Friday, April 25, 2003

By DAVID EPPS
Pastor

Way back when I was a kid, it was a serious thing to be in trouble with the law. Oh, it wasn't such a big deal to get picked up by the police the big deal was when they took you home to your dad.

There was an understanding between the police and the fathers in my town in East Tennessee. Basically, if the police picked a kid up for any minor infraction of the law, the cops took the kid home where the father would "whale the tar out of him," as the saying went. It was quick, efficient, effective, and cheaper than paying fines or hiring lawyers.

Actually it was a much better system that the one in effect today. Today, if a kid gets picked up for, say, shoplifting, the parents hire an expensive lawyer, blame the police for picking on their little innocent dear one, and try every way in the world to keep their kid from having to suffer any consequences. For their part, the police routinely charge the errant youth with a crime and, if the kid is found guilty, the young person has a criminal record forever. In the olden days, the dad just beat the kid's backside thoroughly with a belt, the kid didn't break the law again, and life went on. We're not talking "child abuse" here, although some liberal types gag and swoon at the thought of any kind of corporal punishment. Of course, today half the kids in the country don't have a dad at home so that does mess up the system somewhat.

Only once did I come close to having the "tar whaled out of me." I was in late junior high and had a tremendous crush on a lovely brunette named Marilyn who lived on Skyland Drive. I also had a thing for a pretty blonde name Connie and made the mistake of dating them both at the same time and thinking I could keep each from knowing about the other. They found me out, naturally, and I was unceremoniously dumped by both of them on the same day.

Not long after that, a couple of friends hatched a plan to "egg" some houses. This was a lot like "rolling a yard" with bathroom tissue except that, instead of using Charmin, you just chucked a couple of dozen eggs at selected homes. By the time someone noticed that their housed had been "egged," the eggs had dried and were terribly hard to remove and would often take the paint off, if left on long enough. Egging a house was against the law, since it was an act of vandalism. I suggested to my compatriots that we walk up to Skyland Drive and egg Marilyn's house. Which we did.

Along about the third dozen, the cops came roaring down the road, red light flashing. Evidently some nosey neighbor had witnessed our criminal activity and called the Sullivan County Sheriff's Department. The five of us who had plastered the house with eggs did the only honorable thing we could do we scattered and ran like rats. The deputies brought their car to a screeching halt and jumped out of the car in pursuit. I wasn't afraid of the cops but I had a deathly fear of the police taking me bodily to my father and saying, "If you promise to handle this, we'll just leave him in your hands."

My dad didn't spank very often (actually, our term for "spank" was "whip" or "whup." As in, "You're gonna get a good whuppin'.") but when he did, it was nuclear. So I ran. I ran like the wind.

Desperate and filled with terror, I jumped over a hedge and intended to hit the ground and keep running like the scared rabbit I was. What I didn't know was that, on the other side of the hedge, there was an eight-foot drop to the ground. I leaped into space in the dark of the night and, after plummeting for an eternity, hit the earth like a rotten sack of potatoes. The impact knocked the breath out of me and I laid on the ground motionless and struggling for air.

Somehow, the sheriff's deputies didn't find me, or any of our guilty gang, and after a while, my breath returned. When I gathered up the nerve to look around, both the cops and my friends were all gone. I didn't get a whuppin' and I never, ever egged another house.

Marilyn and I did date a little in high school but nothing ever came of it. I never told her that I was among the dastardly crew that pelted her house. And I certainly never told my dad.

It's a shame, really, that a kid these days gets a criminal record for drinking a beer at 17, or for shoplifting a comic book, or for kicking over trash cans. What we need, in my humble opinion, is a lot less arrests and a lot more parents who will "promise to handle things" if the cops bring their kids home. These days, parents who do "handle things," instead of being considered loving, involved parents are likely to be arrested themselves if they administer a good whuppin'. And that's a shame.

[David Epps is rector of Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal Church on Ga. Highway 34 between Peachtree City and Newnan. He may be contacted at FatherDavidEpps@aol.com or at www.CTKCEC.org.]

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