        MAMA'S BRIDAL WREATH
Kermit Rooke, 32, K\C\C\H\

13th Judicial District of Virginia
12001 Harrogate Road
Chester, Virginia  23831

STATISTICS provided by the United States Department of Justice reflect that
on June 30, 1989, the most recent date for which this information is
available, one in every 469 adult residents of the United States was an
inmate of a jail. Further, on any given date in 1989, over 50,000 juveniles
were confined in other public facilities provided for their secure
detention, one in every five of them being there to respond to charges of
murder, rape, robbery, or aggravated assault and, during the year, an
additional 53,994 juveniles served specified jail terms in facilities
provided for adult prisoners. The overall jail population during the year
was 108 percent of rated capacity, a 15 percent increase over 1988.

        We ask ourselves, how has it come to pass that the United States,
surely the most privileged and richly blessed of all nations, finds it
necessary to incarcerate more of its citizens, per capita, than any other
nation, including the former Soviet Union, South Africa, and China?

        Many of us older Americans enjoy recollections of times when crime
was not a serious challenge to our society, when those who disobeyed the
law were relatively few in number, and when the problems they created could
be controlled. We had locks for which we had no keys, and our doors were
firmly closed only when the weather was bad. Teaching and training their
children to be respectable was the responsibility of parents, success was a
product of personal effort, and the forces which made the difference were
generated in the home.

        We enjoy reflecting upon the fact that as quaint and as primitive
as were the methods in those days, somehow, miraculously, they worked, and
we knew of very few citizens who were not law-abiding and self-supporting.

        We were pitifully unenlightened in those days. Dr. Spock and his
erudite colleagues and disciples had not reduced "parenting" to an exact
science. Parents did not have psychologists and psychiatrists with whom to
consult regarding the transgressions of their children. They did not have
social workers to counsel them through periods of stress or monitor the
discipline of their children for evidence of child abuse. They had not
discovered that irresponsible, criminal behavior can be explained away
without personal embarrassment simply by attributing it to a genetic
inheritance beyond human comprehension or control. Also significant, in
those quaint and primitive times, it had not been discovered that
candidates for political office, those with little else to offer, can
muster a substantial following by using the resources of those who succeed
to subsidize the requirements of those who, for whatever reason, do not.

        As we older Americans look back upon that period of our social
evolution, it almost defies belief that our parents and grandparents did so
well. Like the bumblebee, which according to a scientific balancing of its
size, weight, shape, wingspan, and other aerodynamic shortcomings, cannot
possibly fly, these determined forebears of ours did the impossible.

        It was during those dark ages, not long after the late
unpleasantness between the states, that my parents were married and began
producing and raising a family. Somehow, they acquired 200 acres of heavily
forested land which had been a part of a dismembered plantation, and with
little but their bare hands, they pushed the wilderness back and built a
house. In due time, in these impossible circumstances, they produced ten
children, eight of whom were healthy, vigorous boys, each one representing
a limitless potential for devilment of all kinds. As wild and untamed as
the other creatures of the wilderness which surrounded us, one or more of
us tried that which was wrong at least once. But, our situation differed
from what is experienced by many youths of  today.

       As did most other children of that period, we had two parents who
were married to each other and who were concerned about us, jointly and
severally, at all times. They accepted as their responsibility not only
that we be provided the essentials of physical survival, but that our
behavior conform to acceptable standards. Simply, but firmly, we were made
to understand that we must live within certain basic rules, that there were
boundaries of behavior beyond which we must not go. Our parents were our
Supreme Court. Their rules were the law of the land. There was never any
doubt that they loved each one of us, and this inspired respect and
obedience, but we also knew that disobedience would involve penalties which
would be unpleasant and, as warranted, painful. Coping as best they could
without psychiatrists,  psychologists, juvenile courts, social workers,
special counsellors, or grants and subsidies, our parents resorted to the
use of a simple little device, long since abandoned w probably unlawful,
known as a switch. Abundantly supplied by the providence of nature, we
generally got it when we needed it, and its effects were miraculously
therapeutic. In my mother's gentle, but firm and determined hand, the
switch was pure magic. One brief application could change a boy's entire
attitude, his outlook. Without scar or blemish, it could convert a surly,
defiant little animal into a properly motivated civilized human being.

        As I pause in my salute to the memory of that beloved and sainted
lady and her magic switch, my meditations take me back to a clump of
flowering shrubs which grew in the middle of our front yard out there in
the forest where we lived. Botanically identified as Spiraea Vanhouttie,
but commonly known as Bridal Wreath, it was always referred to by her eight
boys as Mama's Bridal Wreath. Intended originally by my mother to add a
measure of beauty to the place, with its delicately scented white blossoms
which grew in profusion upon its long and graceful stems, this stubborn
little bush assumed for itself a far more important role in our family. It
provided the switches which were used to keep us in line and on proper
course. Without discernible injuries or other ill effects, the switch
delivered a distinctly painful sting which was precisely sufficient to
convey the message so important at that time. Simple and primitive the
process may have been, but it worked. It might still be wo consideration by
parents who love their children too much to permit them to become
criminals.

       However miraculously it may have came to pass, as in due time each
one of Mama's eight sons emerged from his wilderness background, five of
them became Master Masons, three became Shriners of Acca Temple, two became
proud members of Richmond Court No. 16, Royal Order of Jesters, and one
became and is a very proud Knight Commander Court of Honour. My salute to
Mama and her Bridal Wreath is now extended to the Brotherhood of
Freemasonry. These three, through the eternal grace of God, combined forces
to make us as acceptable as we are.   s

Our parents resorted to the use of a simple little device, long since
abandoned and now probably unlawful, known as a switch.

In my mother's gentle, but firm and determined hand, the switch was pure
magic.

Kermit  Rooke is a member of the Richmond, Virginia, Scottish Rite Bodies
and the Shrine, received his Juris Doctor degree at the University of
Virginia, practiced law in Richmond from 1936 to 1956, and served the 13th
Judicial District of Virginia as Chief Judge until his retirement in 1977.
He now serves to relieve docket congestion as needed and has received
various awards for his meritorious service to the Juvenile Courts of
America.

