A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE


When I was a young girl in grade school I was well liked by all my teachers and classmates. I was in 3rd grade when my principal and I had our first big run in.  He loved me to death,  but he was strict.  One afternoon we went down to the playground to play.   I loved playing on the monkey bars,  and the swings,  but I really loved climbing up into the apple tree.  That tree always had the best apples.  They weren't very big but they were  delicious sour green apples.  I loved them.  We were told NOT to eat them because they would cause a bad stomache ache.  Even though I ate them all the time,  my Daddy had taught me to respect authority,  therefore you wouldn't catch  me eating one while school was in session.   My principal knew that we loved to climb up into that tree and he never minded that.  He would always say "YOU kids be careful up there and don't push any one out."  We never did,  and I wouldn't anyway,  but I still listened to the rules.
On this one day some boys climbed up into the tree.  I didn't pay any attention to them but later found out that they were throwing apples and hitting other kids and even the teachers.  Our principal yelled for everyone to get down out of that tree.  As I was headed down he yelled that everyone in that tree was going to get paddled for throwing apples.  I immediately started climbing back up that tree,  ( as far up that tree as I could get.)  Once again he yelled "Come down out of that tree".  I replied that I couldn't.  He asked why and I told him because I didn't throw apples and I wasn't going to get a spanking.  He said he was going to spank everyone that was in the tree to make it "FAIR".  I told him it wouldn't make it FAIR because I didn't do it.  Once again he told me to come down out of that tree.  He was half laughing but trying to be serious and explain to me that no one knew who was throwing apples.  I told him to ask me if I was throwing apples and I would tell him the truth. He told me he  couldn't do that, so I told him I was not coming down out of that tree.  I don't know how long this went on,  it could have been a matter of moments,  but to this kid up in a tree it felt like hours. The bell rang to go back inside and I was still in that tree.  I told him that my Daddy taught me to tell the truth,  but he always said stand up for what you believed in.  TODAY  I believed that I had a right NOT to get spanked for something I didn't do.  IT truely was a mater of PRINCIPLE.  I loved my principal to death and had never been in trouble and I wasn't about to get spanked today.  I stood my ground.  Unfortunately one of the older boys climbed up into that tree and pulled me down.  I stood my ground,  but I should have pulled some dirt up around my behind,  because he marched every one of us in a line to his office where he started to paddle every one that was in that tree. The boys each got 3 licks,  us girls only got one.  But when he got to me I told him  I didn't throw any apples and he was laughing so hard by the time he got to the girls behind me that I really didn't feel that paddle at all,  nor did the other girls.
Later I realized that he had to show that he meant just what he said,  that was how he would keep respect.  By the time I left grade school he and I would often laugh about how stubborn this red head was,  and he said he was proud of me for standing my ground,  and he said how sorry he was that he had to do just what he said.  We agreed...IT was a matter of PRINCIPLE.