask the principal to apply it. The parents all agreed that teachers should have such a right. The parents had been paddled, when necessary, in their own school days, and it seemed an effective, easy, measurable, and fair way to discipline their children on occasion. Many parents appreciated the fact that a teacher or principal was disciplining their children for them. Others would often add a spanking their own of to any child sent home with a note explaining why the child's bottom had been paddled at school. Whether parents spanked their children at home or not, they unanimously supported the school's right to warm the seats of their children's pants when necessary, and they unanimously expressed dismay and anger at the county's attempt to interfere with their school's practices. The result of this adult anger was a village meeting, called with the express purpose of protesting this government usurpation of their parental rights. The usual speeches were made about faceless bureaucrats and pointless legislation, but no concrete proposals came forth until Mrs. Beeman, mother of two elementary school children took the floor. "I think our writing letters is a waste of time," she said. "We are not going to change the law in this state or the rules of our county. If we want to support our teachers, we have to do it ourselves. If we don't do this, we are soon going to see the same degree of childhood rebellion and misbehavior which is all too prevalent in other communities. Some children will behave without correction, but others simply need a good, sound spanking from time to time. And I have a suggestion about how we can deal with this new situation, without jeopardizing our teacher's jobs, without breaking any laws, and without bringing the county school board into the picture in any way. What we have to do is take the law into our own hands --- in the best way possible!" "What I mean is that we can show support for our teachers by doing part of their job for them. Maybe they can't spank our kids - - - but we still can! We can set up a system so that any teacher who would, before this ridiculous regulation, have taken a child to the coat closet for a well-deserved paddling can be assured that the child will be paddled by one of us. The children simply need to know that they will still receive appropriate discipline, albeit not from a teacher. I know, there are many details which would have to be worked out. Who spanks the children? Who decides how, where, and when the child is spanked? But these are just details. I want my children treated fairly, but I want them to know that the consequences of bad behavior will be certain, swift, and painful. I will help assure those consequences for my children and yours. What do you all think?" The discussion which followed was lively, but not extended. Agreement was general. A committee was formed, and after two weeks of discussion, a plan was developed and circulated to all the adults in the village for their approval. It read: ~From: The Village Council on School Discipline To: All villagers We propose the following plan to assure continuity of discipline for our children in school: 1. A teacher who, in the past, would have used corporal punishment or would have sent the child to the principal for such punishment will now, instead, fill out a simple form, detailing the circumstances of the child's behavior and what kind of punishment that teacher would, in the past, have administered. For example, the teacher might write: " ______ was rude and belligerent to me. I would paddle her ten times, clothed, in front of the class." 2. There will be a committee of parents available at the school each day. The committee will rotate so that no parent needs be present at school more often than once every two weeks, although parents who wish to volunteer for more frequent service may do so. That committee will decide on the child's punishment, place, time, and method, and assign the task to a parent to perform. 3. All parents in the village will have the obligation to administer punishments, on a rotating basis. Parents will be assigned days of service on the basis of random selection. Thus, on any given day, there will be one father and one mother in the village who will stand by to perform the duties assigned by the school committee. This random selection will insure some degree of fairness; that is, a child who is spanked might receive a harder spanking from one parent than from another, but this outcome will be a result of chance, not intention. 4. The committee will have absolute leeway as to form, time, place, and degree of punishment. Their decisions may include any of the following: a private spanking, clothed, or on underclothing, or on the bare buttocks, by hand, ruler, paddle, or hairbrush, or a public spanking in any of those ways. The only restrictions on the committee's decision is that, in order to avoid any possiblity of overly gentle or severe punishment, no child will be spanked by one of his or her own parents as part of this program; if a child is assigned a spanking on a day when that child's parent is responsible for punishment, a committee member will substitute (what happens in the home afterwards is up to the families involved). 5. A unanimous vote of the community is necessary to implement these suggestions. By voting in their favor, a parent indicates agreement to perform duties as assigned and to see that his or her children are notified and required to abide by these rules. Any child who does not cooperate fully with the adult assigned to administer punishment will be reported to the committee and automatically receive a public spanking in the village square. The report was passed without dissent within a few days. In one week, committee assignments and parent rosters were in place. After almost a month during which the school teachers had been forced to abstain from any discipline other than warnings and admonishments, some students had begun to behave in an unruly manner, and there were several who would test the system from the very first day. It was Adam Barnett, grade 7, who slipped first. Asked why his homework was missing, he replied, "The dog ate it!" He got a good laugh from his class, but he also received a small slip of paper to carry to room 103, where three parents awaited him. They read the paper, discussed the situation, and came to an easy conclusion. Adam was informed that he would receive a dozen strokes of the paddle, then and there, from Mrs. Warren, the parent on duty. Mrs. Warren and Adam retired next door, and shortly the sounds of twelve smacks on the seat of Adam's jeans were clearly audible. So was Adam's reaction, and even though it may not have been heard in the classroom, Adam's red face and gingerly way of sitting down again at his desk told the other pupils all they needed to know. Susie Tompkins, grade 9, was in another classroom and did not know of Adam's fate only half an hour later when she got in an argument with another girl. It was not just the fact that the teacher saw her upraised middle finger which led to Suzie's trip to room 103; it was also her defiance when asked to report there. "You can't do anything to me," she said. "I know that teachers can't punish students any more." Five minutes later, Suzie knew better, as she lay across Mrs. Warren's lap, dress raised, panties lowered, and felt the effects of the Warren palm across her bottom for a full five minutes. At lunch time, word swiftly spread through the school. Spankings were back, paddlings had resumed, and it was the parents, not the teachers, who would put you over their knees if you got in trouble. Not that the word, passed from mouth to mouth, changed things that much: children still tend to forget their behavior, and by the end of the day, two more had visited room 103 and been soundly spanked, one fourth grader, on her panties, by hand, and one sixth grade boy, bare bottom. His howls were quite audible throughout much of the school. In just a few days, the system was well understood by all concerned, and while spankings grew less frequent, once all the students knew they were inevitable when their behavior justified them, they did continue now and then. Often a day or two went by without any child being sent to room 103, but sometimes a classroom or schoolyard fight would result in several children reporting for punishment simultaneously. The committee soon discovered that, in these circumstances, it was most effective for all children to be notified of the extent of their punishment together and then, while one went into the next room for the actual spanking to be given, the others had to wait and listen to the sounds of a behind being smacked and the resultant cries. This not only caused greater embarrassment for the child being spanked but also created a stronger sense of apprehension and awe among the children anticipating their impending visits over the laps of whichever parents happened to be on the giving end of the day's bottom-warming. It was just one such group spanking which led to a decision which changed the life of the village considerably. Peter Farnum, fourteen, had been sentenced to a very severe paddling on the bared buttocks for having written obscenities in a friend's book. In his desire to escape punishment, he had implicated others, saying that even if he had written the words, at least he had not written them on the school walls, as some others had. His accusation led to a fairly lengthy committee discussion about dealing with this new offense which had not, after all, been reported by a teacher. Still, it was extremely serious, an offense, in fact, against the whole community. The three other children implicated were brought in and eventually confessed. The paddle was clearly called for. But the committee felt that this, in itself, was not enough. They were not about to assign punishment on behalf of a teacher but of the whole village. Everyone in town had been offended by the disgusting graffiti on the school walls; everyone deserved to know that the culprits were identified, and to share in the satisfaction of seeing them duly punished. And the children in the village, especially the older ones, needed an example set of what might await them if they were found engaged in behavior which violated community norms. If they were adults, they might face public trial and prison. As children, why not be subject to a public spanking? Thus it was that, Sunday at noon, shortly after the town's churches had finished their services, any citizen who wished to attend could be found the main square of the village, in front of the bandstand and the Civil War Memorial. On that bandstand, sitting on a bench, were three adults and three nervous teenagers, aware that they were sitting there far more comfortably than they would be able to for some time. Everyone in town, including their friends, had seen the notice posted in shop windows and light poles during the week: Notice: All Villagers By order of the School Discipline Committee, Timothy Busfield, Becky Andrews,and Lawrence Albritton, having confessed to maliciously vandalizing the school, will be publicly spanked in the town square at noon this coming Sunday. In future, other citizens below the age of eighteen may anticipate similar punishment for offenses against the public. Parents are encouraged to attend with their children. Precisely at noon, as a hush fell upon the crowd, the head of the School Discipline Committee, Andrew Clark, mounted the platform and addressed them. "Thank you for joining us and lending your support," he said. "I believe we are about to see a new dawn of law and order among our younger people today. These three youngsters probably did not think very hard about the damage they were doing, or what the expense would be to repair it, or how it would offend others. It is natural for young people to be thoughtless in this way. We have not asked you to come simply to shame them, or to embarrass them, although this is, in truth, part of our goal. More important, your presence demonstrates the desire of us all to have a better, cleaner, more orderly community. It also shows your love for your children, and for these children, for those who love children are willing to discipline them, and by sharing this time together, we share responsibility for their welfare as well as our own. I would also like to thank the three volunteers who will be responsible today for administering punishment, and I urge all of you to share in this task so that, if your own children should need similar discipline in the future, you will find others willing to provide it. " Timothy Busfield, please step forward. By your own admission, you were responsible for providing spray paint and for spraying several offending phrases on the school wall. It is the recommendation of the committee that you receive 40 strokes of the paddle on your bare buttocks. Please prepare yourself." Everyone rose from the bench except Mrs. Porter, aged 33, mother of two younger children, a top tennis player who, at this moment, was seen to be holding not a racket but a ping-pong paddle from which the rubber facing had been removed, the wood sanded and polished. Timothy, age twelve, was obviously nervous about lowering his trousers in front of the crowd, but he had, it was clear, been told ahead of time that any hesitation on his part would result in extra strokes. He resolved his dilemma as best he could by undoing his belt and letting his trousers fall around his ankles and then, bending over Mrs. Porter's lap, sliding his underpants down with a swift motion which allowed only the most momentary glimpse of what seemed to be an erection brought on by the tension of the moment. There was second or two of silence before the sound of the paddle striking Timothy's bared bottom was heard, a stifled "Oww!" followed, and then the paddling began in earnest. Mrs. Porter was deliberate and measured: each smack was applied about two seconds after Timothy's unwilling but very audible acknowledgement of the previous spank's sting: Smack! Owww! Smack! Ouch! Smack! Oh, Ow! Smack! OWWW! SMACK! OWW, OHHHH! The spanking lasted only about two minutes, but its effectiveness, not only on Timothy, but on the audience, was clear. Timothy arose, was ordered to face away from the crowd; his bright red bottom cheeks gave clear testimony of the severity of Mrs. Porter's application of the paddle. The other two teenagers standing on the platform lowered their eyes and scuffed their feet as they pictured themselves with similarly flaming backsides in a few minutes. Mr. Clark stepped forward again. "Very well, Timothy, you may pull up your trousers now. I am sure you have learned a good lesson, and I am sure your classmates watching have, too. Becky, you are next. Mrs. James, will you please take the paddle and seat yourself on the bench? Oh, let me make a suggestion; if we move the bench closer to the front of the platform, the audience will be able to observe the spanking better, or, at least, they will have a better view of the effect it has on the child's bottom, if they wish. The children, especially, should see that; if they will move to the left side of the stage, their view of this aspect will be better. I think it is important for them to know just what their own bottoms will feel like if they behave in such a way as to find themselves across someone's knee on some Sunday in the future. Becky, your punishment is the same as Timothy's. Please raise your skirt and get over Mrs. James' knee; since you are fifteen, to respect your privacy she will pull down your panties only after you are in position." As might have been expected, Becky, although older than Timothy, was more vocal than he from the first stoke. Her high-pitched "OWWWWW!" echoed around the square, followed by cry upon cry as the paddle did its work on her soon pink, then rosy, and then cherry-red behind. Mrs. James spanked quicker than Mrs. Porter, but with no less force. The 40 strokes rained down on Becky's bottom in just over a minute, so that her response became one long howl: "Ouch, Ouch, OUCH, OHH, OWW, STOP, PLEASE, OWWW, OHH, NOOOO! PLEASE! OWWW!!" until she lapsed into steady sobbing. The tears were evident on her face as she rose before turning to display her flaming posteriors to the crowd and then yanked up her drawers, rubbing her behind to try, unsuccessfully, to reduce the sting there. Lawrence seemed in a hurry to receive his punishment; he stepped forward before bidden to do so, but Mr. Clark held him back. "Lawrence," he said, "I know you want to get this over with, but before you receive your spanking, I do need to explain something to the crowd here. Lawrence, it seems, is responsible for the most vile and obscene phrases which were written on the wall. I will not repeat them; they are well-known obscenities, all too common today. Moreover, Lawrence, by his own admission, is responsible for almost half of all the writing which was done. He is older than the others by a year, sixteen, in fact, and may be considered the ringleader. Consequently, his punishment will be more severe. Mr. Garnett will administer it. He will use a special paddle, made in the school carpentry shop for this purpose. As you can see, it is just a bit thicker, longer, and wider than the other paddle, but made of light enough material so that it can be applied with speed and with a snap. It will sting much more, but it will not cause any bruises. The number of strokes will not be measured. Lawrence, you will simply be soundly spanked until, in Mr. Garnett's opinion, further spanking would have no effect. You may now bare your bottom for the spanking." Lawrence was not as hasty to do that as he had seemed to be a moment before; the prospect of what was about to happen to him had given him pause. He looked about, hopelessly, and then, realizing that there was no way out, slowly lowered his jeans to his ankles. Then, preserving what he could of his dignity, he slowly lowered his jockey shorts, making no effort to hide his nakedness, assuming an air of nonchalance and, perhaps, defiance as the crown stared at his mature, well-developed masculinity. He managed to preserve that dignity as he lowered himself across the knees of Mr. Garnett, the town postman. Unfortunately for Lawrence, carrying mailbags for years had given Mr. Garnett exceptionally strong arm and shoulder muscles, so that the first SPLAT! which christened the new pine paddle echoed around the town square and caused Lawrence, tight-lipped, to jerk his body in surprise. The next smack, and the next, had the same result. But by the fifth stroke, the paddle was landing on already-spanked skin, and Lawrence could no longer preserve his air of resignation. "Oh, Ow, Owww!" he shouted. "OWWW! OH, PLEASE, OUCH! STOP! OUCHH! DON'T ..OWWW... I'M ...OW ..SORRY .... OH, SHIT!!!" At which point, Mr. Garnett began to apply the paddle with even greater vigor, and Lawrence's buttocks began to take on a very bright red tone. He knew that his indiscretion had cost him several extra minutes of especially severe spanking, but it was too late now, and all he could do was try to avoid any further outbursts which would earn him an even harder and longer spanking than he was in the process of receiving. The spanking went on a full four minutes. When he arose, Lawrence was in tears, his bottom ablaze, and the children in the crowd were shuffling their feet in nervous awe. Every one of them could picture himself or herself across that lap, the paddle descending with loud smacks on their own bared buttocks, and every one of them resolved never to be found in that position. There were never again three spankings on a single Sunday. There never needed to be. Spankings at school continued from time to time, generally once a week or so. On occasion, a group of youngsters would get in trouble together, as youngsters do, Once, a food fight in the school cafeteria broke out, and most of the afternoon was taken up by a line of children, perhaps half the children in the school, waiting outside room 103 to be admitted, quickly identified, and sent on to the next room to have pants lowered and bottoms spanked. Extra parents had to be summoned that day in order that the spankings were fairly given, for by the end of the afternoon, arms had tired and palms had grown sore from contact with the dozens of red seats receiving justice. There were few dinner tables in the village that night which did not have at least one child squirming a bit in his or her chair from that afternoon's mass bottom-warming. On Sundays, about once every month, some child could be found, bare bottom, howling, on the receiving end of a good, hard public spanking. Children will be children; some lessons are not easily learned. Few boys and girls had to lower their pants before the village more than once, and many never even had to suffer that indignity even at school. Still, new children are born every year, and many must learn the hard way. Even today, if you were to visit the village on a Sunday, you might find a crowd gathered to watch some hapless boy or girl receive a well- deserved but sound public spanking on the bare bottom. It is not hard to recognize the village. It is neat and clean, and the children there are very well mannered. Over the entrance to the village hangs a simple sign which explains why this is the case. It reads: "Proverbs, XIII, 24"