I remember living in a place called Geneva Towers, located in the low income residence of San Francisco. We moved there from Fillmore, (now called the Fillmore center) when I was about two years old.
Geneva Towers were two buildings, one called the “A” building and the other the “B” building. They were facing opposite from each other, located practically side by side. These buildings stood, God knows how high, with 20 floors in each building, but started at the 2nd floor and didn’t have a 13th, there were 20 separate apartments on each floor.
As a youth, I wasn’t one you would call a bad, mischievous or inquisitive child. I was always afraid if I didn’t obey my mother, she would die. That fear stuck with me for years and even when I got in trouble, I would never say “I wish you would die” like I hear my oldest son say to me.
This brings me to a point that I want to make about what it was like to get a spanking. I don’t remember getting a lot of spankings, probably 7 in my life, let me share with two with you. I have a cousin, well I have many cousins, but the cousin I want to talk about today is named Frankie. Frankie lived in the “B” building, with her mom and sisters on the 7th floor and my mom with two boys and I occupied the “A” building on the 20th floor.
My mom worked at Levitz, a furniture store in South City (that is still there to this day), and she brought me a canopy bed, you know, those beds that only Barbie and Ken have. This bed was the most ravishing bed I had ever seen, let alone had. Anyway, Frankie and I destroyed the light salmon-colored bed. I can’t remember if we were fighting or playing, never the less, that beautiful umbrella covered bed that had everything on it, like ruffles, thick comforters, sheets, and covers that just went well with it- even the pillows were what we would call “off the hook”- the whole idea of it all was dismembered. My mom, well lets just say she didn’t play.
Forget the belts, the wooden kitchen utensils and her hands, try a switch wrapped around an extension cord or whatever else she could find handy. Frankie and I got the spanking of our lives, facing down (on what was left of my bed). Our hands had to be pointing upward, and if we moved, huh, its safe to say we didn’t. Worst of all, my momwould have us waiting for spankings, through dinner, her soaps, I mean hours, just waiting. The anticipation of the whole thing was a killer.
Sometimes, she would wait till we were asleep. Think about it, cozy, warm and having the best dreams God could ever give you, when all of the sudden whack, right in the kisser, unexpectingly- that’s when she got us good. If that wasn’t enough, when Frankie’s mom came to get her, we would both get “it” from her too.
Probably, the least harmful infliction our mothers would put us through was to stand in time out. But noooo, just facing the wall, admiring the cracks of the ivy colored Geneva Towers confines and the roaches visiting the spiders or getting caught up in their web, but standing there with both arms up in the air. You would think they would stop there, right? Wrong! They went on to say, “put your right foot in the air. Oh, and if you moved, there went a flying object across the room warning us- it will be one of those spankings that we loved so much (smile) if we lost our balance. These were the icing on the cake…Just two ways our mothers disciplined their offspring. So let’s just say “Our mothers didn’t play back in the day.”