This article is a followup to my 1996 article describing my personal spanking background. You should probably read that one first to get an idea of how my parents normally spanked me before reading about the extraordinary events detailed herein.

I titled this "Worst Spankings", but it is more properly my most memorable spankings received from my parents. All occurred when I was 6-7 years old. None of them really fit the normal pattern described in my "Background" article.

It was a cool autumn Saturday afternoon, and my father was working in the garage on some unremembered task. I was supposed to be helping him, although as a six-year-old, my "help" often made the work take longer.

We were both in a bad mood. I was bored, and had started running my mouth again. My father was an extremely patient man, but taking sass from an impudent 6 year old boy was something he could only do for so long, even if he did love the brat in question.

I was standing in the driveway just outside the garage, and we had started raising our voices somewhat. Dad was really steamed, but I kept pushing him further, as moody kids often do. Finally, I made the unbelievable mistake of yelling "You dumb shit!" at him.

At the same time my tongue was forming the words, my brain was silently screaming "You can't say that to Dad! He'll kill us!" But is was too late. The sound waves containing those fatal words reached my father's ears and my fate was sealed.

The expression of shock and rage on my father's face as he wheeled around towards me will be forever seared on my memory. He shouted "COME HERE!!" and pointed to the floor in front of him. He started taking off his jacket, obviously to free up his arms so he could deal with me.

I have never been as terrified of my father before or since. He had murder in his eyes, and I took a step backwards, away from him. "YOU COME HERE!!" he screamed.

At that point I was sure he was gonna kill me, and not just in a euphemistic sense, either. I panicked and ran! As I ran around the front of the house, I could hear him bellow "COME BACK HERE, or I'll KILL YOU!"

This clearly did nothing to ease my panic, and I kept running like the hounds of hell were after me. As I turned the far corner towards the back of the house, I chanced a look back, and Dad was 8 or 10 feet behind me and coming fast.

He would have eventually have caught me anyway, of course. But I had made a mistake in looking back. I tripped over the stoop at the back of the house (just around the corner), and skidded across it, skinning both knees on the cement right through my jeans.

In agony already, and knowing now that I was doomed, I grabbed my aching knees, curled up into a ball and started crying. To tell you the truth, I don't really remember the actual spanking. I believe I went into mild shock at that point, like a gazelle that's been brought down by a pack of lions. The animal goes into shock to spare it the agony of the damage done by the predators before it finally dies.

The difference was that I didn't die, of course. The next thing I remember was sitting on the bathroom clothes hamper in my underwear while my mother swabbed Bactine on my injured knees. I kept squirming, despite Mom's orders to sit still, since it felt like someone had dumped a whole hive full of bees down the back of my underpants. Mom didn't offer any relief for my stinging behind.

In the summer of 1964 my parents took me to Philadelphia, and we visited various fascinating sites like Independence Hall and the Franklin Institute (my favorite). We also visited the USS Olympia, a museum ship docked on the Delaware River in Philadelphia. As an adult I'm quite interested in sea/naval history, and enjoy visiting museum ships. As a six-year-old, I wasn't as excited about these topics.

In May of 1898 Admiral George Dewey won the Battle of Manila Bay, and USS Olympia was his flagship. In the summer of 1964 battle again raged on the decks of the Olympia. Once again I was moody and irritable. I was an only child and wasn't getting what I wanted. I don't even remember what it was I was mad about, but I remember being absolutely furious with my parents.

So finally I threw a major temper tantrum, right there on the main deck of the Olympia. Just a few seconds into my fit, my perspective changed, and suddenly I found myself staring right down at the deck. I kept howling, but for a different reason. My father had picked me up, draped me over his leg (after planting his foot on the side of a capstan or something), and proceeded to apply his strong right hand to the seat of my bermuda shorts. This quickly caused fire alarms to go off in my stern.

I only looked up once during that spanking. I saw dozens of people - everyone within my field of vision on that deck - staring at us. The kids were mainly smirking - most kids are fascinated by spankings, provided that they're not the guest of honor for the operation. The adults all looked far too pleased about this, though. The all seemed to be thinking "It's about time you dealt with that obnoxious brat. His whining has annoyed all of us for far too long."

Eventually my feet returned to the deck and I rubbed the back of my shorts, sobbing, as I stammered out an apology. That was the most public, and therefore most humiliating, spanking I ever received. But guess what, I never threw a temper tantrum in public again!

The most horrific day of my childhood was the day two of my friends and I set fire to my father's garden. A fictionalized account of this situation, entitled Playing With Fire, has been on the site since 1996. I actually was the "Daniel Carlton" character in the story.

In reality, only two of the four brothers were involved in the incident. Garth and I were actually seven when this happened, and Tommy was six. This makes us somewhat less stupid than the older characters in the story, but we were clearly old enough to know better.

It had been Garth's idea to do something with matches. I don't remember what we wanted to do with the matches, but we definitely did not intend to set the garden on fire. What I do clearly remember is that I'm the one who stole a pack of matches (which were definitely off-limits for me!) from our kitchen and sneaked them outside to my waiting cohorts. So no matter whose idea it was originally, I could never claim innocence.

We tried to put the fire out ourselves at first. Once it became clear that it was out of control, Garth and Tommy took off running like scalded rabbits, leaving me to alert my Mom to the situation.

Fortunately our next door neighbor was home from work that day, heard the commotion, and put the fire out with a garden hose. I don't actually think our house was in real danger, but we would have lost more of the back yard if we had to have waited for the volunteer fire company to show up.

Little boys found at the scene of an unexplained fire generally have an awful lot of explaining to do. Mom held me firmly by an ear and forced me to look her in the eyes. A stressed-out seven-year-old in that position stands zero chance of lying his way out of trouble. I spilled my guts, admitted stealing the matches, and quickly fingered my two cohorts (not that Mom needed a lot of help with that, she knew who had been playing with me).

After my interrogation, I was banished to my room with those dreaded words "Wait until your father gets home!" ringing in my ears. It was just after lunch, and I was in for the longest afternoon of my life. I was used to being spanked almost immediately when I did something wrong, so this anxiety and dread were new experiences for me.

Time passed eventually and Dad got home. I got a firm talking to, but still had to wait for the main event. Mrs. Heckler brought Garth and Tommy over to our house for a "meeting" early that evening. All three of us apologized profusely, promised perfect behavior forever, and threw ourselves on the mercy of the court.

Unfortunately mercy had an engagement somewhere else. The Heckler's marched home, where I found out later their Mom tore up their butts with a strap.

Dad finally fetched The Stick, marched me into my room, and for the first and only time in my life he pulled down my pants and briefs before laying me face down on my bed. Then he proceeded to give me the thrashing of my life. I slept on my tummy that night and never played with matches again.