same.
My mom would have given me
proper sit-down hidings if I’d given
her the opportunity, but she could
never catch me. My gran called me
“Springbok,” after the second-
fastest land mammal on earth, the
deer that the cheetah hunts. My
mom had to become a guerrilla
fighter. She got her licks in where
she could, her belt or maybe a shoe,
administered on the fly.
One thing I respected about my
mom was that she never left me in
any doubt as to why I was receiving
the hiding. It wasn’t rage or anger.
It was discipline from a place of