If you'd told me during final exams at Yale that I’d be spending my summer scraping, sanding, and polishing, I’d have laughed at you over my Americano. But there I was, standing in a dusty row of stalls in a flea market near my dusty small town, inhaling the scent of rusted tools, cracked vinyl, and something faintly sweet—like old cedar and pipe tobacco.
It was the sort of place where time forgot to keep up. Dad loves these places. He says they're full of stories, and I suppose that's true, though most of the stories are in rusted hinges and broken watch faces. I tagged along out of curiosity, mostly, and maybe a little guilt. I hadn’t seen him much recently. Between ancient philosophy seminars, an independent study on early Enlightenment epistemology, teaching, and a brutal finals season, I’d nearly forgotten what a Saturday without deadlines felt like. I badly needed this summer break at home.
We were an hour in, and I’d bought nothing but a paper cone of roasted almonds. Still, I was having fun. At 5’3, I still look quite youthful, so on campus I’m always trying to dress in clothes that make me look taller and more authoritative. At home, I can finally wear jeans, and literally let my hair down.
Then I saw it.
A glint of gold on leather caught my eye, subtle and warm in the mid-morning sun. It was coiled neatly on a faded green cloth beside a box of old shaving razors, like it had waited decades just for me. A piece of old brown leather, nearly three feet in length. Its handle—dark oak, bevel-carved—fit into my palm like it had grown there. The leather itself was dry and stiff, two rich brown strips stitched with gold thread, slightly frayed at the edges, and ending in a loop where the stitching had stopped just before the end. Faded gold lettering near the handle identified it as being made by the *Dubl Duck* company. Okay, whatever.
I turned it over, reading the writing across the front of the strap. Latin. I squinted through my glasses, brushing my thumb gently across the lettering.
“Ad eam nudus fundo”
Oddly, there were holes drilled along the top of the strap, and the bottom, and a hole between each of the words.
Dad looked over my shoulder. “Huh. Haven’t seen one of those for a while.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Razor strop,” he said. “Barbers used them to sharpen straight razors before electric clippers and disposable blades. That one’s got some years on it. Handmade, judging by that stitching. Could be early 1900s, maybe older.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said quietly.
He chuckled. “It was beautiful. Now it’s a dried-out strip of cowhide no one’s taken care of in a hundred years.”
“But it could be beautiful again,” I countered. “With time, and work.”
Dad gave me a sideways glance, as if trying to read something on my face. “You planning to take up straight-razor shaving?”
I laughed. “Not exactly. I just… I don’t know. I want it. The writing on the side… It’s… interesting.”
Dad looked at the writing. “‘Ad eam nudus fundo?’ he said, clearly puzzled. “What the heck is that?”
“It’s Latin,” I said. “It means, ‘For her bare bottom.’”
My dad laughed heartily. “Well, that explains why somebody drilled it like Swiss cheese. Glad we could put that fancy education of yours to good use,” he said, teasing me.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
He leaned in closer, his eyes glinting with amusement. “It’s a spanking strap, kiddo. For disciplining, you know, in the old-school sense. Back when folks were a bit more hands-on with their parenting techniques.”
My cheeks flushed, but not from the dust. Shock and something else—curiosity?—raced through me. “Really?”
“Yep,” he said, nodding. “My father used one on me a time or two, growing up. Not often, mind you, but to make a point when words weren’t enough. This one's a relic. Some folks still swear by them, though, I guess. Especially ‘round here.”
Dad held it up to the light. “See these here holes? That lets the air go through. A big thick thing like his would probably get a lot of air resistance when you swung. Back in its day, though, before it got all dried out, I bet it would have sailed through the air like a supersonic jet,” he chuckled.
I felt a thrill that I couldn’t quite explain. The thought of such a stern, traditional punishment was both disturbing and fascinating. I could feel the weight of history in the strap, the whispers of unspoken rules and stern lessons learned.
I looked at him, wide-eyed. “What was it like?”
He sighed, his smile fading. “It’s not something you’d wish on anyone, but it was effective. Quick and over with, no mess, no fuss. Just a good, solid smack and you knew you’d earned it. And you’d remember not to do it again. Simple, really. Of course, your mom never believed in that sort of thing.”
I studied the strop in my hand, turning it over. The leather was badly worn, but the gold thread and lettering were still readable, at least to me, untouched by time.
"I need this," I said, surprising even myself with the conviction in my voice.
"What do you mean you need this?" my dad said, clearly confused. "You gonna start sharpening knives at Yale?"
I took a deep breath, trying to put my feelings into words. "No," I said. “I can’t explain. I just need it."
There was a moment of silence between us as I rolled the strop slowly in my hands. It wasn’t just the craftsmanship. There was something else—something intangible. A gravity. A presence. In Latin, no less. It was clear the Universe had left this here for me to discover. Something about it called to me, deep in a quiet part of myself I didn’t know existed until that exact moment.
“It’s only ten bucks,” I said.
Dad raised an eyebrow. “You’ll spend twice that on balm and conditioner.”
I shrugged. “Still worth it.”
“And a lot more on elbow grease.”
“Still worth it,” I said, turning the strap in my hand.
He smiled, shaking his head. “Alright, Miss Ivy League. Let’s get your mystery strop and figure out how to bring it back to life.”
I handed the old man a crumpled ten-dollar bill, and he tossed in a tin of old polishing cloths for free. He smiled at me, looking me up-and-down as he took my money. It was like he knew what the strop was for, even if I wasn’t quite sure yet.
I cradled the strop in both hands like a sacred object.
And as we walked away, my father asked again, “You sure you know what you’re going to use it for?”
I smiled, not quite answering. “Not yet. But I think it knows.”
He laughed, and I did too. But inside, something had shifted. I couldn’t explain it—still can't, really—but that old piece of leather had awakened something. Not just curiosity. Not even just admiration for craftsmanship. Something older. Something patient. Something I needed to understand.
Maybe that’s what restoration is, bringing life back to forgotten things so they can tell their stories again.
Maybe the strop wasn’t just a tool.
Maybe it was a mirror.
My father and I had grown apart over my last two years, with me studying at Yale, ever since mom had passed.. That’s not to say anything dramatic happened. There was no argument, no rift. Just distance. Calls that became texts, texts that became missed. I got busy chasing something—degrees, fellowships, a carved-out spot in some academic journal. He never said much about it. He was proud, I think. But still, something went quiet between us.
Then the strop arrived, and everything changed.
Over the next week, we were side-by-side in his old workshop—me in one of his flannel shirts rolled up to my elbows, him in his stained denim apron, still smelling faintly of cedar and machine oil. It became our quiet rhythm. We'd start just after breakfast, coffee mugs leaving circular ghosts on the workbench. We started with the cleaning. He bought a special solution. The tricky part was the lettering. Since I didn't want to ruin the inscription - heaven forbid! - I had to rub every little bit of the strap slowly, by hand.
As I was Miss Graduate School, I did the research, which began by studying the logo near the handle. It was a Dubl Duck razor strop. It was a genuine antique, and the company had closed in the 1950s. Based on the modeling and the lettering in the logo, it was now over a century old.
Dad supervised the cleaning and restoration, with me doing all the grunt work. There was something comforting in letting him lead—his voice calm, hands sure, explaining each step with that patient tone I remembered from childhood when he taught me how to sand my first pinewood derby car. I’d forgotten how good it felt to not know something and trust someone else to guide me through it.
We started by cleaning the leather—warm water, a soft cloth, nothing too aggressive. “Let the leather breathe first,” he said. “It’s been holding its breath a long time.” That line stuck with me.
Next came the sanding. The top layer was nicked and cracked from age, the gold stitching dulled with grime. We worked slowly, rhythmically. He made me take my time -- let it get to know you - he said. I took the strop in one hand and the microfiber cleaner in the other, using gentle, circular motions. My dad would occasionally reach over and correct the angle of my wrist—not impatiently, but with the same touch I imagined he used when adjusting screws on delicate engine parts. It was strange, the way that kind of physical closeness made something inside me relax. Like I’d been tense for years and hadn’t noticed.
He took me into town mid-week to pick up supplies. We drove with the windows down, the summer wind pulling strands of hair from my ponytail. I hadn’t worn my hair that way for years. Dad let me choose the music.
So stay or leave, half of me, will always be,
Half of my hometown.
At the Feed Store, he helped me pick out a tin of Clyde's Leather Cleaning Foam.
“This stuff works,” he said. "It'll get the job done, if you put in the elbow grease. I told him I wanted to buy it. Somehow, spending my own money felt like a gift—paying something forward to a piece of history, and to the man who taught me how to care for it.
Back in the shop, I massaged the foam into the leather, carefully cleaning out any stains, using microfibers and a tiny brush. It was painstaking work, especially with Dad supervising. He didn’t let me cut any corners.
It was around the third or fourth day that I noticed something had shifted. Not just in the strop, but in us. The silences were no longer awkward. We started swapping stories—me talking about a professor who thought syllogisms were romantic, him reminiscing about when I used to ride on his shoulders through the feed store. He laughed more than I remembered. And I listened more than I usually did.
Being with my dad like that made me feel like a little girl again—safe, cared for, wrapped in that old, unspoken trust. There was no pretense, no need to impress him with everything I’d learned or done. He didn’t care about my grades or my GPA. He just cared about me.
It took a while for me to get the screws unscrewed so I could separate the brass fitting that connected the handle to the strop, but with Dad's help I was finally able to do something I had thought impossible.
In his shop, my dad was very much in command, but he was also encouraging, and loving.
“You’ve always had a good touch. Even when you were a kid. Careful, but not afraid.” He said it so casually, but it hit me hard. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed being seen like that—known like that. People respected me, but dad respecting me, for being a craftsman no less, was even more special.
We were well into our second week when we started the serious sanding, the sanding not just to fix the scratches, but to remove the nicks. Dad said I could use the electric sander on the parts of the strop that didn't have lettering, but I told him I didn't want to. I tried to explain to him that I felt it would be... disrespectful. I needed to give the strop love, and that meant doing everything by hand.
Dad, smiling, said he understood perfectly, and I got to work. When the brown shine of the strop had been stripped off, and all the little nicks and grime sanded out, I began polishing the brass. Dulled by time, it required a lot of elbow grease, but it was somehow easier, with Dad supervising me. Sometimes we'd work 10 or 11 hours at a time, not even noticing the time until it got dark out. Our bond grew, and was soon shining as brightly as the brass fittings.
As I held the strop in my hands, I felt something stir—not just pride, but gratitude. For the craft. For the story. For the quiet miracle of restoration. But it was tan now, not dark brown, and Dad said we were just getting started.
He turned the strop over in his hands, ran his thumb down the length of the leather like he was testing something invisible. Then he nodded once and said, “It's a good start, but it needs to rest a bit. Then we hit it again.”
I blinked. “Again? With what?”
“More balm. More oil. It's way too stiff. And a lot more elbow grease. It’s gotta be way more flexible, to handle the curves. It should feel natural, the way your muscles wrap around your bones.”
I frowned, glancing at my red knuckles. “My hands are already sore from this. What curves?”
To my surprise, Dad reached around behind me, and cupping one of my bottom cheeks gave it a gentle squeeze. “These curves, silly. You’re not no tomboy no more, Jessica.”
Having made his point, my Dad flexed the strap with both hands, showing me it’s stiffness. “A finished strop should move like water over stone. This one’s still fighting itself.”
I watched as he laid the strap out and ran his strong fingers over the leather again, this time more gently, like coaxing it into cooperation rather than commanding it. “We’ve cleaned it. That restored its look,” he said. “But not its soul.”
That was Dad—always a little poetic when you didn’t expect it. As for me, I was still struggling to process the feel of Dad squeezing my bottom while maintaining his typical shop class, Tool Time tone.
We both knew it was a spanking strop. But this was the first time he had directly mentioned using it on me. It was just a quick, playful squeeze, but I think we knew we’d reached a turning point. I could have objected, but I did not. Instead, I followed my Dad across the bridge.
I’d always had a spanking kink. I’d had a number of boyfriends spank me over the years, but I never got much out of it. Role play was better, but not enough. It wasn’t authentic, or true. It was a game. I was drawn to the strop because it was the genuine article, “The real McCoy”, as dad might say. Real discipline. Real love.
Dad leaned against the workbench, crossing his arms. “Remember your pinewood derby car?”
I rolled my eyes fondly. “Of course I do. You said the fastest cars weren’t the ones that had the most weight—they were the ones that hugged the curves.”
He grinned. “Exactly. Same principle. Tools are the same way. Anything that moves, that bends, that lives—it’s got to be able to adapt. This strop isn’t done until it knows how to wrap around something. But first, we're going to give the leather a week to rest.”
I grinned. “Good. My hands need a vacation. They feel like I’ve been hand-washing rocks all summer.”
He laughed—full, warm. “Well, that’s the price of craftsmanship. No shortcuts.”
Then there was the question of how to hang it. The tiny hole at the top of the handle was too small for a traditional hook. I needed something that would show it off, but also a leather loop to put through the eyehole so the strop could be hung up when not in use. After much research, I narrowed it down to two or three choices. I was excited when they arrived, and dad helped me match the colors, as he had the best eye. I tied the little bow on the leather loop handle, after researching my options like I had researched my last term paper.
I spent the rest of the week thinking things over.
It had been almost two years since my mom passed. I still remember the exact moment I got the call: standing under a gray sky outside the library, phone cold in my hand, as everything around me went muffled. Grief doesn’t hit like a thunderclap, not for me at least—it seeps in, slow and disorienting, like fog through an open window. In the months that followed, I threw myself into school with a feverish intensity that looked like discipline but was really just avoidance.
Back when I was a kid, my dad was everything—my guide, my anchor, my quiet, sturdy lighthouse. But in my teens, as I started needing different things—talks about relationships, identity—it was Mom who met me there. She befriended me in a way I thought Dad never could. And slowly, without really meaning to, I let him drift out to the edge of my life.
Dad tried. He’d send texts, leave voicemails, ask about classes. I answered, but often hours or days later, with half-hearted replies. I told myself I was busy—and I was—but that was only part of it. I didn’t know how to include him in who I was becoming.
It wasn’t until this summer, in the quiet hours of balm and cloth, that I saw what I’d shut out. He never stopped showing up. He never stopped being my dad, even when I didn’t make space for him. Like the old strop in the flea market, he was just waiting for me. I’d started to remember how good it felt to be his daughter. How much I missed it. How much I needed him.
So, on Father’s Day, I wrote him a card. Not one of those generic ones with a fishing rod or a golf joke. I bought a large, blank one—just heavy cream paper, soft to the touch—and I filled it. Front to back.
It took me hours. I crossed out lines, rewrote paragraphs, spilled ink and a few tears. But when I was done, I had something real. A confession. A thank-you. A plea.
I told him I was sorry for the silence, for the unanswered texts, for acting like I didn’t need him. I told him that everything I had accomplished—the scholarships, the Ivy League acceptance, the internships—was only possible because he had worked himself raw to give me that chance. He never asked for recognition. He just gave. Over and over.
And I finally saw it.
I told him that when Mom was still here, she’d make excuses for me when I slacked off or talked back. And I let that dynamic stick. I never learned the structure I needed. I got good at pushing myself academically—but emotionally, personally? I had no boundaries. No accountability. No one checked on me when I veered off course.
And I needed that now. I needed him.
I ended the letter with this:
“If you can forgive me for the space I put between us… if you’re willing to step back in… I promise I’ll listen. I’ll try. I want your guidance. I want your rules. I need my Dad back. And if you draw the line—I'll toe it.”
"Daddy, I love you. I need you. When the strop is ready, don't hesitate to use it."
I left the card on his pillow, folded closed.
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I tossed and turned, sheets tangled around my legs, my heart thudding every time I thought about him finding it. Reading it. Wondering what he’d think. Would he be angry? Hurt? Overwhelmed? Ashamed? Would he think I was crazy? A pervert? Mentally ill? Would I be rejected?
Or maybe… just, maybe, he’d understand.
The silence in the house felt heavy, like the moment before a storm breaks. I stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours, unsure of what morning would bring.
But I knew this much: the words were true. They were mine.
And they were overdue.
The next morning, I woke to a quiet house, the kind of stillness that makes you hold your breath for a moment—like the world is waiting for you to notice something.
There was something on the hallway table outside my bedroom. A folded piece of paper, hand-addressed in Dad’s unmistakable scrawl, slightly slanted, always with a black Sharpie.
My heart jumped when I saw the first words.
Dear Pumpkin.
That one word made something deep in my chest crack open. I stood there for a second, holding the paper, not even reading, just staring at the endearment that was a key to a locked part of me. That name—“Pumpkin”—was from the days of bedtime stories and scraped knees, from Saturday pancakes and the way he'd carry me in from the car when I’d fallen asleep on long drives.
Without reading another line, I knew—I’d been seen. I’d been heard.
I read the note with trembling fingers.
His message was short. Of course it was. That was Dad. No wasted words. But every line hit like a bell—clear, warm, true.
“Thank you for the note. It was the best Father’s Day present a man could ask for, and you are the best daughter. Yes, I will give you the love, structure, and discipline you need, and I will always be there for you. Consider the line in the sand drawn, and let’s get back to work on that strop. Love, Daddy."
That was it. No dramatic prose, no over explaining.
But I felt everything in it. The forgiveness. The pride. The promise.
I clutched the letter to my chest and sat down right there on the carpet, the morning sun stretching across my feet like a quiet blessing. Tears welled up—not from sadness, but from the relief of knowing the door I thought I’d closed… hadn’t been locked. He had been standing on the other side of it all along.
I came down the stairs slowly, my fingertips still brushing the edges of Dad’s letter like it might dissolve if I let go. My chest felt light and heavy all at once—strangely full, like breathing in after a long time underwater.
And then I saw it.
The strop.
Hanging right there by the front door, on one of the old brass hooks we normally used for coats, or the odd baseball cap, or Dad’s work jacket when he got too warm. But this morning, the hook was occupied by that three-foot length of dark leather—cleaned, cared for, and prominently displayed. The carved oak handle caught the morning light through the window, and the golden stitching glinted like fire.
It was unmistakable.
He’d hung it with care—looped neatly, the tail end resting just above the floorboards, the stitched side facing out. And the Latin phrase burned along its length was perfectly positioned at eye level for anyone who walked through the front door to see:
“Ad eam nudus fundo.”
“For her bare bottom.”
I froze mid-step, almost unsure I was seeing it right. This had not been part of the plan. I had imagined it tucked away in the garage, maybe carefully coiled and wrapped in cloth, a piece of functional history to be admired quietly. This was something else entirely. A declaration.
A part of me was appalled—embarrassed, even. What would guests think? Neighbors? Family? Friends? It wasn’t exactly subtle.
But then... I felt something else, too. A flicker of excitement. Of ownership. Of pride.
This wasn’t just a tool anymore. It was a symbol. Of the work we’d done—not just with our hands, but with our hearts. The restoration of our relationship but also of reckoning. Of drawing lines and facing the consequences of crossing them.
And maybe that’s why he put it there. Not to show off. But to mark something.
We had changed. And this was his quiet way of saying it out loud.
I stepped closer, my fingers brushing the handle.
I heard his footsteps behind me, then his voice—gravelly, casual.
“Thought it looked good there.”
I turned. He was leaning on the doorframe, arms crossed, sipping his coffee. Watching me.
“You really want it there? Right by the front door?” I asked, not accusing—just genuinely curious.
He shrugged, then smiled, the corner of his mouth tugging up like it always did when he knew he was making a point without needing to explain it. “It’s the last thing you see when you leave the house. And the first thing you see when you come home.”
I looked back at the strop.
A reminder.
Of work done, and work still to do.
A reminder to be good.. or suffer the consequences.
I smiled, quietly.
“Yeah,” I said. “It does look good there.”
I bit my lip nervously as I looked at the strop, swaying slightly from the hook like it belonged there—like it always had.
"Are you going to keep it that way?" I asked, trying to sound casual. "Text out?”
Dad didn’t even hesitate. "Sure am," he said, with that infuriatingly steady kind of confidence only a dad can pull off. Then he added with a chuckle, "Besides, in a little town like this, nobody reads Latin. Probably.”
“They have Google translate,” I countered. “You can do it on your phone.”
"Ain't that the darnedest?” he said. “Yeah, I reckon some of yer’ younger cousins might just have a hankering’ to decode it. Might lead to some mighty interestin’ conversations,” he added, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
He sipped his coffee, watching me over the rim of the mug, clearly enjoying watching his Yale educated daughter squirm like a fish on a hook as he instituted a bit of parental authority.
I felt my cheeks flush, and I turned away just a little, but not fast enough. He caught it. Of course he did.
"Ah," he said, his grin widening, "there’s that Ivy League education, making you all full of yourself,” he chuckled. “Razor strop don’t care about that end of things.”
"Shut up," I mumbled, but I was laughing too. Blushing, but laughing. It was impossible to stay flustered around him for long—he had this way of disarming me with warmth and humor, like he knew exactly when to pull me back from overthinking.
Still, I looked at the strop again, studying the exposed text like it might say more to the right eyes. It was bold. Provocative, even. But meaningful. It was our story. Hanging in plain view.
“Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me about Marc Anthony, and valuing your own opinion more than other peoples?”
“You mean Marcus Aurelius,” I chuckled.
My dad wasn’t having my deflection. “See? That’s you doing the college girl thing, wantin’ to prove you're smarter than everybody else. People ‘round here notice that, and they don’t like it. Since you’re so worried about what everyone thinks, maybe you ought to know that.”
Another quote came to mind, about criticism hurting in proportion to its truth. I knew my dad was trying to help me, by telling me about a character flaw I refused to acknowledge, but again I deflected. “Fine, go tell somebody we’re sanding an old strop. I don’t care.”
My dad didn’t say anything. He just looked at me, as if quietly taking my measure. My Dad never got angry, or yelled, exactly. He got thoughtful.
After a significant pause, my dad told me to get the strop off the hook and meet him in the workshop. His voice was steady but pleasant —part command, part invitation.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “If we want to get that strop back into use.”
I took it down carefully, the leather cool and soft in my hands. It already felt different—more alive somehow. But I knew he was right. We weren’t finished.
I followed him through the hallway and into the shop, where the scent of leather, oil, and cedar dust always lingered in the air like an old song. The light from the small window cut across the bench in a way that made the dust motes glow. This place has become a kind of sanctuary for us. A space where things could be fixed—not just tools, but time.
I laid the strop flat on the bench, and we both leaned in to look at it. Despite all the work we’d done—the sanding, the oiling, the balm—the leather still held a two-toned look. Rich brown in places, yes, but still dry, pale tan along the middle, especially where the leather had once been creased, or the original finish had been sanded away.
Polishing. That was the next step. And somehow, it felt even more impossible than sanding had been.
“I don’t know, Dad,” I said, running a fingertip along the lighter portion. “This part’s still so faded. I don’t think the original color’s ever coming back.”
He looked at me for a second, quiet.
Then that smile—soft and just a little mischievous.
“Nothing’s impossible,” he said, “Not for you.”
He placed a hand on my shoulder, firm and reassuring. It was a simple gesture, but I felt something in my throat tighten. Not in a bad way. In a good way. Like I was anchoring.
And in that moment, I loved him so much it almost hurt. Not just because of what he said, but because I knew he meant it. He believed in me—even when I didn’t believe in myself.
Dad took it to the sink and gently rinsed it with warm water, the leather flexing and bending under the gentle stream. I watched the water bead and run down the length of it, pooling briefly in the stitched grooves before disappearing into the drain. It was a simple act, but it felt sacred—like a kind of cleansing before its rebirth.
When he was done, he turned to me with a glint in his eye. “Now for the real test,” he said, walking over to the old forgotten couch that had seen better days—the one that had held countless naps and movie nights.
Dad took the strop over to the couch, then took a moment to carefully position himself in exactly the right place. He raised the strop high, and with a swift, powerful motion, brought it down hard on the rounded top of the cushion.
WHACK! The sound echoed through the workshop, and I couldn’t help but jump.
He chuckled at my reaction, that warm, comforting chuckle that had been my North Star through so many storms. “Looks like it’s already got you jumping, doesn’t it?” he teased, with a sparkle in his eyes that made my cheeks flush.
“Yes, sir,” I said nervously, the honorific slipping out before I could think. It hung between us for a beat, awkward and unexplained. I wasn’t sure why I’d said it—maybe it was in recognition of the shift in our power dynamic that seeing the strop in use for the first time triggered.
Strange as it might seem, I had never swung the strop before. When we had bought it, the leather had been in such rough shape that I’d been afraid it might fall apart. But now, seeing my Dad holding the strop in his hand, his grip firm and commanding, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Seeing him swing it, with such a calm sense of purpose, was like seeing him flip on a lightsaber, or cast lightning from his magic wand.
Up until the moment he swung it, the strop had been our summer project. Sort of like a fancy crafts entry for the county fair, or the car we'd built for the Pinewood Derby. But seeing my Dad USE the strop was transformative, and instilled him with an entirely new level of authority. I had always respected him, but now I did it in a way that made me tremble.
My father smiled, clearly pleased by the new found attentiveness that this shift in the balance of power between us had given him. "Come here," he said.
I stared at him, frozen.
He laughed and shook his head. "Look at you, as nervous as a lobster at one of those fancy seafood places. Come here, Pumpkin. I wanna show ya' somethin’."
I hesitated, at least until he decided to test out his new found authority by frowning, snapping his fingers twice, and pointing at the place I was expected to stand.
I scurried over, my heart thumping like a drum in my chest.
Dad took the strop from the couch and held it out to me, handle first. His hands were strong, but gentle, the way they always were—whether he was holding a baseball bat or a butterfly net. “Feel this,” he said, tapping the edge of the leather with his finger. “It’s got to be supple. Like a second skin.”
I took it from him, feeling the weight of the leather in my hands—how it bent and folded so easily. It was nothing like the rigid strip we’d found at the flea market, but it wasn’t quite right either. There were still spots, especially around the edges, that felt stiff.
Dad took the strop back and pointed to the stain on the couch left by the wet strap. “See these, Pumpkin? The dry spots. This is where the leather didn't even touch. This is where we need to focus. It’s got to be flexible. It’s got to wrap around—snug and firm. No dead spots. You want all the energy to go into the target. You don't want any of the force wasted."
I nodded, instantly understanding. My dad always had a knack for explaining things to me—whether it was woodworking or baseball, he had a way of cutting through the noise and getting to the heart of things.
I ran my fingers over the strap, paying special attention to the places that still had water drops.
"We really need to concentrate our energy in these parts," I said, pointing to the tips and ends. "Any part of the strop that doesn't hit my bottom won't be doing its job.”
I caught on the word, “my”, regretting it right after I said it, but Dad took no notice.
Dad nodded, his expression serious. "That's right," he says, his voice deep and sure. "It's gotta be supple enough to catch every curve of your bare bottom."
The word "bare" caused me to take a step back and lower my gaze. "Dad?" I said, my voice tentative, like I was about to ask him to stay out past curfew. "Does it have to be on my naked bottomt?"
He looks at me, his eyes filled with a mix of understanding and firmness. "That's how it's done, Pumpkin. That's how it's always been done. And that means nothing between this strop and the lesson you need to learn."
"But it's so embarrassing!" I wailed, sounding more whiny than I intended.
Dad's gaze remained steady, his tone firm. "Tough. If we're going to use this strop, it's going to be done right. What's that Latin thing on the side?"
"For her bare bottom," I say, looking at the words as I translate.
"The strop knows what you need," he says. "Maybe it's time for my Ivy League daughter to start taking instruction."
"Yes, Sir," I said, staring at the ground. I was embarrassed, but also excited to be fully under his control. The spanking we’re talking about, if it ever happened, wouldn’t be a game with some confused boyfriend. It would be real. It would be the real discipline we both know I needed.
My dad brought me back to the workbench and carefully laid out the strop. The leather stretched across the table like a long scroll, its surface clean but uneven in color—faded in the middle, darker at the edges, the contrast unmistakable. The sanding had done its job, stripping away the brittle finish and smoothing out the imperfections, but in doing so, it had also erased the rich, deep brown that once made the strop so beautiful.
I hadn’t sanded around the lettering, of course. That part had been sacred. I’d worked around the delicate Latin script with obsessive precision, terrified I’d damage it. But now that the rest of the strop was tan and bare, the untouched lettering—still dark and proud—looked strange. Like it belonged to a different time. A different piece.
“The color’s all wrong, too,” he said disapprovingly.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” I said, apologizing. “You said I should sand it smooth.”
“No, smooth is better,” he said, running his finger down the length. “You did good work. But we need to match the color. Time for another shopping run.”
During the last few weeks I had definitely gone country, and had started dressing down. As my University attire was decidedly professorial, that meant digging my old clothes out of the back of my closet. I was wearing shorts, sandals, and a BTS T-shirt that seemed to transport me back in time.
“Maybe I should go change,” I said.
“You look fine,” my dad said dismissively. “The Feed Store ain't no fashion show.”
I ran upstairs and grabbed a soda pop, then ran out to the truck and crawled into the passenger seat. When mom was still alive I used to ride on the truck bed. I missed those days, but when I rode next to Dad he let me choose the tunes.
Dad came out a minute later carrying the beat up old canvas shopping bag he always took to the store, and that mom had been trying to get him to throw away for years. It said A COUNTRY BOY CAN SURVIVE, from the old Hank Williams, Jr. song, or at least it did. If anything needed to be restored, it was that bag, but dad didn’t believe in wasting store bags, or throwing anything away that still worked.
Feeling all country girl summer, I took off my sandals and put my bare feet up on the dash as dad let me crank up my favorite Carry Underwood songs. He actually knew the words to a few of them, and sang along.
Buzzing along the road, I passed the time by putting my hair in pigtails. It was like I was enjoying a second childhood, when mom was still alive, and I wasn’t worried about school and tenure and my future career. I felt free, liberated. Safe.
Feeling playful, I actually scampered into the shopping cart at the store, sticking my legs through the front. Unfortunately, it caused my sandals to fall off, but Dad was right there to scoop them up and drop them into his canvas bag.
Dad walked slowly down the aisle, getting more polishing rags and replenishing our supply of fine grain sandpaper. He scolded me a bit when I grabbed some bubble gum off one of the end caps and began to unwrap it.
“Wait till we get home,” he said.
“I don’t wanna wait,” I said, putting several wads of gum in my mouth. “I’ll pay for it.”
“With what?” he said. I felt a surge of panic. In the rush to get out the door, I left my purse at home.
It didn’t feel at all odd, sitting in my Dad’s shopping cart, blowing enormous bubbles, my bare feet dangling in mid air. I recognized some of the shoppers — Mr. Linden had taught me High School geometry. But he didn’t seem to recognize me, although he did say “Hey” to my Dad.
Dad left the cart for a minute to go into the next aisle to get some screws, leaving me alone. I swung my feet back and forth, blowing bubbles, awaiting his return.
Lorraine Gossling passed my aisle, looked at me, and walked on. She considered herself the world’s foremost expert on canning, and as my dad had fixed her fence once she’d been trying to push peaches on him ever since. She always called me ‘Darlin’ and asked if I was married yet. Dad called her Lorraine Gossip because of the way she’d like to tell you everybody’s business.
It seemed odd that she didn’t make a beeline to me, as she liked to talk, and my return to town was the sort of thing that passed for news in these parts. I realized that with my most prominent features being my swinging bare feet dangling out of the cart, two pigtails, and a gigantic pink bubble obscuring my face, I was now UNDERCOVER TEEN.
My suspicions were confirmed when Jimmy Watson, who I had babysat for, approached the cart with a disapproving look. He was wearing a vest that identified him as a store employee, and it felt weird, seeing him working. “Kids can’t go barefoot in the store.”
I stared at him, still mid bubble. Kids? Clearly he didn’t recognize me.
“Her feet aren’t on the floor, Jimmy,” my Dad said, coming to my rescue and taking the cart. “I’ll take it from here, Son.”
“Yes, Sir,” Jimmy said. I stuck my tongue out at Jimmy as my Dad rolled me to safety, causing my dad to playfully slap my hand.
As we turned into the next aisle my dad saw a familiar face. “Hey there, Perkins. How ya’ been doing?”
Looking over my shoulder, I spotted Mr. Perkins. Perkins had been old my entire life, and I think he'd been born inside the store, with his baggy cardigan, thick glasses that magnified his eyes almost comically, and a mustache that seemed to have stopped growing halfway through the job. He was leaning near the grain bins, reading the label on a sack like it was fine print on a contract.
“Well, hey there!” Mr. Perkins said, his voice dusty and warm. “What brings you in?”
“I’m looking for the best leather recoloring balm you’ve got,” Dad said.
Mr. Perkins raised one bushy eyebrow. “Clyde’s is the only real choice,” he said immediately, as if anything else would be a sin. “Follow me.”
We trailed him deeper into the store, me riding in the cart, past all the things that smelled like oil, metal, and decades of forgotten repairs—wrenches, hinges, coils of wire stacked like nests. He walked slowly, but with a kind of purpose, like he knew every creaky board and where the light shifted through the windows.
“You babysitting today?” he said, not even bothering to look back at me as he led us forward.
“Naw, this is my daughter Jessica,” my dad said. “Back from University.”
Mr. Perkins looked a bit surprised, and stopped dead as he turned to look me over. “Oh, sorry, Jessica. I didn’t recognize you. It’s been a while.”
“Yes, sir, it has,” I agreed. That mystery solved, we pushed forward.
At the very back, where the air was cooler and the shelves narrower, Mr. Perkins stopped in front of a section I’d never needed before. Tins and tins, stacked high and side by side like a painter’s secret hoard—russets, sands, mahoganies, burnt umbers, ox-bloods, and charcoals. The aisle itself seemed darker somehow, like the colors were absorbing the light.
Mr. Perkins turned toward us. “What color are we matching?”
My heart nearly stopped as Dad reached into his canvas bag and pulled out the worn leather strop and handed it over to Mr. Perkins.
I froze. Dad had brought the spanking strop INTO THE STORE. Of course he did. How else could he match the color?
As he and Dad spread it out to full length I did a silent prayer that Mr. Perkins didn’t speak Latin.
“I see you’ve done a lot of work on it,” he noted. “What color are you trying to match?”
“The original red brown,” Dad said. “Right by the logo lettering.”
“Let’s see, red brown for a spanking strop,” Perkins said, his fingers dancing across the tins, eyes scanning with the intense focus of someone who didn’t guess, but knew.
Jimmy Watson, having heard the word spanking strop, emerged from another aisle, and pretended to take inventory at the end cap. My face flushed as I noticed him listening in on the men’s conversation. With my legs through the cart, I was facing Jimmy, and he was facing me. But he pretended nothing was amiss, and seemed engrossed in his work. Bullshit.
I twisted my head around to watch the grownups talk, partially to see what color they were going to pick, and partially to avoid having to look at Jimmy pretending to endlessly count the 6 bags of fertilizer stacked at the end of the aisle.
Mr. Perkins picked three tins, lined them up, and then adjusted his glasses with two fingers, shifting to move them into the light.
“This one,” he said, tapping the middle tin with a crooked finger. “This one is perfect.”
My dad took it, turned it in his hands, squinting at the label like he always did with anything that mattered.
“No,” Dad said. “A little darker. Give me the other one.”
Dad compared the strop to the can. He looked up at Perkins and gave one solid nod.
“Perfect,” he said.
I looked at the strop carefully. It truly was perfect, and not just the color. It was the perfect tool for the job.
