We may not see eye to eye this morning. I’ll eventually get the point but will provide some background first. The time period would have been between 1944 and 1946. I don’t remember exactly.

Intermediate School in Augusta, Kansas held the 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th grades. It was a 3-story brick building that had been the high school until the early 1920’s when the new high school was built. The stairway from the first to the second floor was pretty steep and was 12 to 15 wooden steps. We were told constantly not to run on the stairs as too many people could be hurt if one happened to fall.

The Intermediate School occupied the west end of a city block. The Elementary School (Grades K, 1^st, and 2^nd) occupied the east end of the block. For some strange reason, there were three residential homes on the south side of the block. Two of them faced Columbia Street, and the third one was on the southwest corner facing State Street and Columbia. One of these homes, a 2 story, was owned by Mrs. Ana Wright, the mother of my great aunt, Rachel (Wright) Peebler. I always called Ana Wright “Grandma Wright.”

The principal of our school was Mr. Wilson. I knew Mr. Wilson pretty well as he roomed with Grandma Wright. To get to work, all he had to do was go out the back door, take a dozen steps and he was in the school yard.

On the day of our story, I made the dumb mistake of running up the stairs when returning from recess. Mr. Wilson was standing at the top of the stairs and stopped me and pulled me aside. He told me that when school was out to come straight to his office. I worried about that for the rest of the day. Foolishly, I hoped that since I knew Mr. Wilson so well that I wouldn’t be punished.

Now, we are getting to the point of the story where you may not agree with me. When I and 5 other “hoodlums” got to the office, we were told to line up single file. Mr. Wilson was sitting in a chair and holding a razor strop. For those of you not familiar with it, a razor strop was a piece of leather used to sharpen the old straight razors. It was approximately 4 inches wide, 18 inches long, and ¼ inch thick with one end trimmed to serve as a handle. Mr. Wilson informed us that our infractions had earned us a swat with the strop. We were to come to him one at a time and bend over, and he would issue the punishment. I marched up to him, bent over, and took my lickin’. The swat hurt for a few seconds. Then the pain went away, but the memory didn’t. I’ve always been a guy that followed the rules. Knowing that my parents would be disappointed and being disappointed in myself was humiliating. We didn’t have time-outs back then. I contend that a swat on the butt is just what a rambunctious boy needs. I don’t think that a time-out would be remembered, but the swat has been burned into memory.

Dave Thomas

2/13/2025