The Philippines

Dad was offered a secondment to Amoco to help startup a refinery at Maraveles on the Bataan Peninsula across Manila bay from Manila. He left in the fall of my ninth grade year and returned in the spring of that year. By this time, I was working at the library. I was 14 years old and the ‘man’ of the house. This was hard on my mom and I understand this a lot more based on the experience Kathy and I have had with my time overseas. There are several vignettes that I recall from this time.

At some point I had broken the rules to the point of deserving a spanking. Mom and I went into her bedroom, I bent over the bed and she began to spank me. Unfortunately, I started laughing and so did she. Her conclusion was that I had passed beyond the age where spankings were appropriate so she grounded me. She must have been right because I was so much more willing to have a spanking than a grounding.