Small Things – Three Sins and a Strap

Jan 27, 2009 by Jan C. Steven

I kid you not. I used to hitchhike. Given my goody two-shoes nature, some folks might find this hard to believe – but think back to the seventies. “Thumbs up” did not refer to Siskel and Ebert. What I normally don’t tell people, because they wouldn’t believe me, is that my hitchhiking career started at age 10. (Then there was a gap for 9 years.) My mom remembers – I think it was the day she started dyeing her hair.

It was a hot day in the spring at recess time, and we grade fives at Queen Mary School in Belleville had to stand on the hot tarmac because our line wasn’t very straight. When the teacher’s back was turned, I did something I’ve never done again – I stuck my tongue out at her. Now, this wasn’t me. I was a small town girl. Any misbehaviour on my part would have reached my mom well before I did. Another student told on me and I ended up in the office, sobbing and staring at “the strap.”

I had no personal experience with “the strap”. My mom didn’t believe in physical punishment. She said, “When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it.” There was a belt kept in the bureau drawer, but the only time I saw it taken out was when my older brother started wearing it. The principal asked me, “And what are you going to do!?” And I said, “Improve.” And he said, “How?!” And I truly didn’t know how to answer. I was a straight A student, I didn’t litter, I went to church…

He left me with the belt lying on the desk and told me to think harder. So I did. I realized the only way to escape this was to run away and never come back, so I ran out of the school all the way to Hwy 401. This was 15 minutes by car and I’m sure I made it out there in an hour. At age 10, I hadn’t any well-conceived idea of how to disappear, so I thought maybe if I could make it to my aunt Audrey’s in Toronto, that would do the trick. One problem – it was at least two hours by car. I didn’t think I could run there in a day, so I decided to hitchhike.

The first car passed me by. Oh no. But the second one stopped and the man asked me where I was going. I said, “Toronto!” And he said, “TORONTO!?” I took from his response that TO was not on his map. Oh no. So I said, “Trenton?” And he said, “Does your mother know you are hitchhiking?” And I said, “Yes, I do it all the time.” Oh no. I was up to two sins. The man drove me to Trenton, dropped me off and — I later learned – called the police.

By this time, it was noon and I hadn’t come home for lunch and my mom and the whole school knew I was missing. It was not a happy time for Principal Strap. And me, I was in downtown Trenton remembering that I had an Aunt here too. I knew she lived on a numbered street so I told a policeman, “I’m visiting my Aunt and I’m lost. Can you tell me where First Street is?” Oh no. Three sins. He pointed me in the right direction. I walked to a house like hers, there was no one there, so I sat on a lawn under a tree and prepared to die.

Not long after, the same policeman drove up to me in a squad car and said, “Are you Janice Carrie?” Oh no. Before I died, I was going to get the strap and go to jail. And I had sinned three times – so heaven didn’t seem like an likely end point. But instead of jail, he drove me to the High School where my Auntie worked and she gave me a cola, a hot dog and a bag of chips. My mom came over and got me. Instead of the strap, my destination was home and a holiday from school, and she simply asked me, “Janice, why did you do that.” And my simple answer was, “I was afraid.”

I know that I asked God to forgive my three sins. It didn’t dawn on me to ask forgiveness for setting a school system on its ear, getting a principal and a school teacher transferred to a different school, causing my mother an almost nervous breakdown, and whipping the police into a frenzy. I didn’t know that a few weeks before my incident, a little girl my age disappeared and her body was never found. But I didn’t need to – I was a little girl with heavy heart.

Mom, you’ll be happy to know I still don’t make faces at anyone, and if I mess up, I go home, not hitchhiking. And I am assured that even if I strike out three times, God offers forgiveness, not the “wagging finger of shame” (an Ebert and Roeper trademark.)

Jan Carrie Steven, MA RSW is Counselor, Mentor, Chaplain and Volunteer.Visit her websites and columns: Basic Counseling Skills and Small Things.