I attended the U.S. public school system back in the 1960's, when children were still expected to behave in class. Teachers used corporal punishment on unruly kids, usually boys, and parents backed them up. In fact, if you complained too much at home you were likely to get more of the same.

Through most of my elementary and junior high school career I was an average kid, only rarely getting into major mischief. In our school district the teachers handled all but the most extreme cases them- selves. So once or twice a school year I found myself bent over a desk getting my butt warmed with a paddle or (in Junior High) touching my toes while the teacher planted three or four sizzling strokes across my pants seat with a wooden pointer. Jeans were against the dress code, so the only protection we boys had was normal trousers and underpants, while the girls only had the protection of a skirt and panties.

For sixth grade I attended a new, large school that had just opened to accommodate the baby boom generation of school age children. The elementary school zones in our school district were redrawn to make best use of this much needed new capacity and I lived just within the new school's service area. This was not a pleasant prospect, since I wouldn't know most of the other kids. Sixth grade in the new school that year had three classrooms full of eleven and twelve-year-olds, about 75 total students. Three teachers acted as homeroom teachers for the sixth grade, and team taught all the sixth grade academic subjects. I was assigned to the Miss Melavek's home room. Miss Melavek was the social studies teacher. In her first year of teaching, she was only about 10 years older than her pupils. Although not exactly a knockout, Miss Melavek had been a cheerleader in college and was definitely attractive.

Something strange happened that school year. We were in our last year of elementary school, and the unruly faction of our homeroom class, which was larger than usual (and oddly enough included this writer), seemed determined to wrest control from our rookie teacher. Unfortunately for us, Miss Melavek was a conservative young social studies teacher and favored the old methods of maintaining order in the classroom.

The standard implement used to deal with unruly schoolchildren in that time and place was a 3/8 inch thick wooden paddle about four or five inches wide and nearly two feet long. The narrowed handle was about six inches long, leaving almost 18 inches for the "business end" of the instrument. Miss Melavek's paddle may have been new that September, but it was well broken in (as were many of of our keisters) by June. Out of 24 students in our homeroom class, about three boys and, oddly, one girl made up the main troublemaking element. Although few members of this remarkably rowdy class escaped punishment the entire year, the four of us were the most frequent sufferers.

The main problem with a paddling from Miss Melavek was the fact that she was young and very fit. An active tennis player, she demonstrated a strong forehand stroke which was put to good use when wielding the paddle. Compared to the middle-aged to elderly women who normally taught grade school, Miss Melavek's paddle whacks were no joke, a fact we all found out the hard way.

One day I was returning to homeroom after running an errand for Miss Melavek. As I approached the door to the room I stopped short. The unmistakable sound of a paddle in use on one of my classmates could be clearly heard through the door and down the hall. The fifth and sixth grade classrooms were grouped together, so a punishment being inflicted in one room could be clearly heard by the other classes, especially in rooms with an open door. I crept up to the door to my homeroom and looked in the window. There was a spare student desk near the door of our room which served as the venue for classroom discipline. Dale, one of the main troublemakers, was laying over this desk facing the class, his cringing backside in clear view from the door. The stern Miss Melavek stood behind Dale, at arms-length to his left, her paddle arcing back to deliver the next stinging blow. Anyone looking through the window in the door had an excellent view of the punishment in progress, a fact which I appreciated.

Dale was a skinny, freckle-faced boy with curly red hair who spent most of his time trying to look innocent. A natural born troublemaker and class clown, he rarely was innocent and you could usually see it in his eyes. During a paddling his face would turn as red as his hair (and, of course, his backside).

As Miss Melavek's paddle smashed into Dale's tightly stretched pants seat, it occurred to me that this was the first time I was able to see her paddling a student from this angle. When more than one of us was "in for it," Miss Melavek made the miscreants stand outside in the hall waiting their turn. But we were expected to stand silently against the wall, and were told in no uncertain terms that anyone caught looking through the window would get twice as many whacks. Since Miss Melavek didn't know I had returned from my errand and was standing outside the classroom it was presumably safe to watch.

When seated at our desks, we had a better view of the victim's face. Boys were expected (by the other boys, at least) to take it without crying, while the occasional naughty girl could sob her eyes out. Still, it was fun to watch a suffering boy's screwed-up face as he tried to control himself. Miss Melavek's strength and quickly acquired paddling skill made that difficult.

It was obvious from my external vantage point that many of the boys were enjoying this - I was not the only one who disliked Dale. Young boys are cruel, and often enjoy the suffering of their fellows. Of course, no boy finds it at all amusing when it's HIS turn to bend over the desk. It's not funny when HE has to put on a brave face for his classmates while the dreaded paddle sets his seat on blazing fire in payment for his misdeeds.

Miss Melavek dealt another powerful whack to Dale's smarting buttocks. Suddenly Dale stood straight up, clutching his wounded posterior, and yelled, "Stop!"

Miss Melavek pointed at the the desk with the paddle and firmly told Dale, "bend over, you have five more to go."

Dale looked at Miss Melavek with the pitiful look of a whipped dog, and whimpered, "If you give me the other five whacks, I'll make a puddle on the floor."

"You wouldn't dare!" Miss Melavek sounded shocked at Dale's audacity. My seated classmates looked on in stunned silence at this unprecedented development.

"I can't help it! I have to go!" Dale managed to look even more pitiful.

I was holding my breath. Dale and I didn't care for each other, and the prospect of this twelve-year-old boy, my enemy, wetting his pants in front of the class while being paddled was too good to be true. The only thing that would be better would be to seated in class, so I could watch the deserving brat pee on himself. 'Make the little creep bend over! Make him piss his pants! Please!' I cried out in my thoughts.

Unfortunately Miss Melavek relented, "Alright. But next time, I'll give you all ten whacks. If you make a puddle on the floor then, you'll have to clean it up!"

"Yes ma'am," said the humbled and fortunate Dale.

Rats! Dale was getting off with only half the prescribed punishment. The least Miss Melavek could do was let Dale go to the boys room to relieve himself. She could finish the paddling when he got back.

Dale got away with that one, but nobody else ever did. After that, Miss Melavek always postponed paddlings until after the next break or until after lunch. That way the victim had the added punishment of apprehension, but also an opportunity to visit the rest room just before the paddling.

Miss Melavek never reminded us to make sure and use the rest room when we were expecting a paddling, but it seemed an obvious precaution. Dale apparently didn't get the message. The next time he pulled a major stunt and was informed that he would receive 10 whacks of the paddle after recess, Dale dawdled coming in from the playground and didn't have time to visit the restroom.

Undoubtedly the worst behaved kid in my homeroom class (and given how obnoxious we all were that year, that's really saying something), Dale was accustomed to being paddled and usually shrugged it off, which is probably why he spent so much time bending over that desk in the first place. In any event Dale must have forgotten about this impending doom, because he seemed surprised when told assume his familiar position bending over the spare desk. Dale asked to be excused to the restroom before the paddling, but Miss Melavek wasn't willing to brook any further delays. She reminded Dale that he had all of recess to attend to his natural functions. Dale pleaded, squeezing his legs together in a convincing manner, but to no avail. Very reluctantly and slowly, Dale placed himself in position.

After just three whacks, Dale jumped up and tried to weasel out of the rest of his just desserts with the old threat of making a puddle. Miss Melavek was true to her word and made him bend over again and continued applying the paddle, even harder, to Dale's trouser seat.

All along I thought the little con artist was just trying to get out of the rest of his paddling and had deliberately not used the restroom. Then I noticed the convulsive way he was squeezing his legs together, the telltale sign of a boy who really has to go. He seemed to be doing an excellent acting job considering the pain he was in, especially given the fact that his "bluff" hadn't worked and he was going to get all ten whacks anyway.

Sure enough, the little moron wasn't acting. By the fifth whack Dale was crying, which was unusual for him. He could usually take seven or eight whacks before even a groan escaped his lips. As the seventh whack echoed through the room Dale straightened up and shouted, "No!" The reason for Dale's crying was now clear - a dark stain was spreading across the front of his tan trousers. A few kids gasped audibly at this development, while others (myself included) were thoroughly enjoying Dale's humiliation.

Dale started to turn around, apparently in an effort to show Miss Melavek, who was standing behind him, this cause for his anguish. "Oh no you don't," she yelled, grabbing Dale firmly by the hair at the back of the neck, forcing him to once again bend over the desk. Apparently Miss Melavek hadn't noticed the stain on Dale's trousers and thought the boy was stalling again.

As the infuriated Miss Melavek wound up for the eighth whack she kept her left hand on the back of the young miscreant's head to prevent any further shenanigans. Dale began to cry in earnest now, covering his flaming red face with his arms to hide his embarrassment. By the ninth whack Dale was howling loudly at each searing touch of the paddle. Those of us closest to the action could see the dark stain move down the inside of the boy's trouser legs. Hot pee poured into his shoes and slight tremors wracked his body as the boy struggled unsuccessfully to regain control of his bladder.

After the paddling was over Dale remained bent over the desk, his face buried in his arms, sobbing brokenly. Once the paddle stopped impacting his aching buttocks, the disgraced boy managed to stop peeing into his soaked pants. Miss Melavek only then became aware of what had happened. Unmoved, she sent someone to the school janitor to fetch rags and towels.

Dale ignored Miss Melavek's order to stand up. Eventually she grabbed a hand full of red hair and forced him into a standing position, his hands still covering his face in shame. The crotch area and legs of his trousers were sopping wet, and yellow liquid collected on the carpet between his shoes. Dale had made good on his threat to make a puddle.

Childish snickers rippled through the class then, and Miss Melavek threatened dire consequences for anyone who laughed at Dale. It was hard for me to not make fun of my thoroughly soiled and cowered enemy. Dale was forced to clean up the mess he made, and he had to change into his gym shorts, the only non-soiled pants he had at school. He wore them in disgrace the rest of the day.

By the next day the carpet had been cleaned, and the smell of urine was absent from the room. I was satisfied to learn through the sixth grade grapevine that Dale, now known throughout the school as "Puddles," had received a good dose of the strap from his father the night before. Dale never tried that paddle-evading ploy again, nor did anyone else. Ah, the good old days.