I got my first bicycle when I was five. We weren't wealthy; lower-middle class, so therefore my frugal parents purchased it from the thrift store. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was a purple stingray, complete with a banana seat and a sissy bar, made more feminine by the addition of a white plastic wicker basket with large yellow plastic flowers, attached to the handle bars. I rode that little bike up and down our sidewalk for hour after hour and felt like the luckiest girl on the whole block.

After awhile, summer being long and me being an only child and the only girl on the block, I got bored. My father's tool box always held a sense of wonderment for me; he included me in all his projects always and told me wonderful stories of his childhood. Perhaps that is why I still refer to myself as "my father's only son" because he took the time to share himself with me, whether building a fence or changing the oil in the car. I had asked my mother a few times about her makeup and jewelry; she just shooed me out of the room and continued with her dusting. Therefore, when I spied a wonderful, old, wooden handled ice-pick in one of the tool-box drawers, I wanted to use it. I wanted to feel the memories of my father's and my grandfather's hands. I pretended I was working in Alaska and breaking large clumps of ice into smaller ones so I could build an igloo.

Suddenly, I spied my beautiful bike with its white vinyl banana seat. I began plunging the ice pick into the seat over and over, marveling at the perfectly round holes, making designs and patterns with the dots. Too late I realized what I had done. I put the ice-pick back where I had found it and tried to ignore how much trouble I was going to be in. Mom soon discovered what I had done and demanded the reason. Of course, I lied and told her I didn't do it. Of course, she didn't believe me. She shrieked for my father and together; she yelling, he speaking softly; they extracted the truth. She demanded that a spanking was in order and insisted my father mete out the punishment. He had never done so much as raise his voice to me, but the destruction of my bike seat combined with the lying was too much for him to ignore. He sat on an old wooden stool and motioned me to lie over his knees. He paddled my behind several times while my mother stood over us, hands on hips, deciding when he had disciplined enough. When her unstated objective was satisfied, he was allowed to stop. When I got up, I noticed there were as many tears in his eyes as in mine.

Good steal (or is that steel?), TG.

(did you ever play baseball?)

Glad to be associated, in such a small way, with this inspired writing. Bleeding at its best IMHO.

TG: this idea for shared childhood reminiscences is a great idea. I could see it bubbling up here and there, this idea.

I hope you believe me when I tell you that I had an almost identical experience to yours, with my father as the reluctant enforcer of what my mother called "a man-sized spanking," which is what she felt I deserved for my transgression.(I think I was late getting home from school, and I had worried her). So she waited 'til the poor guy got home from commuting an hour from work before she laid it on him.

Never one to argue, and taking her word for his parenting role, he dutifully turned me over his knee. Only my mother was in the kitchen, she didn't watch; so that's what enabled him to bluff as he did. Which was - he brought his hand down in a cupped pat, and I shrieked bloody murder anyway, as I was still waiting for the worst to come, and was scared out of my skin.

When it was over, my father was shaken, I was baffled but grateful, and my mother was satisfied that justice had been served.

Is there a pattern here, of post-war sympathetic and complicit fathers? It was the mothers of that time I remember most who were always wild with fury. They must have been frustrated out of their minds perusing the pastel fashions in Woman's Day, and doing whatever they did in those kitchens with their bulbous Frigidaires, their flowered linoleum and chrome-legged kitchenette "suites."

My mother was a smoker and I often tried to discourage her with the latest findings about smoking and health. She ignored me and the studies. I was reduced to begging her to stop, telling her I wanted her to live a long life. When she paid no heed to my begging, I became a member of the cigarette terrorist underground. Cigarette loads were my weapons of choice.

For those who may not be familiar with these little devils, they are very small wooden stakes (a little less than ½ in long, about as wide as a toothpick), with explosive material painted on them. You insert them into the tobacco end of the cigarette and wait for the victim to light up. The heat of the burning tobacco sets them off. They literally blow a gaping hole in the cigarette.

After a few tip end blow ups, my mother checked the smokes before lighting up. At that point, I took things a step further. I used toothpicks to push the loads deeper into the cigarette, so my mother not only wouldn't see them, she would be totally relaxed and unsuspecting when the explosion occurred.

However, in the last cigarette terrorist act I performed, I laced one with three loads, two deep and one nearer to the tip. I repacked the loaded cigarette so it stuck out slightly more than the rest, making it the easiest, most likely candidate for consumption.

I was rarely there for the explosive moment and didn't always hear about it. I thought some of the loads must have been duds. The triple dose of loads I heard about very quickly. I was playing outside and got the angry call to come in the house NOW.

My mother had been reading and smoking in bed when the first charge blew while the cigarette was in an ashtray. Not deterred, she pinched the tip clean and lit up the remains of the cigarette. A few minutes later, the second explosions blew tobacco all over the bed. She used her book to put out the embers.

All that was left were the butt and a bit of tobacco and paper.

I had to clean the debris from her bed and was threatened with grievous bodily harm if any other cigarettes exploded. Having realized the inherent dangers of the prank and been given the final warning, I left the cigarette terrorist underground, resigned that my mother would continue to smoke despite my efforts to discourage her. The habit, in large measure, helped kill her.

I had never heard of these; what an amazing story.

The fact that she wasn't deterred by the first explosion and your efforts speaks to the horrific nature of this addiction.

Postscript: I just Googled these - they still exist.

How sad that your mom couldn't feel the depth of your love that you would go to such an extreme as to risk blowing her up to save her life!

LM,

how can I become a member of this underground. I know someone who refuses to quit smoking. I would be happy to try those explosives.