True Behaver

 Folks Have Their Ways

They were at a very private event way out in the country at the old Hudson family farm that Lori and Jeff had inherited after her mother died last spring. This was the first Summer Sunday annual family get together without anyone from the older generation present. The recently deceased Mama Lou had ruled over them as a matriarch who laid down the rules and enforced them with her thick wooden paddle or thin hickory switch, regardless of age or excuses. Skinny-dipping as the ultimate rebellion against her old rules and antiquated punishments had begun when Lori and her sister Ruby and little brother Asa had been kids. Mama Lou could not see us at the lake from her house, nor could anyone see it from the road or home.

Mama Lou and Daddy Dale had been farmers who ruled their little farm as aristocrats, and their children and grandchildren were subject to a lifetime of old-fashioned discipline. Daddy Dale’s big palms hurt as bad as Mama Lou’s paddle and switch. Daddy Dale had passed two years before, and Mama Lou had become even more of a disciplinarian. As harsh as her judgements and punishments became, her kids and grandchildren submitted because they sensed it was her way of dealing with grief and their way of physically showing respect. They never discussed family matters outside the family but among themselves it was a source of pride how strict their family was, and they felt they securely belonged to a resilient, decent family they must never disgrace. When it was a family members only affair they did not care what others thought was normal, they followed Hudson ways. 

As a surprising example of this Lori, Ruby and Asa had inducted their children into the annual skinny dip picnic early on. They were secret nudists in a small, conservative rural area and there were fourteen family members and five spouses at this year’s get together. Many of their asses bore the elongated thin scars left from the bare-bottom switchings, and the wider scars that came from blisters raised by the impact of the paddle. Lori and Ruby were sitting in lawn chairs after lunch watching the swimmers when Lori observed that their brother and their male children all had perfectly straight penises unlike the male there, the in-law-spouses present. Lori speculated that the clue to the answer was that the males with straight penises had scars on their asses and the ones with curvatures had smooth buttocks. 

Mama Lou had been a stickler when it came to sexual morality and she demanded obedience and scourged any deviance she caught, so there was extraordinarily little. The prohibition on masturbation had been openly discussed, and she had been known to check on the boys when they might least expect her to pop in. Locked doors were forbidden, and closed doors were cause for a suspicion that had to be tested by an unexpected visit. Although premarital sex was out of the question, one of the quirks of the family was that nudity was acceptable. So given that fact, bare-bottom discipline of adults did not seem particularly shocking to them.

As the family gathered before departing that afternoon Ruby presented her older sister Lori with a box wrapped in shiny red paper and tied with a big red bow, a box the size of one that might hold a large bouquet of roses. Lori looked surprised at this unexpected action at the annual family skinny-dip picnic which had not included any giving of gifts before. All watched as Lori fixed her eyes on the box and tore off the paper and opened the lid. She laughed as she gripped her mom’s old paddle and held it up over her head then waved it in a salute to her family. They lined up single file and as each approached Lori they bowed and bent down until they could grip as close to the ankles as possible and brace for a single stinging paddle swing before exiting toward their cars and clothes. 

One of the younger generation in-laws, a twenty-year-old named Cassie, bent over despite recent lacerations from a switching that were still healing on her buttocks. The family always showed respect when an in-law accepted corporal punishment from a spouse, and Lori gave her a light tap of the paddle to spare her sorely healing welts and there was spontaneous clapping from those waiting in the line. Lori felt good being matriarch and the family was happy about it too. Lori thought she could maintain the family’s ways but with an update now and then, like the day’s skinny-dip which had been a spanking success for the whole family.