The Strap

The first time I got the strap I was seven years old. Even if you agree with giving the strap as punishment at school, I still didn’t deserve it.

It was Fall or early Winter in 1954. I was in Grade 2 in Aberdeen School, London, Ontario. The night before, my Dad took me to a store on Dundas and bought me a new coat. I rarely got things that were brand new, so, that alone would make the coat special. And the fact that my Dad had taken me to buy it would make it special too. But the most special thing was that it was black and yellow with big football patches with slots in the footballs for the pockets and big yellow snaps down the front. Hamilton Tiger Cats colours, my Dad had said. This was the coolest coat ever made.

That morning, I was walking up Hamilton Road toward the back entrance to the school yard. I was just cooking with happiness in my new black and yellow Hamilton Tiger Cats coat with yellow football patches and big yellow snaps. My friends stopped playing marbles when they saw the coat and were watching me when one of them shouted, “Hey, that’s Carrington.”

At Aberdeen, the bell would ring and everyone would come to a stand-still. Then at a second ring, everyone would walk to the place where they lined up to enter the school.

In my exhilaration, I was doing a cartwheel as the bell rung. I stood still afterward and when the second bell sounded, I walked toward the place I would line up. A man’s voice said, “You in the black coat.” It didn’t occur to me that he meant me. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Then the voice again, “You in the black coat.” That wasn’t me, I thought. I had a black and yellow Hamilton Tiger Cats coat with yellow football patches and big yellow snaps. The voice louder, “You. Stop.” I looked. The man was the Vice-Principal, Mr. Thompson, and he was looking at me.

He took me into the school by a different door, and up to the second floor, where I had never been, and into a room with couches and chairs, which I had never seen the likes of in a school. It was pretty scary. Another man was there. The V-P showed the other man the strap. The V-P then had a brief conversation with me about the bells and my cartwheel. Then he strapped me twice, hard, on both hands. It really, really hurt.

I did not cry. He sent me to find my class all by myself. Miss Murphy was our teacher. She looked at me but said nothing. I walked to my seat with my red palms out so classmates could see that I gotten the strap on both hands. Both hands was serious stuff. At recess, I got to describe the strap – more than a foot long, about a quarter inch thick, bumps built into the leather. Boy, I had the coat, I got the strap; was I ever popular that day!

Soon after that, we had a couple of practice teachers in our class. One was the other guy who watched me get the strap.

I got the strap again in Grade 4. It was a rowdy class at Victoria Ave. School in Windsor and Miss Farr was a grumpy old teacher so lots of guys in the class got it that year. The last time I got the strap was the first day of Grade 8. I was a hyper kid. Miss (Helen) Golden took me into the office and brought in a big male teacher to give it to me. Miss Golden got my attention that day and she turned out to be the most marvelous teacher. I had 100 in math, 100 in grammar, 100 in literature, an 89 average overall at the end of Grade 8. The average was pulled down because I nearly flunked spelling.

Here’s the fun part of this story. In the 1970s, I was a reporter with The Windsor Star bureau in Chatham, Ont. When I was interviewing a retiring school board superintendent, he mentioned he started his career in London. I said I started my education at Aberdeen. “Oh, my brother was vice-principal at Aberdeen,” he said. The superintendent’s name was Thompson. I asked if he had taught there. “No, but I was there for practice teaching when I was in teachers college.”

I nearly lost it. I told him about the black and yellow football coat that my Dad had taken me to buy even though we were very poor and I never got new stuff, and the cartwheel that I was starting to do as the bell rung, and getting it on both hands at seven years old. I told him that I did not deserve the strap, and now I know that I got it because his older brother went out to the school yard looking for a kid to strap so he could teach his little brother how to do it.

I asked where his brother was now and was told he had passed away. “Lucky for him,” I said. I’d have liked to pay him a visit.”