Lickings

A lick'en could mean a switch'en (with a switch), paddling with a thin board designed for that purpose, with holes said to enhance the pain or the flat of the hand all applied to the buttocks.  Mostly to boys.

I received my share.  Once, when about three or four years of age, my mother declared that I needed a spanking (milder form of a licking).  I can't recall what I did to deserve it, but I decided to escape by running out of the house.  And so I ran.  No parent can allow such behavior.  Such defiance of authority and so my mother ran after me.  Mom was  a little overweight and had never ran much in her life anyway.  We circled the yard a few times, did several figure eights and my mother got to laughing at how the whole scene

must look to a neighbor who might be passing by on the road.  We were both about run out when she finally caught me, but was in too good of humor to apply more than a couple of mild swats.

Pop gave me a few.  Down the lane from the barn was his best field planted to corn.  the crop was knee-high and looking good.  Beyond this field was a wood lot and pasture.  Some years the milk cows could be taken to and from pasture and barn through his field via a temporary lane.  The lane fence had been taken down and the cows were to be driven around the field and to the barn by another route.  Cows are creatures of habit.  The didn't want to go the unfamiliar way and so I opened the gate expecting them to follow the old way to the barn.

Not so.  Green corn has a wonderful odor.  I like the smell of it.  Cows like it even more.  The scattered like kids in a candy shop.  Grabbing mouthfuls of green stuff here and there while tearing around.  Pop was soon on the scene of what he believed was the ruination of his best corn crop in years.  The cows were soon gotten out as they were headed to the barn and it was milking time.  Didn't last, but ten minutes of what seemed like mass destruction.

I got a good licking.

That field was one of his best corn crops in years. (in spite of the cow run through).
I remember that Pop had a melon patch in this same field that year.  Good watermelons.  Big ones.  This field of corn was cut by hand that fall and shocked.  This same field was hand cut with a corn knife and shocked.  Pop hired a young man to work on the cutting and shocking for $1.00 a day and a good dinner.