Panama Canal Society

All of these memory dredgings have caused me to reflect on many of the differences in the treatment of much of what we did as kids compared to our contemporaries in the States. College type hazing was done with great zeal at our high School level. As many of us still here remember Scobie Rites. About 4 wks. before school opened the upperclassmen armed with scissors and copies of the Jr. High graduation program would cruise the streets looking for those listed. And then to sit you down where ever they found you and hacked off your hair. The rules required that your head stay in this condition until opening day of school when you appeared with a clean shaven head. For the first 6 wks. scobies were thumped on the head and humiliated in devious ways. School authorities were unable to stop this and they did not have the civil minions siding with them. It seemed to be accepted as normal for young men of the times. Some parents were so afraid for their sons that they sent them to live with relatives in the states for the freshman year. NO NO, the upper-class killers declared that you would under go these initiations regardless of entry grade level if you had never been had before.

Picture this practice in today's light. Now to our juvenile escapades as terrorists with homemade gunpowder. The authorities had only to forbid the sale from the storehouse of the ingredients to us kids. I also never saw the police make a serious effort to track down the culprits of such dastardly deeds. NO, I'm sure it was considered normal exuberant activity for growing healthy CZ youth.

Stink bombs fall into this same category. BUT, theft of money and property as well as borrowing autos without permission for joy-riding was not tolerated. You might get by with it the first time but your Dad got called up to the Admin to be told to square you away or your boy was out of here back to the states. If a parent protested that they had neither relatives or the means to sent the child then the word was; Then Sir, You will be terminated and will accompany your wayward offspring out of here. Sexual deviants when discovered were gone so fast you thought they had been zapped by Buck Rogers ray gun. At the first breath of complaint a philandering Romeo was gone in a flash with the aggrieved party being provide a job and allowed to stay on the Zone in quarters. And yes children could receive hands on punishment by teachers and police as Miss Achley of my 3rd grade would whack my bare legs with her wooden pointer. CZ Patrolman Sam Carpenter when acting as a cross walk guard at the Lodge Hall School would whip our bare legs with the leather thongs on his night stick. He said it was for not moving fast enough and it stung like hell. Now when your Dad came home at the end of the day and you told him how dreadful you had been treated all you got was;Good,You must have deserved it. However if the authorities had followed up their actions with a phone call to parents a second punishment was administered at home. If our childhood were to be viewed in today's light most of us older types would be doing hard time in the Big House.