The book is in rough shape. Tape, crudely keeps the binding in place. The yellowed pages are brittle. The red cover has gold embossed letters which read: PECK’S BAD BOY AND AND HIS PA’.

In neat, clear cursive, on the inside cover, is my grandfather’s signature with the date: December 25, 1902. Born in 1893, he was nine years old when he received this Christmas present. The book is 500 pages--much like the books most parents give their nine year olds today.

What is fascinating is the subject matter. It is a compendium of pranks, played by young Henry Peck on anyone he can, but mostly his whiskey loving father. These aren’t petty pranks, either. In the very first chapter, young Peck addresses a note to Pa which instructs him be at the corner of Wisconsin and Milwaukee streets at 7:30pm, and he signs it “Daisy.” Pa (who, yes, is married to Ma) tells her he’s headed to the lodge and won’t be home until late. While waiting on the corner for the assignation, Henry shows up and Pa swooshes him away with a dollar bill, bribe. Peck tells his Ma about the prank and when Pa comes home, drunker than a skunk, Ma asks what Daisy was doing at the lodge meeting. The next morning Pa takes his son down into the basement and “gave me the hardest talking to that I ever had with a bed slat.”

In the next chapter the boy takes advantage of his father’s failing eyes, and (knowing he has a fondness for macaroni), cuts up a small rubber hose, convinces a waitress to put hot macaroni sauce on it and serve it to Pa. The next day it is clap-board-to-the-backside again, and the chapter ends with you ng Peck saying, “A boy can’t have any fun now days.”

This was my grandfather’s favorite childhood book. And he wasn’t alone. It was a best seller back at the turn of the century.

A century later we Americans can make no sense of these escapades. In our world, a father who beats his kid’s backside with slats would be thrown in jail, not giggled at. That is no doubt a triumph of civilization. No one is lobbying for abusive parenting.

But it is interesting to note what was funny then as compared to what is funny now. What was considered an innocent prank then might be considered felonious assault, today.

Author, Greg Peck, summed it up in his forward: “The Bad Boy is not a myth.….this boy is located in every city and hamlet throughout the land. He is full of vinegar and is ready to crawl under a circus tent or repeat a hundred verses of the New Testament at Sunday school. He knows where every melon patch is located and at what time the dog is chained up. He will tie an oyster can to a dog’s tail..or will fight at the drop of a hat to protect a smaller boy…though his coat tail is oftener touched with a boot than his heart with kindness. He shuffles through life until the time comes for him to make a mark in the world and then he becomes successful and those who said he would end up in State Prison remember that he always was a mighty smart lad, and they never tire of telling some of his deviltry when he was a boy.”

Clearly, once, much of the country understood that “Boys will be boys.” In fact, a certain amount of mischievousness was expected of "real boys." Somehow, folks knew that breaking the rules, bucking the system, and testing the limits were essential elements of character building.

It's what Huck and Tom were all about.

Of course, implicit in the world of rule breaking is that there is a price to be paid for each chuckle. The joke may have been on Pa, but the wooden slat would soon be on Henry’s backside.

Whenever confronted, Peck takes his punishment like a man. When caught, the “I cannot tell a lie. I chopped down the Cherry tree,” motif is the order of the day.

Are we teaching that to our kids today?

How does modern America view “pranks?” Boys will always be boys. They will drink, smoke, toss eggs, pants younger kids, speed, and generally do things which are, if not anti-social, at least strain the limits of adult tolerance.

This is no call for permissiveness, but why do we deny kids this natural outlet? It’s in their DNA. Of course, if they get caught, it is imperative that we act like Pa and take a switch (at least metaphorically) to their backside.

That’s the beauty of punishment. Commit the crime. Fess up. Take your medicine. It’s over--that’s where our grandparents’ generation had it over us. To them it was no big deal. It was what boys did.

Once punishment was doled out, all was forgotten.

Today, it’s much more complicated. We’re into attorneys, committees, therapy, anger management and “your permanent record.”

In our day teachers sent us to Mr. Grissette to get smacked with the wooden Pow Pow, or down to Mr. Patterson’s room to be put on the “Goon Squad” where you ran laps and did exercises for hours on end. No one worried about our “self esteem.”

Children are the same today as they were when we were young, or when my Grandfather’s family regaled at Henry Peck. What’s different is how we adults treat them.

We think we’re so smart. We respond to kids’ antics with lawyers, police, counselors, anger management teams and therapy. Wouldn’t a trip to the wood shed be so much wiser--even more humane?