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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday, BeThere2Day, and Sandee at Comedy Plus.
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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.
This month, the prompts are being provided by yours truly.
Please feel free to use some of the prompts, none of them, or all of them as you see fit. The point is to get the creative juices flowing in whatever manner your muse leads you.
This week's words are:
flatware
season
resist
combine
second
breakdown
and/or
bottom
shame
spine
dinner
offense
front
Charlotte/Mother Owl has chosen luminous bright red as the color of the month, which you may use as an extra prompt if you wish.
The boys had been warned about swinging their baseball bats in the house.
Ryan and James, known to many in their circle as "the twins", were mostly good boys. Usually one warning was sufficient, as their father wielded the belt from his 60-inch waist with a deftness which belied his size, and he was not slow to use it on any BOTTOM which he felt deserved it. (Please also let it be known he was not cruel, his punishments were effective but never left permanent damage, physically or mentally.)
This was typical for the times in which they lived, and neither boy would have said their father was unjust, knowing full well when such corporal punishment was used, it was because an OFFENSE against which they'd been warned had actually been committed.
One reason, among others, for the dictum against swinging their bats indoors was the number of breakables in the house, as there are in most homes. The most important of these was the large hutch in the living room, the top section of which had glass doors and behind them sat father's beautiful leather-bound book collection. The drawers underneath held silver FLATWARE, linens and other items used only when company came for DINNER.
It was baseball SEASON, and even though the twins were very nearsighted, their parents had them in Little League, and they were enjoying it. James, at that moment, was enjoying it perhaps a little too much, as he'd taken his bat out of its usual storage place and was, well, he would have said he wasn't really swinging it as he ambled toward the porch door, just kind of letting it go back and forth like a pendulum, sort of...
That SECOND when you know disaster is about to strike is the longest moment in history, especially when you are a seven-year-old boy who has been told not to do something and in your heart and conscience you know good and well that's what you really are doing.
Because James could not RESIST letting that little back and forth swing of the bat get to be a wee mite out of hand on his way through the living room to the door to go outside, as he was supposed to do whenever he had his outdoor equipment in his hands.
Sometimes the forces of the world COMBINE to conspire against you when you give in to temptation, and just as he was in FRONT of the beautiful hutch the bat seemed to take on a life of its own and slipped from his fingers.
The loud crash startled the whole family, except James, frozen in horror for a moment before he bolted for the door which had been his original destination anyway. He now had more than enough reason to hurry.
Ryan came running in, just as their father arrived on the scene. Father had watched James walking out of his bedroom with the bat in hand as he'd been on his way to the hall bathroom, and he'd torn out of said bathroom, his face turning a Luminous Bright Red as he yanked his belt back off and yelled, "James, I told you to never swing that bat in the house!"
The boys were often just called "the twins" for a very good reason. Only a close examination could tell the difference, and often their parents mistook one for the other at a distance or when in a hurry.
Father grabbed Ryan in quite a hurry, as James was conveniently outdoors by this time. Ryan yelled, "But dad!" and father shouted back, "No buts! James, I've told you to never swing the bat indoors!"
Father proceeded to administer the customary discipline to the end of Ryan's SPINE, and when the dust settled Ryan nearly had a BREAKDOWN, crying much more than was his custom under these circumstances and looking up at his father with the expression of a child betrayed which his father never forgot.
"Dad, I'm Ryan, you spanked the wrong one! My bat is still in my bag with my gear, you can go in my room and look! It wasn't me, it was James!"
A flush of SHAME crept over his father, and in his own words, he felt low enough to milk a snake.
"I'm so very, very sorry, son," father said. "Can you ever forgive me?"
Father really did feel awful about it, so awful he took Ryan out for a milkshake every single day for a week. In later years, Ryan, who was all stomach just like his brother, was wont to say it had been worth it!
James got another stern warning and had to sit out from baseball that week, as well as give part of his allowance money to help repair the broken glass.
(This is a true story, Sweetie, "Ryan," really did get spanked by accident when Brother-in-Law, "James," fled the scene, and he really did get taken to the malt shop for a milkshake every day for a week by his very repentant father.)
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Today is:
Day of Azerbaijani Cinema -- Azerbaijan (anniversary of the 1898 showing of the first motion pictures filmed in Azerbaijan)
Distribution of Charity Monies -- Fairy Calendar (Imps only)
Festival of Amen and Hapi -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (offerings to the god of transcendent powers and the god of the Nile to assure the flooding of the Nile; date approximate)
Lincoln Penny Day -- US (the Lincoln Cent entered circulation on this day in 1909, and is one of the longest running coins in continual production in history)
Take a Penny/Leave a Penny Day -- if the US is really determined to keep the littlest coins, the least we can do is pool them together in the trays so conveniently found in stores and restaurants
Make Some Old Fashioned Lemonade Day
National Coloring Book Day
National Ice Cream Sandwich Day
Nuestra Senora de los Angeles -- Costa Rica (Feast of Our Lady of the Angels)
Shimizu Minato Matsuri -- Shimizu City, Japan (through the 4th, commemorates the reopening of Shimizu Port to international trade)
St. Elias' Day (Elijah the Prophet) related observance
Iliden -- Bosnia-Herzegovina; Ukraine; other Slavic countries where he is titled St. Ilia
Republic Day -- Macedonia
St. Eusebius of Vercelli's Day (Patron of Vercelli, Italy)
Anniversary Today:
The first US Census is recorded, 1790
Birthdays Today:
Edward Furlong, 1977
Michael Weiss, 1976
Sam Worthington, 1976
Mary-Louise Parker, 1964
Victoria Jackson, 1959
Butch Patrick, 1953
Kathryn Harrold, 1950
James Fallows, 1949
Joanna Cassidy, 1944
Wes Craven, 1939
Lamar Hunt, 1932
Peter O'Toole, 1932
James Baldwin, 1924
Carroll O'Connor, 1924
Myrna Loy, 1905
Jack L. Warner, 1892
Elisha Gray, 1835
Pierre "Peter" Charles L'Enfant, 1754
Today in History:
Philip II of Macedon leads his army to defeat the combined forces of Athens and Thebes in the Battle of Chaeronea, which secured Macedonian hegemony in Greece and the Aegean, BC338
Hannibal leads his Corinthian army to defeat the superior forces of Rome, BC216
Henry Hudson sails into what it is now known as Hudson Bay, thinking he had made it through the Northwest Passage and reached the Pacific Ocean, 1610
First United States Census, 1790
First parachute jump in the US, 1819
Japan's samurai, farmer, artisan, merchant class system is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms, 1869
Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opens in London, 1870
Andrew Hallidie tests the first cable car system in San Francisco, 1873
Wild Bill Hickok meets his death; shot in the back while playing poker, his hand, a pair of Aces and a pair of eights, is now called "Dead Man's Hand", 1876
Calamity Jane (Martha Jane Cannary) dies, 1903
Typhoon in China kills about 60,000, 1922
The positron (antiparticle of the electron) is discovered by Carl D. Anderson, 1932
Pakistan is re-admitted back into the Commonwealth of Nations, 1989
Iraq invades Kuwait, setting the stage for the Gulf War, 1990
Two previously unknown works by Mozart - a concerto movement and a prelude, are performed in Salzburg, Austria, 2009
The U.S. Government estimates the Deepwater Horizon oil spill dumped nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, 2010
The first footage of white giraffes (giraffes with leucism) is posted by the Hirola Conservation Program in north eastern Kenya, 2017
Great Britain’s Prince Philip, age 96, makes his final solo public appearance before retiring from public engagements, 2017
Apple becomes the first American publicly listed company to reach $1 trillion in value, 2018
Archaeologists confirm they have found the oldest library in Germany, in Cologne, dating back to 2AD and possibly holding as many as 20,000 scrolls, 2018
Saudi Arabia announces it is enacting news rules for women including allowing them to travel independently abroad without a male guardian's permission, 2019
SpaceX safely completes its first crewed mission when NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken splash down in the Gulf of Mexico in their Dragon capsule, 2020