Ideastream
The not so mythical “Grab Me a Switch”
Yes, it’s real folks.
Many years ago I had written a personal essay that was about my experiences with religion. My paternal family members are all ultra religious. They are Pentecostal. My grandfather was a preacher. My uncles own or preach in churches, my aunts are married to men who own or preach in churches, and my own father is a “reverend.”
One of the most vivid memories from my childhood was having my dad come pick up my younger brother, sister, and me for a week one summer when I was 6 (my parents were divorced when I was 5), and dropping us off at his parents’ house in Salem, IL, where we spent the week with our grandparents and their church activities, and without our father.
What I remember most about this visit, was the five or six times my grandmother told me to “go grab a switch” off the willow bush in the front of their house. The first time was for accepting Pop-Tarts at a neighbor’s house. Once was for tattling on my younger brother and sister. I don’t recall what the other times were for. It was the punishment that stuck with me. It was her telling me to pull up my dress and pull down my underpants, and situating me just right across her knees.
The other thing I remember most was sticking my thumb into all the styrofoam egg cartons she had been saving for something. Essentially “popping” them all. It seemed like a nice and satisfying thing to do at the time. This instance did not get a switch, but instead, a comb flicked onto my bare arms as she had been in the middle of combing her hair for the night. During the day, her hair was spun into a tight gray bun on the crown of her head. Before bed she would let it down and comb it out at her vanity mirror.
When I shared my personal essay with my now ex-husband, not too long after we had gotten together, he scoffed at the idea that I was actually beaten with a switch, saying that was not something that actually happened, and that I was full of shit. It was a myth. He’d heard that one too many times before.
It was the absolute truth. I had never heard other stories of this until I saw this Community episode, and I laughed my ass off the whole time! Even though it was traumatizing. Because I knew what was coming! And it was something that I could completely identify with.
It was a pretty accurate portrayal. The first time my grandma instructed me to get a switch, I really didn’t know why. This is similar to Britta so happily going to get a switch because she really has no idea about what will come next. After that first time, I knew what was coming after I retrieved the switch. The anxiety and anticipation added to the trauma of the experience. Half the time, I didn’t know or understand what I did wrong.
The whole visit was full of trouble, trauma, and people being saved and receiving the Holy Ghost. Which was scary as a child.
The time spent with my overly religious paternal grandparents colored my view of religion for life. Those were my first experiences, and they were tainted.
Want to know one of the other things that happened on this trip that still sticks with me? I was the oldest and got to sit shotgun in my dad’s van full of antique paper crap and other thrift store finds. My younger siblings were probably two-and-a-half years old and somewhere around 18 months old. They were toddlers and still in diapers. They were crashed out in the bed in the back of the van for most of the four-and-a-half-hour drive.
At one point, getting close to home, there came a horrible smell. It didn’t go away like the smell of farmland after you pass it. My dad turned to me, a six-year-old when there are TWO toddlers in diapers in the back, and asked me “Did you crap your pants?”
That was like the perfect ending to the trip.
I want to thank Xavier Van Holde for delivering a writing prompt that prompted me to finish a draft I had been sitting on for months! Also, I want to shout out to Christine Graves for this wonderful piece she wrote in response to the prompt. I identified a lot with what she has to say here!
© Kristin DeMarr 2020
