My brother and sisters and I were no different. We have never and will never have a major knock-down drag-out, nor have we ever really gotten mad at each other as kids or adults that I can recall. I really don’t even remember arguing with them about much of anything and I never remember wrestling or even punching my sisters on the arm. But for some reason, I recall my brother and I seemed to go through a period of time when we wrassled. Now, if you watch television, those guys wrestle, but my brother and I wrassled. Wrasslin’ is what we called it all our lives.

The best I can recall, my brother and I would seem to get into some kind of wrasslin’ match immediately after church every Sunday. We went from being forgiven by the Lord and within thirty minutes we were already sinnin’ again.

I don't know what caused this, but I can remember going to church all dressed up in our little coats and ties and then coming home and getting into a wrasslin’ match. We wore a nice pair of slacks with a white shirt, tie and coat. Somehow and someway the first thing that came off when we got home was the shoes and then the pants. I can remember my brother and I rolling around on the bed or the floor of our bedroom in a wrasslin’ match with our tie, shirt, coat, socks and white Fruit of the Loom briefs.

I have no idea why we fought. It was probably because we knew that the other was very vulnerable about the time a guy gets his pants around his ankles and he can very easily be toppled over when he is all tangled up in his pants. I know this probably did not go on very long, but it seemed like it happened every Sunday.

Of course, when Daddy would hear us laughing and the crashes hitting our hardwood floors of the house, he would come in and do his fatherly thing by giving us a wuppin’. He had to do this for several reasons. Number one, the clothes we had just taken off were still clean enough for another Sunday’s wear and of course, by the time we got through tramplin’ the pants and wrinklin’ the coat, shirt and tie, Mamma would have to clean them all over again. Our clothes didn’t go to the cleaners all the time like we do nowadays. She washed and actually ironed our clothes and she already had plenty to do each week without us two boys messin’ them up unnecessarily.

Our spankings were always with a belt and they were administered in the “merry-go-round style” of spankings. I think someday soon I am going to write a story about the different spanking styles that I know are available. Maybe I can write a parenting book for the younger generation. They seemed to have forgotten the benefits of this educational tool for parenting.

Another group of guys I know that used to fight lived on the other side of town from us. In order to shade their identity I may use fake names like Bruce, Brian and Blake. They were a family of three brothers. One of them informed me just a few days ago that he remembers that they used to really, really fight real fights and not just wrasslin’ matches. One of them who I named Bruce told me that his brother Brian was the one who always got everybody into trouble. I guess he was the lead instigator and Blake and Bruce were the little angels.

Bruce told me a story that as a young boy he used to plant a garden every year. He enjoyed his garden and he usually enjoyed doing the work all by himself. He remembered one time when his brother Brian was throwing rocks at him while he was working his garden one summer. He said several of the rocks made connection and they did, in fact, hurt, but the rock throwing was more of a nuisance than actual pain. Suddenly, when one of the rocks made connection on Bruce's body, he remembers falling to the ground and screaming and yelling and crying out in fake pain. It was mostly to get Brian in trouble and so Bruce was really putting on a great show in case his mom or dad may have seen the deed done by Brian.

As he lay in the middle of his garden for an extended period of time putting on a great show to get Brian into the best trouble he could, the neighbor suddenly came running across the field thinking he was in such great distress that he was about to meet with the real angels in Heaven. The neighbor was a county neighbor and not a town neighbor, meaning the trek next door was a pretty good distance. Bruce must have really been putting on a great show!

Bruce is still embarrassed to this day that the neighbor thought he needed real help. This happened over forty years ago and Bruce still carries the memory, but has long forgiven his brother.

The thing about family, however, is this: While we all tussled, fought and wrestled around as siblings, don’t anybody ever step between any of us and our family. If you mess with our families, you won’t know what trouble is until you mess with somebody’s sibling. We can tussle around all we want, but you better not butt in ’cause you ain’t seen nothin’ until you mess with somebody’s family.

Clifford

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