Severe Beatings: 1984-1994

I am the youngest of 4 kids.  2 boys, 2 girls.  There are many perks that come with being the baby of the family.  Everyone knows that the baby is very spoiled and showered with love.  Little less known fact is that usually the baby gets pummeled by his older siblings.  I was no exception.

I am part of a very close family.  We are all good friends.  When we were younger we didn’t act like it. 

I think the most common sort of mental beatings that took place in our household were when one kid would tell the other, “You’re adopted”.  It would take long talks with mom and dad to convince us otherwise and calm us down.

When I was little and all 4 of us lived at home, my parents would leave and put Stephanie and Justin in charge.  This meant pain for me.  They would push all of the furniture out of our living room so all that remained was an empty room of soon to be death.  Justin was my Mickey and I was his long shot 50 pound Rocky.  Shondel was the Russian with Stephanie in her corner and instead of injecting her with steroids, she was filling her with anti-Goose propaganda.  Justin would say “ding, ding” and the trainers would push us to the center of the room.  We would run at each other throwing windmill hay-makers connecting rarely, but still connecting.  Nothing was off limits and face punching was strongly encouraged.  Rocky always lost in my house.  Shondel is little and dainty, but when you’re young, 4 years the elder helps a lot.  I clearly remember lying on my back crying, yelling “I hate you” at Shondel as she looked down on me like a fresh kill ready to be gutted.  

The basement in my parents’ house has always scared me a bit.  I still sleep with one eye open and encourage Claire to sleep on my exposed side when we are there.  My childhood experiences are probably the reason for my fear.  My loving siblings would fill me with scary stories, lure me into the basement, TIE ME TO A CHAIR, turn off the lights, shut the door, and run upstairs!  Horrible, right?   

Justin and I have always been good buddies.  When he went on his mission I cried for days (later blog).  Before his mission we would wrestle, and he would win in amazing fashion.  Older brothers beat up little brothers, its science.  He was a dirty fighter.  My mom would yell at him when he was pummeling me and say things like, “Stop it!  You’re going to make it so he can’t have kids!”.  Groin punches weren’t off limits.  He also had a HUGE state championship football ring that he would turn upside down (so the huge part was in his palm) and slap me on top of the head.  Felt like a baseball bat every time.  He also did this thing called kick start.  He would walk over while I was sleeping on the floor and, with shoes on, would swiftly run his shoe across my forehead.  It looks pretty cool when the top layer of skin is rubbed off of your forehead.  We still wrestle, I have won once.       

I love all of my siblings.  We still wrestle.  I don’t punch Shondel in the face anymore, and I’m too big to get tied to chairs, but Shondel is still adopted and mom still yells at Justin.  Thankfully she was wrong!





                                    Dad (Hal), Mom (Kathy), Claire, Me, Shondel, Justin, Stephanie