When I was an old teenager, fifteen or sixteen you know, I had a curfew of midnight on weekends. I was not allowed to go out during the week unless it was school activities or church related. You have no idea how much I wanted to go to “buck night” at the drive in movie. “Buck Night” was on Wednesday night, so that was a no go. I may have gone one time. You packed as many bodies in one car as you could and it only cost one dollar. Kids packed blankets and popcorn in the trunk and more or less ignored the movie. The movies at the drive in were usually horror movies anyway so I didn’t miss wonderful what we used to call “shows.”

My mother always meant what she said. When she said no, she meant no and when she said midnight she meant midnight. I was the kind of teenager to test the obvious just to see if that was in fact true. One night my boyfriend and I got to my house at eleven forty five. We sat outside the house listening to music, perhaps a little “necking.” At five minutes after midnight I walked in the house. Mother said,

“you and I had an agreement that midnight was your curfew and you are late.” Well, the fight was on. I told my mother that I had been sitting in the driveway for twenty minutes. Mother said, “That was not the agreement, IN the house was the agreement.” For the “test” I was grounded for a week.

I never did think that was a fair punishment, but I was always in the house on time after that. Her style of discipline really worked, didn’t it? That has been fifty years ago and I still remember that conversation practically word for word.