Anyone could do that!

Are ten "liCkins"
enough?
When I was growing up in the 1940s, a spanking
was called a “lickin,” and a swat was called a
“lick.” Few people seem to know much about
this anymore, so I was particularly intrigued by
the excellent movie Places in the Heart.
The movie deals with love, sacrifice,
determination, and racial prejudice. In one
scene, a young widow is faced with the need
to spank her son. The mother asks the 11-yearold
how his daddy had spanked him before. The
little boy obediently says, “Mom, I bent over the
table and he would spank me with his belt.”
Distraught, the mother asks, “Would he hit
you hard or softly?”
“What I did was pretty bad, Mom, so he
would probably spank me hard,” the boy
responds.
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