Saturday, March 3, 2007

The Way you do the things you do

I've had the flu this week. If you run into someone who has it, run as fast as you can the other way, especially if you didn't have the foresight to get a flu shot. I've already got that on my calendar for next fall! Never do I want to go through this again...never.

But that's not what I started to write about. Since I've been ill I've not felt like doing anything so I've watched a lot of television. One of the things I watched was a Bio-pic on The Temptations. It was, of course, filled with the pitfalls of the rock and roll industry....sex, drugs, and death, as well as all the wonderful music the group produced during their hey days. Anyway, that's still not what I sat down to write about...as the song "The Way You Do The Things You Do" came on it set my mind to pondering and pretty soon here came the $64,000 question, Why? Why do we do the things we do? Especially when we know they're wrong and there's going to be a price to pay.

My grandmother always said, "You're never too old for a spanking." The last time I remember hearing that phrase from her it was directed towards my Daddy and was regarding a dress I wanted to buy which he deemed too short. Mini-skirts were in big demand and Daddy thought anything that showed your knees was too short. She reminded him, I got the dress, but I also learned a lesson that day. No, it wasn't that you had to obey your mother even when she was only half your size, or even that you should always respect your mother (both of which are true, but both of which I already knew at the time.), but rather it was the truth of that phrase, "you're never too old for a spanking."

We make choices, take unknown roads, take an occasional "wide cast" (any one who raises hunting dogs will understand that phrase), but there'll always be a cost. Sometimes it may just be a spanking, other times the punishment might be life changing and everlasting.

I miss my grandmother, she died when I was 18. She was a wise woman, plain-speaking, and didn't mince words. I learned a lot from her, sometimes I wish I'd paid more attention.