As all young boys, I looked for new adventures.
Not being experienced in life and often unaware
of the pitfalls and subsequent consequences of
poor decisions, I frequently found myself fall-
ing short of personal fulfillment and success
and in trouble with Mom. A stern scolding from
Mom followed.

Most of the time her words went into one ear
and out the other, having little effect. But
the stern look on Mom’s face stayed with me
. . . at least until I could make her smile.
Getting her to smile meant being spared of
corporal punishment when Dad came home from
work.

My father was not just a civil engineer.  He
was a history and music buff, high fidelity
and stereo geek, and a clever, perhaps even
diabolical, inventor.  His brand of corporal
punishment was unique with his own signature.
He didn’t swat behinds with his hand, belt
or a switch.  Nope.  He invented a special
tool which had two purposes: delivering a
monumental swat to the bottom of misbe-
haviants and killing flies.

This instrument of swift justice was made by
his own hands from hickory and leather. The
hickory handle was exactly 14 3/16 inches
long based on precise calculations to
provide maximum speed at impact delivered
by a five foot seven inch lefty from Red
Wing, Minnesota.

The business end of the “death swatter” was
of soft pliable perfectly tanned and well
oiled Harder Slaughterhouse cow hide 5 1/4
inches wide by 6 5/16 inches long.  These
precise outside dimensions plus strategi-
cally located holes of three different
sizes within the field of leather created
a supersonic speed that killed flies a
foot away from impact.

The “death swatter” test trials were so
impressive that I spent one entire weekend
sucking up to Dad, offering to do any kind
of chore he could think of in the hope
that I could store up enough credit to
avoid any future encounter with the
dreaded swatter.

I even promised not to bug Sis for a whole
year.  Dad didn’t buy that one.  Instead
he suggested that I pull all the rusty
nails from ten thousand old planks he had
collected to build a garden shed.

“Sure thing, Dad,” I said eagerly, not
knowing that less than one hour later I
would somehow pry a rusty nail out of a
plank and plant it into my palm.  The
tetanus shot hurt worse than the imbedded
nail but was nothing compared to one
smack with the “death swatter.”