Eight years ago, my daughter, her husband, and their three-year-old son Michael visited me for several days when I was living in my Montford Avenue Apartment. Unbeknownst to me, my son Jake had told Michael I was a superhero. According to Jake, the fifty-seven-year old pudgy man whom Michael knew as Grandpa lived an ordinary life during the daytime, but at night he would slip into the streets of Asheville and fight the bad guys.
That evening, after Jake had left, I was showing Michael a few items in my bedroom. On the wall of the bedroom was the sword I had carried in military school so many years ago. “Hey, watch this,” I said, and snatching the sword from the wall I held the scabbard at my side, grabbed the hilt, and whipped out the sword.
That evening, after Jake had left, I was showing Michael a few items in my bedroom. On the wall of the bedroom was the sword I had carried in military school so many years ago. “Hey, watch this,” I said, and snatching the sword from the wall I held the scabbard at my side, grabbed the hilt, and whipped out the sword.
Michael’s eyes nearly burst from his head. “You really are a superhero!” he cried.
His outburst became a part of family lore.
In 1962, at my own request, my parents drove me two hundred miles from our home and deposited me in a room in a barracks at Staunton Military Academy. (Locals pronounce the word Stan-ton, not Stawn-ton.). For several years, I had dreamed of being a soldier and hoped someday to enter the United States Military Academy. The year before, I had even sent away for a catalogue from West Point and practiced meeting the physical conditioning requirements listed therein. Because my parents were dissatisfied with the educational opportunities in the secondary school in Boonville, they allowed me to leave home and enter a new world.
Looking back, I wonder what I was thinking. I was twelve years old. Today I teach home-educated students ages twelve to eighteen, and I look at the younger ones and try to imagine them going away to school as I did. I remember when I left home how my brother Doug, age eleven, began crying and I looked at him in wonderment, having no idea he loved me so much.
Staunton followed the military system used at the Virginia Military Institute, farther up the Shenandoah Valley in Lexington. Old cadets called new cadets rats, and for the first few months at the academy these upperclassmen hazed us. Few of them called new cadets by their first names: I was simply “Minick”. In addition to our academic studies, we learned in those first weeks how to polish our shoes, to fold and align every article of clothing in our press, to stand at attention and march in cadence, to wear our shirts with a military tuck. Some of my classmates, especially those there under duress, failed magnificently at these tasks, but I took to them as if born to be a soldier.
Sometimes, however, trouble noses around as trouble does and one night it sniffed me out.
Captain Kavalaski was a tall man with a pencil-thin moustache and swept-back black hair. He looked like a vampire and was known affectionately among the cadets as “The Count.”
Every night an officer, a teacher at the school, inspected the barracks a couple of times to make sure we were busy at our desks with our schoolwork. Trailing behind the officer was the cadet on duty, who would note any infractions on his clipboard.
On this particular night The Count marched into our room. Though we’d only arrived about a month ago at the academy, we knew enough to spring to attention. He toured the room, studying our belongings, then announced: “Gentlemen, I see no shower slippers. Do you possess shower slippers?”
Shower slippers? Who the heck wore slippers in a shower? But like my roommates, I said, “No, sir.” The Count seemed to want a negative answer.
“I have duty again next week. When I return, you will have shower slippers.”
We were twelve-year-old boys, so I probably don’t need to tell you that when The Count returned we didn’t have shower slippers.
The Count removed his belt. “Five apiece,” he said. “Grab the ends of your bunks.”
Having been spanked several times in my life, both at home and in school in Boonville, I knew it was best just to get this ordeal over with and grabbed the end of my bunk. The Count swatted me five times with the belt. Of my three roommates, only one broke down and cried before taking his swats. Bill was from Eastern Virginia and the tallest of us, and I doubt he had ever suffered corporal punishment in his life.
“I’ll be back next week,” The Count said. “Go to the cadet store and get some shower slippers.”
Such spankings today would bring lawsuits and outrage on YouTube. The marshmallow-latte university students advocating for trigger warnings and safe spaces would suffer hysterical fits if forced to attend a school like Staunton. In that institution we learned to curse like the proverbial sailors. Bullying was rampant. Fistfights were frequent. Even pillow fights could be dangerous, as some boys loaded books into their pillows and laundry bags to increase their firepower. We learned the danger of giving way to tears. Shaming was an every-day occurrence. I once asked an older boy I hardly knew if I could borrow some small item, a pencil or a rubber band. “Minick,” he said, “I wouldn’t give you the sweat off my back.” I never understood why I deserved that answer, but I have never forgotten it or the contempt with which he turned his back on me.
Those shower slippers? Today’s cushy world might condemn The Count’s swats, but here’s the thing: the next week all four of us owned and displayed a pair of shower slippers.
And the sword? I was appointed a platoon leader the next academic year. Platoon leaders carried swords instead of rifles.
His outburst became a part of family lore.
In 1962, at my own request, my parents drove me two hundred miles from our home and deposited me in a room in a barracks at Staunton Military Academy. (Locals pronounce the word Stan-ton, not Stawn-ton.). For several years, I had dreamed of being a soldier and hoped someday to enter the United States Military Academy. The year before, I had even sent away for a catalogue from West Point and practiced meeting the physical conditioning requirements listed therein. Because my parents were dissatisfied with the educational opportunities in the secondary school in Boonville, they allowed me to leave home and enter a new world.
Looking back, I wonder what I was thinking. I was twelve years old. Today I teach home-educated students ages twelve to eighteen, and I look at the younger ones and try to imagine them going away to school as I did. I remember when I left home how my brother Doug, age eleven, began crying and I looked at him in wonderment, having no idea he loved me so much.
Staunton followed the military system used at the Virginia Military Institute, farther up the Shenandoah Valley in Lexington. Old cadets called new cadets rats, and for the first few months at the academy these upperclassmen hazed us. Few of them called new cadets by their first names: I was simply “Minick”. In addition to our academic studies, we learned in those first weeks how to polish our shoes, to fold and align every article of clothing in our press, to stand at attention and march in cadence, to wear our shirts with a military tuck. Some of my classmates, especially those there under duress, failed magnificently at these tasks, but I took to them as if born to be a soldier.
Sometimes, however, trouble noses around as trouble does and one night it sniffed me out.
Captain Kavalaski was a tall man with a pencil-thin moustache and swept-back black hair. He looked like a vampire and was known affectionately among the cadets as “The Count.”
Every night an officer, a teacher at the school, inspected the barracks a couple of times to make sure we were busy at our desks with our schoolwork. Trailing behind the officer was the cadet on duty, who would note any infractions on his clipboard.
On this particular night The Count marched into our room. Though we’d only arrived about a month ago at the academy, we knew enough to spring to attention. He toured the room, studying our belongings, then announced: “Gentlemen, I see no shower slippers. Do you possess shower slippers?”
Shower slippers? Who the heck wore slippers in a shower? But like my roommates, I said, “No, sir.” The Count seemed to want a negative answer.
“I have duty again next week. When I return, you will have shower slippers.”
We were twelve-year-old boys, so I probably don’t need to tell you that when The Count returned we didn’t have shower slippers.
The Count removed his belt. “Five apiece,” he said. “Grab the ends of your bunks.”
Having been spanked several times in my life, both at home and in school in Boonville, I knew it was best just to get this ordeal over with and grabbed the end of my bunk. The Count swatted me five times with the belt. Of my three roommates, only one broke down and cried before taking his swats. Bill was from Eastern Virginia and the tallest of us, and I doubt he had ever suffered corporal punishment in his life.
“I’ll be back next week,” The Count said. “Go to the cadet store and get some shower slippers.”
Such spankings today would bring lawsuits and outrage on YouTube. The marshmallow-latte university students advocating for trigger warnings and safe spaces would suffer hysterical fits if forced to attend a school like Staunton. In that institution we learned to curse like the proverbial sailors. Bullying was rampant. Fistfights were frequent. Even pillow fights could be dangerous, as some boys loaded books into their pillows and laundry bags to increase their firepower. We learned the danger of giving way to tears. Shaming was an every-day occurrence. I once asked an older boy I hardly knew if I could borrow some small item, a pencil or a rubber band. “Minick,” he said, “I wouldn’t give you the sweat off my back.” I never understood why I deserved that answer, but I have never forgotten it or the contempt with which he turned his back on me.
Those shower slippers? Today’s cushy world might condemn The Count’s swats, but here’s the thing: the next week all four of us owned and displayed a pair of shower slippers.
And the sword? I was appointed a platoon leader the next academic year. Platoon leaders carried swords instead of rifles.
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