Often I'd take out my magnifying glass and stare into the chaos that was her face.

Yes,' he said. 'That's it. They'd kick him and beat him with a switch. Then if the youngster was really bad, they'd put him in a sack and take him back to Spain.'
'Saint Nicholas would kick you?'
'Well, not anymore,' Oscar said. 'Now he just pretends to kick you.'
He considered this to be progressive, but in a way I think it's almost more preverse than the original punishment.'I'm going to hurt you but not really.' How many times have we fallen for that line? The fake slap invariably makes contact, adding the elements of shock and betrayal to what had previously been plain old-fashioned fear. What kind of a Santa spends his time pretending to kick people before stuffing them into a canvas sack? Then, of course, you've got the six to eight former slaves who could potentially go off at any moment. This, I think, is the greatest difference between us and the Dutch. While a certain segment of our population might be perfectly happy with the arrangement, if you told the average white American that six to eight nameless black men would be sneaking into his house in the middle of the night, he would barricade the doors and arm himself with whatever he could get his hands on.
'Six to eight, did you say?

"I thought about this for days, just as I thought of the special-ed teacher I met in Pittsburgh. "You know," I said, "I hear those words and automatically think Handicapped, or, Learning disabled. But aren't a lot of your students just assholes?"

"You got it," she said. Then she told me about a kid - last day of class - who wrote on the blackboard, "Mrs. J____ is a cock master."

I was impressed because I'd never heard that term before. She was impressed because the boy had spelled it correctly."