Paddles & Other Impliments 9

Sometimes parental acceptance is required (and most parents do accept), and in some, the children are given the option between suspension and paddling (one swat for each day). Many children chose paddling as punishment. In 2001 there was even a judicial paddling in Texas. A judge made a father give 3 swats with a paddle on the buttocks to his son for truancy. It was afterward decided that the judge had not the authority to impose such a punishment, and it was considered illegal. The paddle was so common a punishment that the tourist’s souvenir shops sold paddles with inscriptions as “The Board of Education”, “Heat for the Seat”, “Applied Psychology” and the like. As a curiosity, a guy named Joel Salvati, from New Kensington, Pennsylvania, USA, received in mid-2002 a call, and his mission on this Earth was giving off paddles for punishing children.