Summary
We were all--the kids I'm talking about--approaching first grade or were a year or two beyond that point. I knew there were indications of difference between my father and theirs, but I didn't dwell on them, other than to note that my father wore neckties a lot more regularly than the other fathers did, and my father never sat smoking and drinking beer on the front porch in a sleeveless undershirt the way Roy's and Nancy's father did. If I had had a garment like that (and we'd had a real porch), I think I'd have taken my own perch to see what the sensation was like. I was already intensely curious about people. Sometimes I'd even stand at the bus stop on the corner and try to push my soul up out of my body so I could slide it down into someone else's body, to find what it felt like to be them instead of me. The point was not to escape my own situation. The point was to go to a place I'd never been before.
Then again, during a traveling conversation, someone would make a remark about smarting off, and again someone other than me would deliver the refrain about the father's response. At a level of understanding that seemed to have nothing to do with speed or slowness--certainly no blazing moment of sterling recognition--I began to register more precisely than I had before the ways in which my own parents were markedly different from the other kids.' Theirs seemed bothered by insubordination. A smart-mouth remark seemed to threaten something that ought not be violated. It took me a long time to understand that. In my own situation, the major point of concern seemed more oriented toward the quality of articulation. If my grammar were faulty or my pronunciation off, I'd be corrected--not shamed, just corrected. If I used a term that angled toward the nasty--maybe a new phrase I'd picked up and wanted to try out--I'd be informed that I ought to use language more effectively than I had. Of course, I'd go sullen at the response, but I wouldn't stay that way for long. At the same time, all of us boys swore our own fathers could whip everybody else's father, and on the spot we'd invent reasons why.See the full content of this document
Extract
The Big Mystery
I remember as a kid being mystified when I heard other guys in the neighborhood saying, "Boy, if I smarted off like that, my old man would knock me clear across the room." It wasn't the violent content of the comment that surprised me, but the pride, the strange tone of joy in the notion. We were living in a modest section of Oak Cliff in Dallas. My father was the minister of a nearby Methodist church, and our little parsonage was next to a magical place called Herndon Park.
We were all--the kids I'm talking about--approaching first grade or were a year or tw...See the full content of this document
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