The Booster Program
It was my second year teaching. It was the day before Thanksgiving. It was the middle of a test. Well, it was the middle for some people.
"Joseph Herring."
The boy looked up at me, quite guiltily. I gestured for him to come to me. Guilt was replaced by nervousness as he crossed to my desk.
"What did I tell you about talking?"
The boy blushed. "Not to." He paused for a second. "I’m sorry."
"Joe, this isn’t like spilling a glass of milk. You disobeyed."
He looked away.
"Go get the chair, Joe."
He looked where I was pointing, at the chair by the door that was waiting for the next boy to take it to the hall for a paddling. When he looked back at me, he was pale. "Please don’t paddle me. I’m really sorry."
"I’m not going to paddle you, Joe. Get the chair and bring it over here. You can sit here until everyone’s finished with their tests."
He wasn’t too much happier about that, but I guess he thought it was at least a slight improvement.
As usual, Joe had been the first one to finish with his test. Also as usual, he’d made 105. The kid drove me crazy. He could do so great on his tests, but was only making a C in the class, because he couldn’t be bothered to turn in his homework. He was a pretty good kid, but borderline hyperactive. He was okay while I kept him interested, but when he started getting bored, trouble was in the air.
I let him go back to his seat for a minute to get a book, and he read for a bit. As the next couple of papers came in, Joe stopped reading to watch me grade. Between tests, he’d read a bit, and I’d steal glances at him from the corner of my eye.
I knew that he was the oldest kid in the class, which was good because he wasn’t especially big for his age. At that time, you had to be six years old on 1 September to start school, and his birthday was 1 September. A day earlier and he’d have been the youngest boy in 7th grade. It’s hard to be sure after this long, but I think he was only about 4’10" but probably weighed close to 90 pounds. It was a lean, hard 90 pounds, though. 6th graders couldn’t be in athletics, and I had Joe in one of my gym classes also. He was a great athlete and played both soccer and baseball in season, as well as being on a swim team at the Y (and he had a fantastic little rear end).
Joe was also a good looking boy. He had somewhat long, golden brown hair that was thick and had just enough body to make it easy to style. I think he spent a ton of time in the sun because the hair seemed to be slowly fading to a medium brown. His features weren’t anything special, but they were nice. The best things about him was a splash of freckles across his nose that gave him a mischievous Tom Sawyer-look (which I once heard his mom refer to as ‘truth in advertising’), and beautiful, emerald green eyes. Oh, and he had a smile to die for. He could flash that smile and nearly talk me out of paddling him, so you know it was good.
After I’d graded a few more tests, Joe leaned over and asked the question that had been on his mind since I’d called his name. "Do you have to send a note home when you paddle me?"
"Sorry, kiddo— School rules. I think it’s to keep teachers from picking on a kid they don’t like. That way, if your parents keep seeing notes from the same teacher, they can check into it."
He made this little puffing noise. "I know I deserve it. You’re not picking on me. So you don’t have to send ‘em home, right?"
"Wrong. Rules say that if I punish a student more than twice in a semester, I have to send a note home. I’ve already paddled you four times this semester, and we still have a full six weeks left to go."
"Five times."
I looked at him with raised eyebrows but checked my grade book, and the boy was right.
"Okay, five times. Besides, you obviously don’t enjoy being paddled, but I’ve never seen you worry about one like this. What’s up?"
"Well, you remember when you paddled me a couple of weeks ago?"
I nodded.
"When I gave the note to Dad, he got really mad. Remember it was right after progress reports? Well, Dad decided that I must not be getting good grades because I was goofing around in class. So now whenever I get a note sent home, he’s gonna whip my butt there, too."
"That sounds like a pretty good reason to behave, Joe."
The look he gave me was really not what you’d expect from a boy trying not to get in trouble.
"Okay, slim chance. I know." But then I couldn’t help fishing for details. "He spanks pretty hard, huh?"
"Yeah!" he answered, sounding nearly enthusiastic about it, and I had to shush him. A couple of the test-takers had looked up at us. He blushed a bit as I pointed them out, but he went on, a bit more quietly now. "It didn’t used to be so bad. Mostly mom just spanked me when I got in trouble. If Dad did have to whip me, I got the belt, but it was just on my pants."
"You get it on your shorts now?"
"I wish," he answered, then blushed a bit, realizing what he’d admitted.
"Don’t sweat it too much, Joe. That’s how me and my bros got it."
"Ben, too?"
"You know Ben?"
"Yeah, we play soccer together at lunch. That’s how come I know he’s your brother." He paused for a minute, seeming to try to remember where he’d been going. "Anyway, he told mom that I’m too old for her to spank anymore, ‘cause… you know," he finished, pointing into his lap. I nodded.
"So your dad’s spanking harder than he used to and he does all of it now, so you’d like to stay out of trouble," I suggested, summing it up.
"Yeah, and it’s really pretty ridiculous. I mean, I could understand him whipping me if I did something really bad like… skipping school or smoking or something; but mostly, you just have to paddle me sometimes ‘cause I do little stuff, right?"
"Pretty much. You never cause real trouble, though I wish you would settle down a bit and do your homework every day."
He rolled his eyes, but at least looked away a bit, so I could pretend not to have seen it.
"The thing is, you know booster shots?"
"Yeah."
"Well, it’s like Dad’s whippings are vaccinations, but sometimes I need just a little booster from you or somebody to help me remember to behave—but not a whole vaccination. Now, I’m gonna get both."
"That’s not a bad analogy, Joe, except for a couple of things. First, as far as I remember, it doesn’t feel any different to get a vaccination than a booster. Then, you get boosters to keep you from getting sick, not after you’re sick. So it sounds good, but it’s not quite the same thing."
He rolled his eyes again, this time not bothering to hide it. "Now you sound like an English teacher."
I snorted, then started grading the next test; he went back to his book, and the conversation went out of both of our minds (except for the details he’d given of his home spankings, which I stored away for later examination). At least that’s what I thought until a week later.
I’d had to get on to him Monday (in math and gym class) and Tuesday, and the second day was with the threat of a paddling. It was fairly early on Wednesday morning when Joe came into my classroom. School started at 8:15. Teachers were required to be there at 8 A.M., but I usually got in a little earlier so I had time to set things up and be available for my students to come by with questions.
We greeted each other, and then he jumped directly into things. "Am I a bad kid?"
I didn’t really have to think about that one. "No," then I paused and had to be honest about it. "You can be a pain in the rear end, and you seem to have no self-discipline, but you’re not a bad kid." Then I realized what he’d actually asked. "Why would you think something like that, anyway?"
"Remember what I told you last week?"
"You told me a lot of stuff…"
"About my dad…"
"You mean that you’re going to get whipped the next time you get paddled here?"
"Yeah. I mean, I don’t want Dad to whip me, and I’ve really been trying to behave, but you’ve threatened to paddle me already, and so did Mr. Jensen, and we still have more than two weeks to go before Christmas and then the rest of the semester. We get report cards tomorrow and I’m gonna get a whippin’ then, and I don’t wanna nuther one."
The poor kid was almost in tears. Teachers are really not supposed to make contact with their students in most situations, but I couldn’t help but reach out and rest my hand on his shoulder. He looked up at me and smiled. His eyes were shiny but not really damp. He looked away for a moment and sniffed, then looked back at me. "Sorry. Didn’t mean to freak out on you."
"Hey, Joe. Getting your bare rear whipped with a belt is no fun at all. You’re afraid of getting paddled and getting two whippings in the next couple of days. You have the right to freak out a little bit. I wish I could help you somehow."
"You can. I had a great idea. It was your idea really."
"Umm… Okay. What was this great idea I had?"
"You can paddle me."
"Let’s try this again. Isn’t the idea that you don’t want to be paddled."
"No, it’s like I told you before, I don’t want you to have to send a letter home."
"But if I paddle you, I have to send a note home to your parents."
"You said you just had to do that if I get in trouble."
"Well, if I’m going to paddle you, doesn’t that mean you’re in trouble?"
"No. Remember you told me that it was a bad umm… analogy?"
"You’re talking about the vaccination/booster thing, right?"
"Yeah. You said that boosters were to stop you from getting sick, but I got paddled after I’d already gotten in trouble, so it wasn’t the same. So what if you paddled me before I got into trouble. Would you still have to send a note home?"
Have you ever been asked one of those questions that was so ridiculous that you’d not even thought about the possibility of someone asking it? It actually did make sense, though.
"The rules say that I have to send a note home when I punish you. If you’ve not done anything wrong, then I guess it’s not punishment, so I wouldn’t have to send a note home. Are you sure that’s what you want, though?"
"Well, when you paddle me, I remember to behave for a while. If you do it now, you save me at least one whipping. Can you?"
Could any red-blooded, warm-hearted man resist an invitation like that? Well, he couldn’t if he was a spanko, like me.
"Okay, Sport— you probably know the procedure better than me by now. Let’s get started."
He started to walk towards the door until I stopped him.
"If you’re headed towards the hall, you might want to remember that all of the students are out there right now."
He turned around, in a major blush. "Not a good idea, huh?"
"Maybe not. I thought you could just use my desk."
Still blushing, he walked back to me, then reached into his back pockets and pulled out a wallet, comb, a couple of trading cards, a pen, and a folded piece of paper. I resisted the urge to call out ‘Tom Sawyer lives,’ as he untucked his shirt, then turned to look at me.
"Do you want a real paddling, or just a… a reminder?"
"I guess it should be the real thing."
"Okay, you know what to do."
Looking resigned, he walked over to the cabinet, which was already unlocked since it was where I hung my coat, and he selected the 7th grade paddle, which I normally used on him because of his athletic build. He crossed back and handed it to me.
I guessed at the right distance, which wasn’t too hard with our experience together in this situation, then moved my toe across an imaginary line. He stepped up to it then flipped the back of his shirt up and leaned forward onto the desk. He did a perfect job— bent at the waist, legs straight, and rear end pushed back a bit.
It was really funny. Even though I saw him suit out and shower in gym class all the time, I still really loved looking down at him like this, that band of pale flesh, darkened a bit by being right next to the white and double-blue line of his briefs, with his Levi’s stretched tight right below that. It was pretty hot.
"Joe, if you really want me to do this, I’m going to do it for real. Are you sure?"
"Yeah… Yes, sir. It’s better than Dad doing it."
"Three?"
He looked back at me and nodded, then looked forward. I could almost see him scrunch his eyes shut as I lined the paddle up for the first swing.
I gave him a test pat to make sure I was lined up properly, then pulled the paddle back just a bit. It was almost funny, watching him tense up for a moment. He knew the drill, though, and knew it would just make things take longer. You could see him take a deep breath, then let it out, lift his head, so he was looking straight ahead, then he made himself relax, knowing I wouldn’t swat until he did.
I honestly think it would have been better to bare his bottom and put him over my lap for a nice, long hand spanking. Limiting a teacher to only three swats means one has a very limited time to make a good impression. I wasn’t trying for a home run, but you just can’t aim for sting with those paddles, so I gave him a full-arm stroke that landed right below his back pockets (which didn’t hang halfway to his knees in those days). He yelped as the paddle landed, his back arched, and his head came up. I was standing somewhat to his side and could see that his face was red and his cheeks puffed in and out as he took a couple of deep breaths before forcing himself back into position.
I made him wait for the second one, and you could tell that he hated it. He screwed his eyes shut and let his head drop for a minute, then he lifted it to look across the desk again. As soon as his head started to come up, the paddle came down. He didn’t yelp this time, but repeated the same motions. Even through his jeans, I noticed him flexing his cheeks, trying to ease some of the sting without breaking position.
I waited again while he went through his routine, but this time, as soon as he was back down, the paddle landed a third time and this brought more than a yelp. He still didn’t break position any more than he had for the first two. I gave him a minute (and noticed him lean to the side just a bit to wipe his eyes on his sleeve), before I told him he could stand.
As soon as Joe was on his feet, he was reaching behind him to rub, but he was also smiling as he turned to face me, even though his eyes were red and shiny. It was an interesting look because it was half rueful and half admiring, like he was proud of how well I thought he needed to be paddled. "Boy, you sure didn’t hold back, did you? That was a good one. I’ll bet I can behave until Christmas, now!"
I’m not sure I’d ever had a boy so enthusiastically praise one of my spankings before, and it was an interesting experience. I had to smile at him. "Well, I guess I’m glad, and I hope it works for you, Joe."
Even with me standing right there and watching, he began to undo his fly. He didn’t really take his jeans down, but he pushed them down a little. With his shirt up, it gave me an excellent view of a small package—somehow cuter and more interesting for the way it was almost hidden. He started to tuck in his shirt, then stopped and shoved his hands down the back of his jeans.
"That’s better. Man, first period’s gonna burn." I was starting to get a little excited at the show, so I turned to put the paddle away. I took an extra minute in the cabinet to get myself under control. By the time I turned back, he’d finished his rub and was tucking his shirt in again.
"I’ll tell you what I’m going to do for you, Joe. I really hope this works because I remember how bad it su… how bad it is to get paddled at school, then whipped at home. If this doesn’t straighten you up for awhile, though, and I do have to paddle you because you get in trouble, we’ll call this it, and I’ll just send a note home to your dad. Okay?"
He looked a little down that I was doubting that this would solve all his problems, but he took it for what it was. "Well, I guess it’s still better than getting it twice in one day."
"Get out of here now, Joe. I’ll see you in gym."
"Bye, Mr. Wells. Thanks."
At the end of gym class, as the boys were getting in the shower, Joe was suddenly the center of attention. I think what I heard was several variations on ‘Man! Who did that?’ I looked, and Joe was walking from his locker to the showers, buck naked and with a nice, medium red sash across his very shapely bottom. I knew where it was from, and I still had to look closely to see the separate stripes.
Joe was taking the joshing in good fun, which is how most of it was meant. It wasn’t his first time to display his ‘badges of honor’ and he wasn’t the only boy to have had them. What I did enjoy was looking at the other boys to see who was watching that pretty red rear the closest. I couldn’t blame them, since I certainly enjoyed the show myself.
It was while watching him go into the shower, then come out dripping wet and drying himself, that I had my little brainstorm. When most of the boys were dressed and the bell was about to ring, I pulled Joe aside.
"Do you have to go straight home after school?"
"No," he replied. "I can’t do anything like go to a baseball game or nuthin’, but I don’t have to go straight home."
"Good. I’d like you to come by my classroom after school so we can talk about something."
"Umm…. I really don’t need another booster already, Mis…"
"No, I actually mean talk. Okay?"
That afternoon, after school, I showed Joe how to do a homework folder, like Patrick had required Ben to do for awhile. I didn’t know if it would work for sure, but I was hoping for two things. First, that maybe helping him get organized would make it easier for him to do his homework. Second, that maybe if he showed his dad that he had a plan and was taking it seriously, he could get out of a whipping. (Okay, I know that me trying to help a kid avoid a spanking is a little hypocritical, but if I wasn’t going to get to watch, it’s just not the same thing.)
Six weeks report cards came out on Thursdays back then and were handed out during homeroom, which was between first and second period. I don’t really remember talking to Joe except at the end of class, when he came up to show me that he’d set up his notebook just like I’d showed him and was keeping it updated for every class. I do remember that he was a little down, probably thinking about how his dad would feel about his grades.
He did talk to me the next morning, though. He came bursting into my classroom after I’d only been there a few minutes. He was a little dervish of energy and seemed to be more dancing than walking as he dropped his backpack and came over to my desk.
"Man, it was great, Mr. Wells! You’re awesome! Before I showed Dad my report card, I showed him the folder and how I was keeping track of my homework, and how I’d already done it all, and how I checked each assignment off when I was finished. He thought it was so great he said he wasn’t gonna whip me for my report card."
"That is great, Joe." Of course, what I was really wondering was why he was leaning on my desk to talk to me, instead of sitting down, but in a fit of boyish honesty, he didn’t keep me waiting long.
"Yeah, well, I still got whipped ‘cause Mrs. McNeeley and Ms. Meldrum both gave me bad conduct remarks, but it wasn’t real bad. He even let me keep my jockeys on."
"Well, I guess that’s a lot better than it could have been," I told him, now not being able to wait for his gym class. "The really important thing now is for you to keep that homework done every day."
"You got that right. Dad says that, ‘cause he didn’t whip me for my grades this time, he’s gonna check my homework every night, and if I don’t got it done, I’m gonna get a spanking like I was still a little kid or something. He don’t even spank my little brother, but I gotta get it." He looked a little upset at that for a minute, then shook it off. "And he’s still gonna whip me if I get in trouble at school, but you got me out of one whipping, Mr. Wells, and that’s still great."
I had to lean back at that one. "I guess that’s one way to look at it, Joe; but can I suggest something else?"
He leaned away from me as well, with the cautious look of a boy who’d just seen a snake, but wasn’t sure if it was poisonous. "Is this gonna be a lecture?"
"No. Well, yes, but not a long one."
It’s always amazed me that schools don’t tell you why you need to learn any of this stuff, or help you figure out what you want to do with your life. It might have started off as a lecture, but Joe actually got interested as I told him what college and work is like, and how you have to learn to do things on your own, and how you have to be able to organize yourself, and sometimes even teach things to yourself, if you want to get along as an adult. I even sidetracked long enough to point out that his dad’s ‘spanking him like a little kid’ was a lot better than having to risk getting a belt-whipping every night because he’d missed some homework. That made him feel a lot better by itself. I think that when the first bell rang and he left for class, he might have been thinking of doing homework as something more than a way to avoid a sore bottom.
(His dad hadn’t been too hard on him, but by gym class, you could still see a couple of places where the belt had left light welts, if you knew they were there).
Over the next two weeks, Joe reported to me one occasion when he’d got sidetracked playing outside with friends and ended up doing his homework on a sore rear end after his dad had arrived home to check it. He complained that it hadn’t been fair because no one had said he had to do his homework as soon as he got home from school. On the other hand, I pointed out that if his dad had promised him a spanking if he checked the homework and it wasn’t done, and he checked it every day as soon as he arrived home from work, that should have been a pretty good hint. The main thing I remember from that conversation was, when I asked if getting a hand spanking made him feel like a little kid, Joe had theatrically rubbed the seat of his jeans and replied, ‘I don’t know why he bothers with the belt!’
About two days before Christmas vacation started, Joe was back in my room asking for another booster shot because he’d acted up in three different classes the day before (but not either of mine, interestingly enough).
"Joseph, kiddo, you have today and part of tomorrow left since we get out early and have an assembly. Are you honestly telling me you can’t behave for… 12 hours?"
He waffled. He moaned. Mostly, I think he did not want to start the Christmas holidays with a sore bottom. I did talk him out of it that day (I know, I must have been crazy, but I’d really grown fond of the kid).
That wasn’t the last time he asked, though. The first day back from Christmas Vacation, Joe came into my room not long after I had. He sat down and told me about the great Christmas presents he’d gotten (a new motocross bike was his pride and joy), about the three days they spent skiing, and about two whippings he’d received. One had been really embarrassing, since he and his kid brother and two boy cousins about their ages had gotten passed back and forth among his dad and uncles in a group-spank for a series of pranks that had been played on the girl cousins. The other had been much more serious and had been his own personal fault, since he’d hit his brother in the face with a snowball after being told not to throw any more.
Anyway, the night before school started, Joe’s father had sat down with him and reminded him of the school rules— mainly the spankings for not having homework done when his dad got home from work and the whippings if he got in any more trouble at school. So in accordance with that, Joe was looking for another booster.
About every two to three weeks for the rest of the school year, Joe came by early for a booster. It seemed to work for him, since—as far as I know—he only got in trouble once more during the school year, and it certainly wasn’t in my class.
Every once in awhile, he’d stop by early to ask for help with homework, and he started coming to me with questions that weren’t even about math. I didn’t mind though, since he also reported faithfully to me when he’d gotten spanked and even told me about a few whippings that weren’t school related. Those were reported with due solemnity, but I also started to receive reports - given with much more glee - about his little brothers spankings and whippings.
I had Joe in class every year he was in middle school. He was on my soccer team, so I had him for gym the next year (and it was great being able to watch him grow. By the time he was ready to start high school, he was a fine looking man and already needed to carry a stick to fight off the girls). He never did get another whipping for grades and gave me a lot of the credit for it. Being able to get organized seemed to be what he’d needed to get things done.
Besides soccer, he was also in my algebra class when he was in 8th grade. We kept up a good relationship through all this, though I never gave him a booster after 7th. He would still come by and talk to me at various times. And he kept reporting to me. Though his whippings became less and less frequent, he still seemed to enjoy telling me about his little brother’s.
Joe was honest about it, though. The funniest thing I remember was, his father had stopped the daily checks of homework, but in 8th grade, when he was 14 years old, I noticed a funny mark on his rear at the end of soccer practice. I asked about it, after most of the other guys were gone. He blushingly admitted that his father still did spot checks, and he’d kind of forgotten to do all his homework the day before. The boy had a rueful look on his face when he admitted to me, ‘Would you believe he can still make me cry a little with just his hand?’
I loved that kid.
I met his brother, too. Jeremy was in my advanced sixth grade math class in 89/90. He must have lived a bit in his brother’s shadow. Jeremy was smart and good-looking, but not as much as his big brother. He had a lot going for him, but his main advantage was that he was bigger than Joe, so he could play football, which has a major social advantage over soccer (in Texas, anyway). Still, he was a pretty good kid—but never as colorful as his brother.