When I saw him he was seated and reading his Bible.  When asked if he had read it throughout he replied that he liked to read certain parts but had never tried to complete the entire reading as some in his church had done.  He questioned if simply reading the Good Book through as perhaps a discipline was as meaningful as reading selective parts with understanding.  He had had a long life to come to this conclusion.
The conversation led to his upbringing and his early schooling near the Old Maple School located near his home (the ’quarters’). To continue, I asked if he remembered his first grade teacher and immediately he recalled her name, saying she was a tiny woman “weighing only 97 pounds” and one he remembered especially for one action she took as his teacher.  He admitted that he had acted ‘smart’ to her one day, and she decided that he needed a reminder that this action was not acceptable so she ordered him to the front of the classroom, witnessed by his friends, and demanded that he lift his arm exposing the palm of his hand, the object of her punishment.  Repeatedly using a ruler, she administered the punishment more of an embarrassment than physical pain.  But it was a continual reminder to him for some 75+ years of his transgression.  But he also fell short of following the rules of his father that brought about yet another bout with learning what was and was not acceptable behavior.
He was in grade school and occasionally he visited a small grocery store near the Seaboard Railroad.  He was given a small allowance which he used mainly to buy candy, the penny kind he said but at one of his visits, he ran into temptation in the form of a nickel Hershey candy bar a little beyond his budget.
The store owner, whom he knew well, was alone in the business and on this occasion he had to go into the stock room leaving the boy alone, near the candy counter and the forbidden ‘fruit’ – the Hershey bar.  The temptation was too great as he quickly removed the unpaid candy from the display and into his pocket, unobserved he thought.  He was wrong.  The clerk reappeared, saying nothing at least to the boy.
His father worked in the “goat” mill and when he came home that day, he called his son to the bed room to discuss a report that the father had had from the store owner, an accusation that the boy had stolen from him.  There was no denial.
He expected the leather belt would come into play but surprisingly it did not, then.  Instead, the two walked to the store to face the local merchant.  After admitting his guilt the son’s allowance was used to pay  for the stolen candy and as ordered, the two conducted the last act of this drama before the store owner: the belt, the main prop spoke the punishment.
My new friend suggested that this lesson of right living was one that had steered him on the right path even though at the time, he was sorry he had gotten caught but on reflection, it was one of the most important lessons he had ever learned: always be honest and tell the truth.  It says so in his frequent reading of The Book: The Bible.
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Bill Lee, PO Box 128, Hamer, SC 29547