A Brief Note to Mom

Dear Mom —

Thank you for raising me with a firm hand. I know now as a parent myself that I needed it.

Thank you for making me take a bite out of a bar of soap and chew it till gone because I lied; thank you also for sending me out side to select a willow branch so you could give me a whipping after I took something that didn’t belong to me; thank you still again for the backhanding you gave me in front of my friends after I dared talk back to you.

You brought me up the right way and to prove it I’m not in prison for life today.

Love, your son —
Tommy