Madelaine's Slippers
A Memoir
by
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I never knew very much about my stepmother's religious beliefs or upbringing, but I found out very early on what I mentioned a little earlier: that being that she firmly believed in the biblical adage "to spare the rod is to spoil the child." She was a very strict and demanding disciplinarian who thought nothing at all about the frequent and vigorous use of belts, razor straps, "switches" from a bush or tree, or almost anything else that she could get her hands on in order to mete out her particular brand of punishment. On numerous occasions she would even go so far as to send my brother or I out into our back yard to break off a small branch from one of her many bushes so that she could then use it to whip us. Now you might think that there would be some kind of an advantage in being able to choose our own switch. However, this was not the case. The thinner, more flexible branches would mostly sting like hell, leaving thin reddish welts on our bare legs and buttocks. But the larger, more rigid branches seemed to reach clear down to the bone, leaving angry bruises and sore muscles in the wake. But I never thought about being that analytical when I was sent out to choose a weapon for my stepmother; I just tried to take as long as I could in order to somehow delay the inevitable. But this tactic too was somewhat questionable. Because, the fact is that any delay just gave us that much more time to think about what was coming. And intentional or not, Madelaine used that psychological approach quite often. The one thing that she invariably did when she was getting ready to give one or both of us a whipping was to make sure that we had plenty of time to think about it. Of course, there were occasions when both my brother and I were to receive our whippings at the same time. And other situations dictated that only one or the other of us was to be punished. In either case we were typically sent down to the basement to await our fate. Based on Madelaine's pre-punishment behavior that I observed on those occasions when I was fortunate enough not to be the one waiting in the basement, she held to a fairly strict routine. Standing in the kitchen, she would typically light up one of her Pall Mall cigarettes and pour herself a glass of beer. Then, after several drags on her cigarette and a few generous gulps of beer, she would yell down the basement stairs to the waiting offender, "are you ready down there?", then, "get those pants down!" With that she would start off down the basement stairs. I still get cold chills when I think of those days. Of all the usual fears and terrors of my childhood - whether real or imagined - nothing could even begin to equal the absolute dread that I felt while standing in that basement waiting for those inevitable whippings. Standing down there with no glimmer of hope for a reprieve, knowing what was in ,store for me, and then hearing the "clomp, clomp, clomp" of Madelaine's house slippers on the bare wooden basement steps as she descended them to carry out her mission was pure, unholy torture. I sometimes believe that the waiting, combined with the sound of those slippers on the basement stairs, was somehow worse than the actual whippings that I had to endure. Most of the time anyway.
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About the Book
The author relates that he grew up on the south side of Chicago in the 1940s. His mother and father were divorced when he was about four, leaving he and his two brothers to be raised by his fifty-eight year old father. Madelaine was the previously married, childless woman who became his stepmother. She was a stern, merciless disciplinarian who made the author’s life a constantly fearful experience. The ominous sound of Madelaine’s house slippers on their wooden basement stairs as she descended them to administer her frequent whippings is alluded to in this memoir’s title. School memories and misadventures, relationships with friends and siblings, and the physical, emotional and sexual growing experiences of a painfully shy young boy are recounted against the backdrop of an all encompassing atmosphere of uncertainty and dread that Madelaine engendered. The events related were often impacted by the author’s alcoholic but hard working father. He was basically good hearted and gentle with his sons, but unfortunately was completely subservient to his wife and her wishes. The memoir concludes with the author graduating from the eight grade of Luella Elementary in 1952, leaving Chicago to live with his birth mother in Columbus, Ohio.
About the Author
The author was born in Chicago in 1939 and lived there until he was thirteen. He attended high school in Columbus, Ohio, quitting school in the eleventh grade to join the Army. After spending two and one-half years enlistment in Germany, he was honorably discharged and worked at several different jobs in Columbus. In 1962 he joined the Columbus Fire Department. He retired as a Battalion Chief in 1990. He has two grown children and lives with his second wife, Patti, in Florida. He has an associate degree in fire science technology and has completed various writing assignments dealing with fire service matters, including a personal fire experience published in an Ohio fire service magazine.